UPDATE
Nominations for "People in Education" Needed!
SPOTLIGHT
Sixth Annual Celebrate Our Rising Stars Summit
PEOPLE IN EDUCATION
Jack Jorgensen, Director of the Department of Educational Services, Madison Metro School District, WI
RECOMMENDED READINGS
Possible Lives
TOOLS YOU CAN USE
NCCRESt Exemplars
RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE
Culturally Responsive Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports
TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UPDATE
Applications for Technical Assistance
FEATURED NCCRESt STATE WORK
The Mississippi Cultural Responsivity Matrix
FEATURED NIUSI DISTRICT WORK
Memphis City Schools Receives Funding for District-Wide Academic Enhancements
FEATURED NIUSI-LeadScape PRINCIPAL WORK
Teresa Faucette, Graham Middle School, Greensboro, NC
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
FEATURED WEBSITE
www.behavioradvisor.org
www.ebdblog.com
DID YOU KNOW …
UPCOMING EVENTS
Closing the Gap: Assistive Technology Resources for Children and Adults with Special Needs 25th Annual Conference
FOR PARENTS
Dealing with Problem Behavior
FOR STUDENTS
Tips for a Successful School Year

UPDATE

Nominations for “People in Education” Needed!

Do you know an amazing person who is a champion for inclusive education? We would love to recognize them in an upcoming monthly EquiNews publication. We will be accepting nominations from our readers describing a person whose work they feel should be acknowledged including what this person is doing, or has done related to equity and excellence in education.

Nominations should be approximately 500 words in length and include a picture for publishing. Please submit your nominations by the fifth of each month for consideration in that month’s publication. You will be notified by email if your candidate was chosen. Those not published will be kept in our database with the possibility of being used in later editions. Please include your name and contact information to receive credit as the author of the article. Send your nominations to niusi@asu.edu or nccrest@asu.edu.

SPOTLIGHT

Sixth Annual Celebrate Our Rising Stars Summit

Hosted by the Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students (OELA) of the U.S. Department of Education, the Summit will be held at the Hilton Washington in Washington, DC, beginning at 8:00 a.m. on Monday, October 29, and ending at approximately 3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 31.

The No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 seeks to provide students who are English Language Learners (ELLs) with English language proficiency in order to achieve high levels of success in school academics. Title III of NCLB is designed to develop high-quality language instruction educational programs; assist State educational agencies, local educational agencies, and schools in developing and enhancing their capacity to provide high-quality programs for students who are English Language Learners; promote parental and community participation in language instruction educational programs; hold State educational agencies, local educational agencies and schools accountable for increases in English proficiency and academic achievement; and provide State educational agencies and local educational agencies with the flexibility to implement language instruction educational programs.

For more information visit : http://www.oelasummit.org

PEOPLE IN EDUCATION

Jack Jorgensen, Director of the Department of Educational Services, Madison Metro School District, WI

Jack Jorgensen is kind, thoughtful, respectful, and reflective.  Easy to be with, Jack’s understated manner might fool the uninitiated.  However, he has been tireless working to ensure that all students have the opportunity to learn in intellectually challenging courses.  To do this, he has been an advocate, coach, visionary, and leader.  While disproportionality became once more a hot topic in 2002 with books on that topic from the National Research Council and the Harvard Civil Rights Project, Jack has been steadily focused on reducing Madison Wisconsin’s  disproportionality in special education placements. His many achievements in reducing disproportionality include developing a centrally coordinated IEP system (CCIS), developing guidelines for conducting non-biased, multi-cultural assessments to slow the rate of inappropriate referrals and placements to special education, establishing a multi-year partnership with NIUSI to eliminate race and culture as predictors of success in MMSD by using research based racially and culturally responsive practices to support engagement and learning.

What you want as a principal is for district leadership to provide you with global vision and resources to get there.  Shortly after being named principal at East, Jack contacted me and we went for some coffee.  He congratulated me and then talked about his vision for services at the high schools.  Jack also let me know that if I was willing to take on some of the challenges that face East in special education he would provide me whatever support he could.  That promise has been kept ten-fold.  Throughout my first two years, as the teachers and I have worked to improve service delivery for students Jack has been there with support in training and resources to help us achieve our goals.  We are lucky to have him in Madison. -- Alan Harris, Principal, Madison East High School

RECOMMENDED READINGS

Possible Lives: The Promise of Public Education in America

Written by Mike Rose, Winner of the prestigious Grawemeyer Award in Education and the Commonwealth Club of California Award for Literary Excellence in Nonfiction

Through inspiring vignettes, Mike Rose shows the strength and possibility that lies within our schools. Mainstream conversations about public education often portray a system that fails youth through inadequate educational resources and under-prepared teachers and administrators. Evidence of this failure is then presented in the form of declining tests scores, statistics on low student achievement, and stories about unsafe schools. Rose argues that through this conversation we are talking and thinking about our schools in limited and limiting ways. He contends that this type of language creates and enforces a public view of schools in decline, blinding us from the complexity of the classroom and the possibilities that exist. He argues that if we look at public education through the narrow scope of economic competitiveness or see merely test scores, we ignore the social, moral and cultural dimensions of teaching and learning as well as the many different ways that students learn and demonstrate their knowledge.

