Special+Services

Team Liaison - Chuck McEvoy** Colleagues - wanted to give some follow up on our last full day professional development with Dr. Marilyn Friend. We had a very full day with Dr. Friend, and wound up having a more diverse span of teachers familiar with the model. Originally, we had intended that Dr. Friend build upon our topics covered in our elementary and middle school lab sites this year. Ultimately, there were many teachers attending who were not at the earlier sessions, which made higher level concepts more difficult to target. Nonetheless, Dr. Friend was able to bridge the gap and provide for the diversified needs of the attendees. We did a lot of discussion on ways to implement the models of instruction, and Marilyn gave a wealth of ideas to utilize the models in all content areas, at all grade levels. We spent time to deepen the understanding of the co teaching model, it's current defined terms and co teaching non negotiables that need be in place. Teachers found the day to be very helpful, and the responses to the training were overwhelmingly positive. The evaluations also indicated a need for more administrative supports, meaning how to arrange planning time, how to work with parents, and how to plan over time for an effective and meaningful program. We, as a network, felt that the presentation would be great for administrators alone, with a slant on how to effectively review teacher and program efficacy. We are thinking of finding some way to roll this out as a support for administrators embarking on this journey. Thanks to Renay Sadis, Mauri DeGovia and Andrew Sullivan for making it to the event to accompany their teachers. Your presence was an added plus.
 * Special Education & Youth Development
 * Marilyn Friend Workshop 4/18/08**

I have attached an electronic copy of the packet that was distributed at the training. Marilyn was kind enough to draft a customized packet to meet our needs. If you would like further support on this training packet at your school, please don't hesitate to contact me. Already, several schools have done this, and more have asked following Marilyn's training. Of note, look out for our next two planned sessions of CTT intervisitations - CTT elementary Lab site at PS 006 on May 23rd (Friday), and CTT High School intervisitation at Mott Hall HS on June 4th. I will be sending out fliers for these events in the next days. Again, as always, your humble public servant, Chuck.

Since many students are articulating into middle school or high school to less restrictive programs, I would like to support you in assuring that their IEP's correctly reflect the programs and services in their new sites for next school year. While I know that no official list has been released regarding official acceptances (for MS students), we still would like to assure that students, both Middle or High school, will not need to have their IEP's again amended once they arrive to their school of acceptance. A particular, and more common example, would be such as a self contained student articulating to MS into a CTT program, or other such less restrictive recommendations. The ISC had put out and done some training on how to amend these IEP's, but I'm concerned if the message was articulated, effective and meaningful to your staff. I'm again attaching the Manhattan ISC transmittal for your s.e. liaisons to review.
 * Middle School Articulation for Students with IEPs**

Other such amendments that need to be done: 1. Students moving from Ele. to MS with related services need the duration of their related service sessions amended from 30 to 45 minutes. 2. Students moving from self contained middle school classes into high school self contained classes typically need their staffing ratio changed from 12:1 (1R) to 15:1 (2R). 3. Students moving from CTT ele. to CTT MS need their staffing ratio changed from 12:1 to 13:1. 4. Students moving from CTT MS to CTT HS need their staffing ration changed from 13:1 to 14:1. These are highly technical issues and may need some revisiting at the school level. Please let me know if you would like a visit to target these issues. I am at your disposal.

I wanted to take this time to debrief on our Lab CTT inter visitation the other day at LAB MS. I would like to take this time to thank Brooke Jackson, Gary Eisinger and Sam Affoumado for helping make our second inter visitation a big success. The full day was found to be extremely valuable as reflected in the feedback we got. Here's how the day went: After breakfast and networking, the teachers were split up into five groups. We tried to keep each school's team together in a subgroup for the visitation.
 * Debrief of CTT Workshop @ Lab 4/1/08**

After visiting two classes, we met back up in the central training room to have a discussion on assessment and grading. The teachers expressed their views on adapting tests and grading policies within their classrooms, and at their schools at large. We utilized the same type of anticipation guide that Mike Schackleford did in his Differentiated Instruction pd last week. I also gave the teachers some materials on grading and adapting assessments, much of it from the Marilyn Friend publications.

Following, the teachers went back out to another round of classroom visitation, and saw an additional two co-taught classrooms each. Visiting teachers used visitation templates to take notes and formulate questions for the teams in preparation for a power lunch debrief session. We saw some pretty high level teaching, and were surprised at the complexity of some of the lessons being taught, particularly in Science and Mathematics.

Thanks to Fran and Michele for having a nice lunch spread ready for the debrief session. 14 of LAB's teachers gave up their lunch period to avail themselves to the visitors' questions and comments. Some of these teams have been together for a significant amount of time, and was valuable to hear their progression as formulating teams. The participants, both teachers and administrators alike, asked thought provoking questions to the teams.

Following, Sam and Gary took the floor and gave a nice presentation on the history and progression of their CTT program, complete with growing pains and interesting anecdotes. This was valuable, as program strategy is an important topic in the Middle School level of collaborative teaming. This component was especially valuable for administrators, as they are always challenged to create teaming and programming to best meet the needs of the kids within budget and staffing constraints. Sam and Gary made themselves available to anyone with any questions on how to set up a meaningful program given budget and time constraints.

In our final component of the day, Karina Rodriguez (my sister SSM from our sister network) and I demonstrated a station teaching lesson, using CTT topics as the lens of the lesson. We set up three stations, and split the whole group into three sub groups to rotate through the stations. Two of the stations delved into particular case studies, where teachers identified strengths and weaknesses of detailed students, then came up with modifications and recommendations for the students' teachers. In the third station, teachers watched a short video regarding the role of school administration in supporting an effective CTT program.

