NEWSLETTER
NEWSLETTER
February 2025
February 2025
Embedded Files
Lee's Corner
Lee's Corner
Greetings Everyone,
In the spirit of inclusivity, I would like to extend a huge THANK YOU to you all for your work to ensure that all students, including those with disabilities, feel welcomed, loved, and valued in their school communities. Fostering this sense of belonging positively impacts our students' overall academic and social-emotional success, reduces stigma, and creates a strong foundation for a better understanding of differences. As we all know, differences are a reason for celebration, and your work is critical to ensuring a future of inclusiveness for all. We appreciate you!
Additionally, I have received many emails concerning the potential closing or dismantling of the United States Department of Education. While I cannot predict what will happen, I can assure you that the rights of our students with disabilities to receive the services they are entitled to by law will not disappear. Closing the Department of Education would require an act of Congress and bipartisan support for a strong federal role in ensuring a quality education has previously defeated this initiative. We will be watching and updating you as we know more. In the meantime, your KNEA or NEA representatives may better answer immediate questions.
ECKCE Happy Notes
On February 22nd, our BJHS and EMS Special Olympics Unified Sports teams will play in a Bocce Ball tournament at Lawrence High School beginning at 9:00 a.m. Come support our students and have fun at the same time! A huge thank you to Bari Deardorf and Mandy Shockley for their work on this!
Did you know that February 20th is SportAbility Day? This day promotes inclusion through sports and aims to create an environment where everyone feels welcome, respected, and valued. Our Special Olympics Unified Sports teams in all three districts are a great example of the wonderful things that can happen when inclusion is our focus!
Our ECKCE Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) team met for the first time on January 29th. This committee comprises parents who represent our students with disabilities and the staff who support them. We will meet monthly and will share the notes from last month's meeting with everyone. Our SEAC provides a platform for parents and staff to share experiences, connect with resources, and build a supportive network.
Our ECKCE SEAC will host our first parent forum on Wednesday, March 5th, from 6:00 to 7:30 p.m. This forum will focus on helping our families of students with disabilities understand the IEP process. All are welcome to attend, and information will be pushed out to our families soon for sign-up.
Upcoming Happenings
Our administrative team continues to work on pulling projections for staffing for next year. In the next few weeks, we will share this data with you and engage in collaborative discussions to identify needed staffing for the 25-26 school year.
We have been blessed to begin interviewing potential new members to our ECKCE team for next year. If you know of any special education resource teachers, school psychologists, or speech and language pathologists who want to join our team, encourage them to apply. I have included our link below:
Another Happy Note!
Another Happy Note!
We want to extend a huge THANK YOU to the anonymous donor who chose to recognize all the dedication our special education staff show to our students every day. Many thanks to Kelley Bethel-Smith for her work in organizing and distributing the goodies to all!
Insights from Recent Surveys
Insights from Recent Surveys
Jim Persinger
Jim Persinger
We want your PD to be practical, focused and relevant for your needs. Both classified and certified staff were invited to participate in a professional development survey right before winter break. You'll recall the survey had an interesting setup you might not have seen before, where instead of being asked to rate different PD topics, you had to choose between competing topics. I used that process because where we choose to invest in PD is always a trade off, and when we must choose between possible offerings it makes priorities more clear.
Those recent results were discussed with the leadership team and helped refine the roadmap we're building: A three-year professional development plan. Combined with information dozens of you provided in focus groups last year, what you have told us is that -
Behavioral strategies and social-emotional learning (SEL) are the top priorities, across both certified and classified staff.
Conflict resolution techniques for working more collaboratively with teams as well as apply to students, and neurodiversity are also high priorities.
Subgroups of folks would like more training on legal responsibilities for IEPs, and others would like to prioritize training on collaboration strategies. But most are not very keen on these topics.
Similarly, a small subgroups of folks are very interested in equity and inclusion, and another subgroup prefer trainings on planning and workload management. But given a choice, most of you would attend almost any other training before choosing these topics.
Now what?
Before March, each building's special education team will participate in focus group sessions to delve deeper into these priorities in context of what you see as most helpful for the children you serve in your particular building. These discussions will drill down into what you want from the top two topics of behavior support, and SEL. As part of that, supervisors will be asked to chime in on priorities they would like to see for para PD.
Then, we will start to flesh out a PD plan to be implemented next year, the results of which you will see in our August sessions.
Thank you for your contributions to this important process!
Status of our Corrective Action Plan (DCAP)
Status of our Corrective Action Plan (DCAP)
Thank you for your responsiveness in completing the training modules! A few folks haven't yet finished and will get nudges here or there until ALL certified/licensed folks employed by ECKCE have completed them. Don't forget that each of the training pages, which will continue to be available, also serve as resources for language you might use to satisfy these in your paperwork.
Social Worker Framework
Social Worker Framework
Dave Powers, WEB Administrator
Throughout the school year, many of you have asked for clarity on how school-based teams determine whether a student qualifies for social work services as part of their IEP. To help with this, we’ve created the Social Work Framework Process Guide, a resource designed to make this process clearer and better understood. This guide lays out the key criteria for eligibility, commonly used data sources, timelines for adding services, and additional resources to support you along the way. Our hope is that this guide brings greater understanding and confidence in navigating this process together. We'll discuss this at your building special education team meetings.
Four opportunities remain to sign up!
Four opportunities remain to sign up!
Notice the options are for either the initial course or a refresher course! Contact Dave Powers dpowers@eckce.com with questions.
CPI Initial Course 3/10/25
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CAEA72DA7FB6-52477034-cpitraining
CPI Refresher 3/11/25
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CAEA72DA7FB6-52476431-cpicrisis
CPI Initial Course 5/2/25
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CAEA72DA7FB6-52477216-cpitraining
CPI Refresher 5/6/25
https://www.signupgenius.com/go/508084CAEA72DA7FB6-52476645-cpicrisis
Other Upcoming Trainings and Events
Other Upcoming Trainings and Events
Email jpersinger@eckce.com with details of other free, low-cost and/or local opportunities.
Many of these are free but usually require registration
Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management: Best Practices for Schools
Behavioral Threat Assessment and Management: Best Practices for Schools
April 11 9-noon
Join KASP and Dr. Melissa Reeves for this virtual workshop. Click here for details and to register. $25 for KASP members, $50 for non-members, info about team pricing available at the link.
This workshop will focus on the process and procedures needed to establish a consistent school/district-wide approach to behavioral threat assessment and management. The roles and responsibilities of a multidisciplinary team following best practices established by the United States Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center (USSS/NTAC) and United States Department of Education will be taught. Participants will learn how to screen cases, and the process for conducting a full BTAM assessment. Strategies for interventions, postventions, and working with difficult parents will be integrated. Case study examples and forms will also be shared to illustrate the process.
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