Possible Lives is a four year journey though American schools that highlights inspiring and innovative teachers, schools that serve their unique communities, inclusive practices, and achievement against odds. It recognizes the students who have been traditionally marginalized due to cultural and class differences and their considerable achievements. These stories provide evidence that supports the idea that we must build on the extraordinary resources already available within our schools and communities.

TOOLS YOU CAN USE

NCCRESt Exemplars

NCCRESt Exemplars summarize models and activities of highly successful schools that may have significant implications for the prevention of disproportionality.

Proactive Culturally Responsive Discipline Exemplar by Kathleen King, Nancy J. Harris-Murri, and Alfredo J. Artiles This exemplar presents how one urban middle school in Phoenix, Arizona incorporates proactive discipline into the everyday practices of the school community. The result is a safe, positive school climate, leading to a reduction of student discipline problems, and in turn, prevention of disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education due to social, emotional, and behavioral difficulties.

Cordova Middle School (CMS) does not use a prepackaged approach to proactive discipline. Over time, they have developed various practices they see as relevant for their own unique school community, and evidence of positive student outcomes support that these practices work. This exemplar provides a description of the CMS community, followed by the presentation of their proactive discipline programs and practices. Finally, from our analysis of CMS’s programs and practices, we infer a conceptual model that other schools may use to design and implement a comprehensive, culturally responsive approach to proactive discipline for their own unique student population.

RESEARCH BASED PRACTICE

Culturally Responsive Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports

  “If more than a handful of students engage in the same problem behavior, the problem is with the system not the student.” Daniel Davidson, Northern Arizona University, speaker at Arizona State University Summer Behavior Institute, 2007

Building on the success of Schoolwide Positive Behavior Supports (Sugai et al., 2000), we are intrigued with emerging work that looks at school environments and contexts from a cultural lens. Such a perspective engages the cultures that students, families, and school personnel bring with them to school and the culture of schooling that predominates in U.S. public schools. Thus, the schoolwide PBIS programs that identify, teach, promote, and foster pro-social behaviors (Sugai et al., 2000) would consciously foreground a hybrid culture in determining what is valued, appreciated, and measured. A culturally responsive approach to PBIS specifically acknowledges, addresses and values the unique social and cultural contexts of the school. While PBIS programs are designed to teach and positively reinforce appropriate behaviors through a continuum of universal, group, and individual prevention and culturally appropriate behavior interventions (Sugai et al., 2000), a culturally responsive approach to PBIS focuses on effective, respectful, supportive relationships and the use of multicultural approaches. This focus creates a culturally responsive environment that supports the unique needs of the school’s hybrid culture and eliminates the cultural mismatch that often occurs between school personnel and students.

Since national data continue to show that students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are overrepresented in office referrals, suspensions and expulsions, understanding and applying culturally responsive principles to this area can enhance the effectiveness of PBIS. These ideas were introduced in an article in the Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions by Utley, Kozleski, Smith and Draper in 2002.  For more information please be in touch with nccrest@asu.edu

Sugai, G. S., Horner, R. H., Dunlap, G., Hieneman, M, Lewis, T.J., Nelson, C. M., Scott, T., Liaupsin, C., Sailor, W., Turnbull, A. P., Turnbull III, H.R., Wickham, D., Wilcox, B., & Ruef, M. (2000).  Applying positive behavior support and functional behavioral assessment in schools. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 2,131-143

Utley, C., Kozleski, E., Smith, A., & Draper, I. (2002). Positive behavior support: A proactive strategy for minimizing behavior problems in urban multicultural youth. Journal of Positive Behavior Interventions, 4(4), 196-207.

TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE UPDATE

Applications for Technical Assistance

In order to provide high quality technical assistance that contributes to state capacity and sustainability, NCCRESt will accept applications on an open-ended basis, beginning August 1, 2007 for specific and individualized technical assistance. The technical assistance requested can be short or long-term, and can focus on a variety of activities, including document review, strategic planning, improvement plan development, data analysis and review, professional development and training, curriculum review, evaluation and research activities, or other technical assistance that builds the capacity of the state to eliminate disproportionality and develop culturally responsive educational systems.

