8 with 8

What does the movie Grease have to do with the Special Education Profile? Today’s essential question about special education focuses on students’ readiness for life beyond school: Are youth with disabilities prepared for life, work, and postsecondary education? From the perspective of Ohio's Special Education Profile, this essential question covers Indicators 1, 2, 13, and 14. In other words, at what rates are students with disabilities graduating by regular education standards, how often do they drop out, do they have a transition plan in place to guide their final years of schooling, and do they enroll in college or vocational training, enlist in the military, or obtain employment once they graduate? These are the required data points that the federal government and Ohio monitor - however, we know that there is so much more that predicts post-school success for our students. Joining us today are Helen Brophy, SST8 consultant and transition guru, and Stacia Kaschak, Career-Technical Education consultant for SST regions 7 and 8. Grab your Pink Ladies/T-Birds jacket and take a listen as we "tell you more" about what it really means to be successful beyond school, and what to focus on to promote positive post-school success.

Co-Hosts: Mike Kaschak and Helen Brophy, SST8 Educational Consultants, and Stacia Kaschak, SST7 and 8 Career-Technical Education Consultant

Additional Resources

Ohio Age-Appropriate Transition Assessment (AATA) Library

ODE's Secondary Transition and Workforce Development for Students with Disabilities Resource Page

“Dispro” is a term familiar to seasoned special education leaders, but may not ring a bell for other educators. It refers to disproportionality, or significant disparities in our data regarding how we identify, serve, and discipline student with disabilities from various racial and ethnic groups. From the perspective of the Special Education Profile, it would seem pretty clear - you either have this phenomenon happening, or you don’t.  But as we tackle this week’s essential question - Are children with disabilities receiving equitable services and supports? - we will talk about ways that hidden disparities could be lurking in your data, and what you can do about them.

Co-Hosts: Jenine Sansosti, SST8 Director and Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Educational Consultant

Additional Resources

Equity in Special Education (ODE Fact Sheet)

Addressing Significant Disproportionality in Special Education (ODE resource page)

Solving Disproportionality and Achieving Equity: A Leader′s Guide to Using Data to Change Hearts and Minds (Fergus, 2016 | book)

Ten Commitments for Equity Literate Educators (webpage)

PBIS Cultural Responsiveness Field Guide

Welcome back to our season focused on critical questions we all need to be asking about special education. Today we are focusing on an essential  question that actually gets a lot of attention because it focuses on compliance. However, in today's episode we will bring to light the REAL reason why dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s in special education is so critical - and spoiler alert, it’s NOT about trying to stay out of trouble with the state.

Co-Hosts: Dee Dee Howes and Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultants

Additional Resources

Ohio's Special Education Profile and Essential Questions

Ohio's Annual Performance Report to USDOE

https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/osep/index.html

We’re really enjoying this opportunity to dig into the most essential questions of special education - and we’re loving the feedback we’ve gotten from our colleagues and across the state who have found these episodes helpful! Today’s essential question, taken from Ohio’s Special Education Profile, is this: To what extent do students with disabilities have access to the general education environment? This is a question that educators consider for both individual students and for their buildings and districts overall, on a regular basis. But we want to really tackle this question from a different angle. It starts with the words “to what extent” - which makes me wonder how meaningful students’ participation in general education is. SST8 consultants Tracy Mail and Dee Dee Howes might word this question another way: Is it enough just to be invited to the party? If you’re wondering what this has to do with Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), this episode is for you!

Co-Hosts: Tracy Mail and Dee Dee Howes, SST8 Educational Consultants

Additional Resources

Creating Communities of Belonging for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (article and self-reflection tool for teams)

Ohio UDL Center - OCALI

UDL Guidelines - CAST

Ohio currently ranks 31st in the country with regard to education of our young people and one has to wonder, "why? What can we be doing differently to improve the academic outcomes of our students?" Join us as SST8 consultants interview Bernadette Laughlin, Education Program Specialist with the Office for Exceptional Children, to discuss state, district, and classroom level practices that can influence all students systemically, not just those with neurodiverse needs.

