Week in Review - May 21, 2021
NASET
WEEK IN REVIEW
National Association of Special Education Teachers
May 21, 2021 Vol 17 Issue #20
Dear NASET Members and Guests,
Welcome to NASET's WEEK in REVIEW. Here, we provide you with the latest publications fromNASET to read and or download, as well as some of the most interesting articles that have happened this week in the field of special education. We hope you enjoy this publication. Feel free to send us articles for this publication or let us know your thoughts about the WEEK in REVIEW at news@naset.org. Have a great weekend.
Sincerely,
WHATS NEW AT NASET
Board Certified Inclusive Education Specialist (BCIES) Program
The National Association of Special Education Teachers (NASET) and the American Academy of Special Education Professionals (AASEP) recognize the increasing need for qualified teachers specializing in the field of inclusive education. In order to enhance this area of concern, they have created an extensive and comprehensive program through online video lectures and training whereby upon completion, you become a Board Certified Inclusive Educational Specialist (BCIES).
The Board Certified Inclusive Education Specialist (BCIES) program provides you with many different areas of study. Upon completion, you will understand how to:
- Provide direct support to students in a classroom by delivering instruction and ensuring learning through a variety of co-teaching models and strategies.
- Develop Individualized Student Programs (IEP) for students; maintain compliance with all federal regulations and state policies regarding the education of students with disabilities.
- Ensure appropriate accommodations and modifications to the curriculum, lessons and learning environment.
- Design engaging classroom activities and differentiated lessons so that all students may access the curriculum and benefit from the educational experience.
- Formally and informally assess the student learning (rather than relying solely on standardized curriculum) to create a comprehensive learning program.
- Set high expectations that are appropriate for students.
- Work collaboratively in the co-taught classroom.
- Build a partnership with families, encouraging their active participation in students’ learning.
- Perform other duties as assigned by the principal and Director of Special Services.
- And much, much more
Can Schools Require Students to Get COVID-19 Vaccines, and Will They?
As younger children qualify for COVID-19 vaccines, public health officials are unsure of how many families will opt to have their children inoculated if the shots aren’t required for school attendance. While some colleges and universities have made COVID-19 vaccines mandatory for their students, experts say it is unlikely states will issue similar requirements for K-12 students any time soon. That’s true even as federal agencies expanded eligibility for the Pfizer vaccine to children as young as 12 years old this week and states rushed to give them shots. There’s a host of legal, political, and ethical questions involved in setting a new requirement, especially as COVID-19 vaccines are administered under an emergency-use authorization, which has allowed health providers to administer shots more quickly as the Food and Drug Administration considers more permanent approval. Read More
Finding Strengths in Autism
At 21, Dawn Prince-Hughes was homeless and destitute when she found her calling — at a zoo in Seattle, Washington. It was 1985. Prince-Hughes had fled to Seattle from rural Montana, where she had feared for her life after coming out as gay. She did not yet know she was autistic — she would be diagnosed with autism about 15 years later — but she knew she had trouble making friends. “I had failed miserably trying to connect with human beings,” she says. “They do not make sense to me.” One morning, pining for nature, Prince-Hughes visited Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. Wandering around the enclosures, she turned a corner and saw the gorillas. “It was just an instantaneous recognition,” she says. She felt she understood them almost right away. Read More
https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/finding-strengths-in-autism/
Bill Would Allow Special Education Students to Finish Year After They Hit Age Limit
An Illinois bill would allow special education students to finish the school year, even after they reach the age eligibility limit. Current state law allows students to stay in special education courses until the day they turn 22. This means many students have to leave school in the middle of the academic year. State Sen. Bill Cunningham (D) said he has moved legislation (House Bill 40) through the Senate Education Committee to allow students to keep being involved in classes through the school year in which they turn 22. “Special education students should be allowed to finish out their final school year,” said Cunningham. “They deserve a more natural end to their school career and a chance to say goodbye to all of their friends.” Read More
Online Therapy Effective Against OCD Symptoms in the Young