To download the application form, click here

FEATURED NCCRESt STATE WORK

The Mississippi Cultural Responsivity Matrix

This tool is based on the work of James Banks and Cherry McGee-Banks, with further support from the work of Christine Sleeter and Carl Grant. It is designed to assist teachers and administrators in assessing the degree to which mandated curricular guides in mathematics and reading curricula and strategies are responsive to the socio-cultural experiences and backgrounds of their students. Many aspects of curriculum and pedagogy affect the learning success of students in mathematics and reading. In addition to careful assessment of each student’s knowledge and skills in the core content areas of mathematics and reading so that teachers can adjust the introduction and pacing of skill development, teachers must also anchor the constructs and skills they teach to familiar experiences and vocabulary to build on the knowledge and skills that students bring to school. For a full report email your request to: nccrest@asu.edu

FEATURED NIUSI DISTRICT WORK

The Memphis City Schools district has received $42,040,000 in additional state revenue, $9.7 million of which will be used for intensive improvements in teaching and learning in a core group of Memphis City Schools currently on the state’s probationary list of “striving schools.” The remainder of the funds will be used across the district for additional teaching and teacher support and enhanced academic and student support programs.

From 2003 to 2006, the number of Memphis City Schools that were rated as being in “Good Standing” has increased from 30 to 112. These additional funds will help MCS in their effort to implement improvement processes, and will benefit efforts in a variety of areas. Schools will be provided with ongoing professional development for teachers, more visible tracking of student progress, additional staff and greater collaboration between school staff, parents and students. The plan also provides district-level accountability and support. Funding will be provided for additional teachers and staff to support schools with high percentages of Special Education students, additional mathematics teachers and tutors to lower the student-teacher ratio in secondary schools, as well as additional support for teachers of English Language Learners.

For more information on Memphis City Schools, visit their website at http://www.mcsk12.net.

FEATURED NIUSI-LeadScape PRINCIPAL WORK

Teresa Faucette is the principal of Graham Middle School in Greensboro, North Carolina.  Teresa was the Alamance-Burlington School System’s Principal of the Year for 2006-2007.  Teresa is a knowledgeable, energetic leader who is working to improve practices of inclusive education in her school.  Some of Teresa’s accomplishments include:

• Reduced teacher turnover rate in three years from 50% to 9%.Incorporated Literacy First throughout the entire school which showed a 11 point gain in reading in the subgroup of students with disabilities.
• Started a structured Reading time called MIRP (Monitored Independent Reading Program)—two teachers in every home base in the mornings to supervise MIRP and conference with the students. 
• Implemented PBS (Positive Behavioral Support).
• Implemented more inclusion classes and focused on reducing the self contained students whenever possible.  

Teresa is also one of the pilot principals for NIUSI’s LeadScape program to develop a web-based data management tool for principals.  Her dedication to inclusive education is reflected in the Graham Middle School motto, “Let’s build bridges, not walls,” a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Teresa’s commitment to continuous school improvement is demonstrated in her 2007-2008 leadership motto:  “Grin and bear it or smile and change it.” 

To contact Teresa, visit the Graham Middle School website at http://grm.abss.k12.nc.us

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“…As long as the child will be trained not by love, but by fear, so long will humanity live not by justice but by force. As long as the child will be ruled by the educators’ threat and by the father’s rod, so long will mankind be dominated by the policeman’s club, by fear of jail, and by panic of invasion by armies and navies…”         Boris Sidis, Ph.D., M.D., 1919

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,” said the cat.
Lewis Carroll, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

FEATURED WEBSITE

http://www.behavioradvisor.com

Endorsed by the United Federation of Teachers, Dr. Thomas McIntyre has created a comprehensive set of information and practical tools for teachers and parents wishing to address behavior. The thousands of strategies he offers are broken down into very specific categories of:

• The Basics of Behavior Management
• Tips for Becoming an Effective and Well-liked Behavior Manager
• Strategies for Addressing Common Behaviors & Conditions
• Step-by-Step "How To Do It" Pages
• How to Assess and Measure Behavior
• The Applied Behavior Analysis Model and Its Interventions
• The Psycho-Educational Model and Its Interventions
• How to Implement School-wide Practices
• Interesting and/or Humorous Readings
• Great Resources For Teachers
• Pages For Our Colleagues
• Other Stuff

This site offers a seemingly endless amount of information and advice. The bulletin board provides a place where anyone can post a problem and get helpful suggestions from others who may have experience with a similar situation. This provides users with a vast network of supportive people who may be able to offer a different point of view.

