2007 End of Year Report

Context

The context for the Array of Services task force involves a quickly changing landscape in Education in general in BVSD and in Special Education.  BVSD is moving towards a blended model of services for students who struggle in every school.  In addition, Special Education is blending its students to include those not identified and to allow those who are identified to benefit from the best instruction for the needs,  regardless of  the title and status of the instructors.  This represents a very large change for general and special education in BVSD.  BVSD is committed to this change.  The purpose of the task force is to research, discuss and finally recommend a model of supports for every school.

Philosophy

Boulder Valley School District is committed to the following guiding principals in all of its work in good instructional intervention and response to intervention.

Guiding Principals:

• All instruction is guided by General Education and supported by Interventionists
• All resources are configured to benefit all students
• Schools are TIES driven, data-driven, problem-solving organizations
• Schools teach pro-social development and citizenship directly
• The District supports this system change with systems that work in reinforcing ways to the benefit of all students
• Our work on this task force is guided by 3 questions:

Guiding Questions:

• Are there ways we can better serve students that will allow our guiding principles to be more of a reality and work within existing systems and laws?
• Are there some things that have been successful that we definitely need to keep?
• What are some things we can stop doing in order to do this better?

Process:

The process of the task force was to bring together representatives from all parts of the system to review best practices in this work, study and dialogue and  make recommendations. Those recommendations are then to be ‘vetted’ through several groups for revisions to go back to the large task force group. The larger subcommittee was then divided into subcommittees to study the following  in more depth:

• Paraeducator use and hiring
• Supporting prosocial behavior
• Students with  moderate needs
• Students with  significant needs

Implementation:

Serving on the task force for 2007 were: Andie Kutinsky, Beverly Rosenschein, Barbara Goldsby, Bob Lawhead, Cindy Kaier, Cindy Watlington, Dana Dosik, Deirdre Pilch, Ginger Ramsey, Jennifer Rocke, John Tweedy, Julianne Pion, Kathy McBride, Kelley King, Kim Kleinman, Kitty Mulket, Kristin Putnam, Lea Anne Paskvalitch, Linn Oliver, Margaret Moore, Nancy Vaughn, Pat Stahl, Sally Lopez, Sandy Ripplinger,Sarah Dayem, Scott Boesel, Stephanie Zwchmann, Steve Landrigan, Susan Weissberg and Sylvia Parga-Ray.

Included in each of the subcommittees were: Parents, Special and General Educators, Paraprofessionals, Principles and Central Administration.

There was one meeting that included only the central task force, and three with the central group and the subcommittees.  At the end of each meeting, subcommittees reported on their work for the day.

Results:

After the third subcommittee meeting, the group determined that their work would need to continue into the 2007-2008 school year.

The year ended with final reports from each subcommittee. Results were as follows:

Students with Significant Support Needs:
Paraeducators:
Students with Moderate Needs:

Talking Points from Three Meetings

• We are examining the best practices that currently support inclusion
• Every school should be able to support students with moderate needs
• The work of our sub-committee is to examine the current roles of adults in our schools for possible restructuring of those roles that would collaboratively support all students’ needs. One result of this restructuring may allow students with more significant needs to access an inclusionary model.
• We began the focus on best practices around instructional intervention, focusing specifically on the inclusion facilitator positions
• We identified the communication plan we would need to begin to make this shift in schools
• We began to put specificity around the work that inclusion facilitators might be asked to do.

Behavior:

• We presented a packet of information of what we have been working on this  year to all participants.
  Included in that packet were: Article, The Quality Program Indicators for Children with Emotional and Behavior Disorders, documents we created that align BVSD's Circles of Instruction with the Pogram Indicators Checklist and the Positive Behavior Support brochure from CDE.
• We were fortunate to have Dr. Laurence R. Sargent, PBS Specialist from CDE available to talk about the benefits of creating a district wide postitive behavior support program.
• For ease in differentiating between the circles (levels) of intervention and the program indicators, we found that color coding both the circles and the program indicators helped  to alleviate confusion.
• We would still like to explore the possibility of acquiring grant money to pilot Positive Behavior Support Model in 3 schools at three levels. We continued to discuss the importance of having a PBS model district-wide.
• We discussed the importance of providing training to general education teachers on the circles of instruction through district inservices.
• Discussed using the web for teachers, both sped and general ed to access resources, especially  around affective needs curriculum, social skill instruction and resources about

Next Steps: We should be moving towards making recommendations and gaining input for the 2008-2009 school year.