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) in children and adolescents is associated with impaired education and worse general health later in life. Access to specialist treatment is often limited. According to a study from Centre for Psychiatry Research at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden and Region Stockholm, internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) can be as effective as conventional CBT. The study, published in the journal JAMA, can help make treatment for OCD more widely accessible. Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a potentially serious mental disorder that normally debuts in childhood. Symptoms include intrusive thoughts that trigger anxiety (obsessions), and associated repetitive behaviors (compulsions), which are distressing and time consuming. Read More
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210511123801.htm
Thousands of Students with Disabilities are Set to ‘Age Out’ of School--After a Pandemic Year, They May Get More Time to Prepare for What’s Next
This was supposed to be the year that Jake Smith got a lot of hands-on practice working and doing tasks on his own as he got ready for life after school. Jake has autism and Down syndrome and is in a life skills program at a high school in Harford County, Maryland. He is one of the thousands of young adults with disabilities in the U.S. who are over 18 but still in school — usually in publicly funded transitional programs that offer hands-on job training or time to learn life skills, like doing laundry or shopping for groceries. Just before the pandemic hit, Jake’s mother, Tracy Smith, was encouraged by the progress her son made getting to class on his own and learning to vacuum at his job at a local hospice. But when school went virtual and work stopped, a lot of plans went out the window. Read More
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/5/12/22430702/students-with-disabilities-age-out-extra-time-pandemic
TV And Films Hold a Unique Power to Shine a Light on Invisible Disabilities
There has been plenty of media buzz of late around more authentic portrayal of disability in films and on TV. Though there are some positive commitments towards this emerging from industry leaders, media creatives still struggle to consistently achieve accurate depiction. Despite the obvious on-screen visual cue offering some foundation, even conveying the lived experience of life as a modern-day wheelchair user is not without its artistic complexities. Imagine then, the additional knotted layers to be untangled and unpicked to convey, via a primarily visual medium, silent and invisible disabilities like chronic pain and fatigue. Yet, the consequences of not having storylines featuring characters experiencing these symptoms are dire for those living with them in real life. Read More
U.S. Schools Fight to Keep Students Amid Fear of Dropout Surge
U.S. educators are doing everything they can to track down high school students who stopped showing up to classes and to help them get the credits needed to graduate, amid an anticipated surge in the country’s dropout rate during the coronavirus pandemic. There isn’t data available yet on how the pandemic has affected the nation’s overall dropout rate — 2019 is the last year for which it is available — and many school officials say it’s too early to know how many students who stopped logging on for distance learning don’t plan to return. But soaring numbers of students who are failing classes or are chronically absent have experts fearing the worst, and schools have been busy tracking down wayward seniors through social media, knocking on their doors, assigning staff to help them make up for lost time and, in some cases, even relaxing graduation requirements. Read More
https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-health-education-1b0eb720342a1978383c703e5a001a90
Internet-Delivered CBT Non-Inferior for OCD in Children
Stepped care offering internet-delivered cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) followed by in-person CBT if necessary is non-inferior to in-person CBT for children and adolescents with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD), according to a study published in the May 11 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Kristina Aspvall, Ph.D., from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, and colleagues conducted a randomized clinical non-inferiority trial to examine whether internet-delivered CBT implemented in a stepped-care model is non-inferior to in-person CBT. One hundred fifty-two individuals aged 8 to 17 years with OCD were enrolled and randomly assigned to the stepped-care group (74 participants), who received internet-delivered CBT for 16 weeks with face-to-face treatment for non-responders at three-month follow-up, or a control group (78 participants), who received in-person CBT for 16 weeks. Read More
TRIVIA QUESTION OF THE WEEK
Congratulations to: Joanna Blau, Kathy Williams, Patsy Ray, Suzanne Tudor, Jennifer Crawford, Catherine Cardenas, Olumide Akerele, Karen Frantz-Fry, Laura Larimore, Matthew Lunsford, Cindi Maurice, and Tracy Anderson who all knew the answer to last week's trivia question:
One of the most popular toy brands has a new product designed for children who are blind or have visual impairments. It has launched a line of toy blocks called Braille Bricks with studs on top that reflect individual letters and numbers in the braille alphabet. The bricks are available in seven countries including the U.S. and the nonprofit American Printing House for the Blind is shipping the bricks to school districts across the nation for free. What is the toy brand?