http://ebdblog.com

EBD blog is a website for anyone who is interested in emotional or behavioral disorders and also includes information about many other conditions that may include behavior or emotional difficulties. Some blog topics include acting in, acting out, ADHD, administrivia, assessment, Autism, behavior management, Bi-polar, bullying, causes, Conduct disorder, Depression, families, musings, news, policy, research, Schizophrenia, the press, treatment, and uncategorized. This site provides the opportunity to share information and learn from others in the field and to stay abreast of relevant current events.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Minneapolis, Minnesota - October 18-20, 2007

Preconference Workshops: October 16-17, 2007

The 2007 Closing The Gap Conference offers over 200 sessions that describe and/or demonstrate successful applications of computer and assistive technology for persons with disabilities. Sessions examine results of current applications, research, development of computer hardware, software, or adaptive devices, model programs, and procedures used by and for persons with disabilities.

Sessions emphasize practical applications rather than theoretical discourse. Through lecture, networking, demonstration, and hands-on lab sessions, computer users of every level of expertise can find valuable information at the 2007 event. Presentations for experienced practitioners focus on needs of persons actively using computers in education, rehabilitation, vocation, or independent living - typically intermediate to advanced level computer users. For those who are just being introduced to computer technology, the conference provides a range of presentations that meets needs across the computer experience continuum and facilitates a balanced interchange between special educators and rehabilitation professionals.

In addition, graduate-level academic credit from Hamline University, St. Paul, Minnesota and CEUs are available for a variety of levels of conference attendance. Click here for details.

The complete event includes two days (October 16-17, 2007) of day-long preconference workshops followed by three days (October 18-20, 2007) of over 200 one- and two-hour presentations, along with many commercial exhibitors. (http://www.closingthegap.com/conf/index.lasso)

Register before September 13th, 2007 and receive an early registration discount. Groups of five or more who register early are also offered a $50.00 per person discount.

Do you have an upcoming conference, workshop, online events, and other opportunities related to the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education? Disseminate information about your upcoming event on our website www.nncrest.org on our Events Page.

FOR PARENTS

Dealing with Problem Behavior

All behavior serves a purpose. If a child cannot meet their needs in an appropriate way, they will look for an alternative and sometimes inappropriate way of doing so. For example a child who is feeling neglected and is having trouble getting the attention of their parent or teacher may act out in order to get the attention they want and need. Children may also demonstrate inappropriate behavior when they perceive a task to be too difficult. This takes the focus and attention of others off of their perceived inability and puts it on their inappropriate behavior. In order to stop inappropriate behavior, you must first determine what purpose the inappropriate behavior is serving, and then help your child find more appropriate ways of fulfilling that need.

Problem behavior can also be proactively prevented. Often a child may not know what is expected of them and unknowingly engage in inappropriate behavior. Or, they may “test the limits” if the consequences of inappropriate behavior are not clear to them. To proactively create an environment in which inappropriate behavior is unnecessary:

• Make your child a part of the process of outlining expectations and consequences. If they have ownership of them, they are more likely to follow them.

• Clearly define expectations and consequences for both appropriate and inappropriate behaviors. Reinforcing appropriate behavior can often make punishment of inappropriate behavior unnecessary.

• Model and practice appropriate behavior

FOR STUDENTS

Tips for a Successful School Year

Maintaining Focus

In school you are often expected to sit and listen for long periods of time, not to mention remember what was said for the upcoming test. You are also expected to work on assignments that may not be of particular interest to you and complete them within a specific amount of time. Sound familiar? Many students have difficulty staying focused in these situations. Here are some ideas that you can discuss with your teacher that may help you stay focused and be successful:

• Take notes.
• Use a focus tool such as a stress ball.
• Reduce distractions. Make sure that you are comfortable
• Redirect yourself.
• Know your learning style.
• Ask for help.

Reducing Anxiety/Relaxing

• Get enough sleep.
• Eat well. It improves memory, increases energy, and reduces irritability.
• Drink plenty of water and avoid caffeine
• Use relaxation strategies such as deep breathing, yoga, or taking a walk when you are stressed.

Staying Organized

• Use a planner. Pick the planner that is right for you. Your school may offer one that already has many important school related dates in it. Make your planner a part of your daily routine by brining it with you and checking it every morning and night. Fill in assignment due dates, test dates, study times, extracurricular and family events as soon as you hear about them. Don’t forget to save time for something you really enjoy!
• Materials. Keep the materials you use a lot together and in a place you will know where to find them. This will also help keep you focused on what you need to complete instead of looking for your eraser.

 Newsletter Editors: Wendy Duran and Crystal Rueb, ASU