Co-Hosts: Tracy Mail and Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Consultants

About Our Guest: Bernadette Laughlin is a Related Services Program Specialist at the Ohio Department of Education where she oversees all areas of related services in special education and provides professional development and training throughout the state to educators. Bernadette has a wide range of previous professional experience as a due process coordinator, education consultant, pupil services department facilitator, speech language pathologist, and as a lawyer. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Education-Speech Pathology and Masters of Arts in Education Policy & Leadership from The Ohio State University. She then attended Capital University Law School where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Bernadette has been working for the Ohio Department of Education since 2010, with 26 years of previous experience at Westerville City Schools.

Additional Resources:

Each Child Means Each Child

Welcome back to our 8th season, which was inspired by Ohio’s Special Education Profile, a tool that helps districts know how their students are faring on key indicators - these indicators are aligned to six essential questions that we ALL should be asking about special education. If you missed last week’s episode, you may want to go back and take a listen so you can get an overview of the profile and the essential questions it poses. Today, SST8’s Stacey Smith and Dee Dee Howes will talk us through the first essential question of Ohio’s Special Education Profile, focused on how we’re supporting our youngest learners.

Co-Hosts: Stacey Smith and Dee Dee Howes, Educational Consultants, SST8

Additional Resources:

Reimagining School Readiness: A position paper with key findings

Preschool Inclusion: Ohio’s Guidance

This week we're kicking off a new season where we dig into some critical questions about how students with disabilities are really doing - questions that come from Ohio’s Special Education Profile. But our goal is to go much bigger than just the monitoring compliance implications of the Profile, and really get into what our goals are for students with disabilities, and what are some key considerations that we should be focusing on. Take a listen to get a handle on the six questions that EVERY educator should be asking for students with disabilities.

Co-Hosts: Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultant and Jenine Sansosti, SST8 Director

Additional Resources: 

Ohio's Special Education Profiles (website)

Ohio's 20-21 Annual Performance Report to USDOE (PDF; most recent data available)

We’re bringing our season on PBIS connections to a close… but not before we talk about what is most important of all: the people who do this work. How do we build a sense of collective responsibility and shared ownership across all educators in a building, so that everyone is contributing to a safe, predictable, and positive learning environment? Join us as we spend a few minutes summarizing some effective ways to get everyone involved in building and sustaining PBIS across the system.

Co-Hosts: Heidi Kerchenski and Mike Kaschak, Educational Consultants

Additional Resources

Your Foolproof Plan to Create Staff Buy-In That Sticks 

High School PBIS Implementation: Staff Buy-In

We're gearing up for our great-8th season of 8 with 8! In the weeks to come, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the state of special education in Ohio - what we know from the data, what the research is pointing us to, and some examples of outstanding practices that allow districts to help students with disabilities reach their fullest potential. SST8’s special education team is going to take you on 8 brief but powerful explorations of all major areas of special education. And we’re going do it through the lens of a specific tool in Ohio that many of us have come to know well: the Special Education Profile. The data points of the Profile are aligned to six essential questions: the most powerful things we can be asking about our support for students with disabilities. And THAT is what we really want to talk about this season - we’re going to spend each of our upcoming episodes asking an important question, examining the current state of affairs, and seeing where we go from here.

So get ready for "Special Education in Ohio: We’ve Got Questions," 8 with 8’s 8th season - coming to your favorite podcast app or the Anchor website, starting next Friday, January 13th. 

Expectations for today’s youngest students are higher and more rigorous than ever, but these little learners are also just learning how to be safe, respectful, and responsible as they interact with each other. With so much to teach in such little time, where do we start? SST8 Early Childhood consultants Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith are back this week to talk about one particularly critical skill for early learners, and the ways that developmentally appropriate practice and PBIS help us build it. 

Co-Hosts: Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith, SST8 Early Childhood Consultants

Additional Resources

Empathy In The Classroom: Why Should I Care? (Article by Edutopia)

Respectful Touch: 60 Second Strategy (Video | 1 min)

The Serious Business of Play (Article by PBIS Apps)