Following, we debriefed on the characteristics needed to implement a successful station teaching lesson. I challenged all of the teams to try to set up a station teaching lesson with their groups, so that we could debrief on their experience in the next session (hopefully at Mott Hall HS). I am pleased to see that some administrators are taking interest in this topic, and are beginning to attend these sessions, kudos to Ana De Los Santos, Patricia Catania and Patrick Kelly for their participation thus far.


 * FYI, I still have a few seats open for our Marilyn Friend professional development on Friday April 18th, and would like to see any interested administrators attend if possible.** Please rsvp to me if interested.

Be well, //Chuck//

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=Differentiated Instruction Network InstituteMar 26: Elem/Middle Schools & Mar 27: High Schools | 8:00a - 3:30p Charter Center for Excellence @ 111 Broadway At the core of this Institute, customized for our network, is the well-received SDE (Staff Development for Educators) in-service, Differentiated Instruction: Theory into Practice curriculum. The program is a comprehensive, interactive introduction to differentiated Instruction, providing effective strategies, materials, and activities that can be applied immediately. For more information see flier or [|www.sde.com]. RSVP soonest to Chuck > CMcEvoy2@schools.nyc.gov; we are limited to the first 30 registrants per date. [| Differentiated Instr. pd flier.doc]

CTT Inter Visitation / Session 2 April 1 | 8:30 - 3:30 pm LAB Middle School 333 W17th St, NYC Building on the resounding success of our first CTTMS workshop, this second session will include a full day of classroom observation, debriefing with teachers, and exploration of current CTT issues and strategies. Thanks to Gary, Brooke and Sam for hosting!! RSVP to Chuck McEvoy via email with the names of the participants you wish to send. Breakfast will be served. [| CTT MS Session 2 Flier.doc]

2/27/07 CTT Workshop for Elementary Schools @ PS 040 - Debrief Thank you for sending your teachers. I feel they appreciate being a part of our new little sharing community. Along with the 15 teachers (and 1 administrator) that participated, we had six of the teachers from P040 sharing and debriefing their practice as well. After reactivating our minds by reviewing the concepts from our last meeting, we again revisited the six models of instruction. We also reviewed some fundamental ctt concepts, such as parity, accommodating and modifying. The teachers shared their concerns and experiences, both success stories and fundamental issues. We visited classrooms on a rotating schedule, and saw some excellent teaching. The focus of the visitation was to see parallel teaching in action, then to review the strategies and revisions the teachers had made to incorporate this process into their repertoire. Additionally, I believe the teachers were surprised to see how effectively and diagnostically the teachers implemented their literacy programs. Much of what the teachers saw was how two teachers can effectively set forth practices and procedures (along with lots of creativity) to build an effective and diverse learning community, both with targeted instruction and student independence. After the visitation and debriefing (thank you Susan Felder and Stephanie Lukas for setting this up for us so graciously) with the teachers, we reviewed another short video of the Power of Two (Marilyn Friend) and discussed the model of station teaching. We went over the characteristics, efficacy and examples of station teaching in addition to watching the video examples. Afterwards, each of the teams outlined a station teaching lesson for their classes, then shared them out for the group. I am delighted to remind you that we also have nationally renown researcher and writer on the CTT model, Dr. Marilyn Friend of Univ. of N.C., to present to us and our sister network. I will be sending out official notice of this in the near future, when all the specifics have been resolved, but please mark the 18th of April as the date for this event.

Elementary CTT Labsite #2 Feb 26 8:30 – 12:30 | PS 040 @ 319 E19 St (entrance on 20th St) This conference will involve class visits at PS40, debriefing with teachers, and targeted discussion in specific issues. The focus of this visit is "Parallel Teaching." We will also discuss: grading and planning. Please bring your math curriculum / manual to co plan a station teaching lesson. Breakfast included. Click on the Special Services tab to the left for flier and agenda. Thanks to Susan Felder and Stephanie Lukas for co-hosting.

Overdue Annual Reviews Due dates are posted on the Principals’ Register Report (PRR) in SEC — you can even arrange and print it by IEP due dates. Triennials and Annual reviews can be collapsed into the earlier of the two dates. Often, Annual Reviews are actually completed but never entered into CAP. Chuck and the Special Education support staff at the ISCs are available to help you. The ISC staff will be examining the longest of the lists and making outreach to schools that need support where data points out the need. Chuck remains your first line on defense, so please let us know how we can help!

ACS Workshop for Guidance Counselors Feb 28 | 333 7th Ave, 7fl | 1 – 3:30 pm This workshop will cover issues and concerns related to: Administration for Children’s Services. Mr. Charlie Hollander, Special Council to the Division of Child Protection will be our guest speaker. In addition, we will also cover protocol related to: Child Abuse Prevention (Regulation A-750). Please confirm your attendance with Gerri Cookler, Guidance Counselor Content Expert, at GCookle@schools.nyc.gov. Chuck will be attending so ask your school liaison to look for him.

PPTs: Everything You Need to Know Mar 21 | 366 West 125 St | 8:30 - 11:00am Brian Kaplan, Senior Youth Development Director, will present an encore presentation of this information workshop for Guidance Counselors. For further information, you may contact Dr. Kaplan at (917) 339-1714.

Did you know?** For a referral service for youth, families, and communities to an array of local services and resources, call the Department of Youth and Community Development’s (DYCD) Youthline 1-800-246-4646 (or 311) for information about these services: Youth Employment Opportunities, Education and Training Programs, Out of School Time Programs, Runaway and Homeless Youth Services, Immigrant Services, Beacon Community Centers, and Bus/Subway Program. For further information, you may contact Amy Leitman, Youth Development Specialist, at aleitman@schools.nyc.gov