Answer: LEGO
This week's trivia question: Emily Blunt, James Earl Jones, Samuel L. Jackson, Nicole Kidman, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Bruce Willis, and Carly Simon are all famous people who had/have a particular speech disorder. What is it?
If you know the answer to this week's trivia questions, email it to us at contactus@naset.org by May 24, 2021 . If you are correct, you will be acknowledged in next week's NASET's Week in Review
Study Links School Reopening and COVID Spread in Texas — Before Vaccines Made it Safer
It’s been one of the most politically fraught and scientifically complex questions of the pandemic: do open school buildings contribute to the spread of COVID? A new study says yes, at least in Texas, where researchers say school reopening in fall 2020 triggered a sharp increase in COVID cases and ultimately deaths. Some other studies have also found evidence linking in-person schooling to COVID cases — particularly when existing community spread is high or when mitigation is weak— but the Texas paper is notable for the large effects it found. That doesn’t mean that spread of the virus was rampant within Texas schools. The researchers say the re-openings may have indirectly triggered the surge, since the opening of schools may have allowed more parents to return to work and signaled to a community that they could return to more normalcy. Read More
https://www.chalkbeat.org/2021/5/10/22429536/study-covid-spread-cases-schools-transmission-texas
State Leaders, Parents, Advocates Celebrate Passing of Special Education Ombud Act
More help is on the way for many special education students and their families. This week, parents, advocates, legislative leaders, and the governor came together to celebrate a bill that the governor signed last month. The bill, which was passed unanimously, will create an ombudsman office to help public school students and their families navigate the special education system. “Our vision is to have a regional director, staff basically certifying, training, supporting, fully supporting special education ombuds across the state of New Mexico,” said Alice Liu McCoy, with the New Mexico Developmental Disabilities Planning Council. Read More
Even When They Include Them, Gifted Programs Aren't Serving Black or Low-Income Kids, Study Finds
After years of criticism for their lack of diversity, programs for high achievers may not be adequately serving their Black and low-income students, a new study shows. "The potential benefits aren't equally distributed," said lead author and University of Florida College of Education professor Christopher Redding, Ph.D., who evaluated data from gifted programs in elementary schools nationwide. "The conversation up to this point has been about access, with less emphasis on how students perform once in gifted programs." While academic achievement gains for students overall were modest -- going from the 78th to 80th percentile in reading and rising only a third as much in math -- low-income and Black gifted students, on average, saw no achievement gains. When the researchers looked at factors beyond scores, including engagement, attendance, and whether a student left or stayed in a school, they found little evidence to suggest gifted participation influenced those measures for any group. Read More
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/05/210510161515.htm
The Benefits of Special Interests in Autism
The first time Autumn Van Kirk noticed a computer was in her kindergarten classroom — it was an Apple 2, and she could not keep her hands off it. “I was playing with it one day. I was, like, ‘Hey, check this out. There’s little knobs and buttons and stuff. What do these do?’” The teacher ran over and said, “What are you doing? You can’t touch that!” Van Kirk recalls. Her parents got a talking to as well. But it would have taken a lot more than that to discourage Van Kirk’s interest in technology. She built a computer from stray parts when she was 13 or 14, and in college, she programmed a website that she ran from a server in her closet. Today she is a team leader for a top global tech company in Houston, Texas. Van Kirk, 38, has leveraged one of the hallmarks of autism, an intense and often narrow focus on a specific topic, into a career. Read More
https://www.spectrumnews.org/features/deep-dive/the-benefits-of-special-interests-in-autism/
Robots Help Special Education and English Learners with Speech and Social Skills
The department of special education at St. Vrain Valley School District worked throughout the school year with the Innovation Center’s robotics program to help special needs students with social skills by using robots, according to a press release from SVVSD. A project team of high school students developed Socially Assistive Robotics applications at the Innovation Center. In January, they partnered with teachers and staff at five district schools and used robots to support special education students with self-regulation, self-determination, and socialization, according to Mari Stevenson, SVVSD special education area coordinator. The five schools participating in this collaboration are Longmont Estates Elementary, Eagle Crest Elementary, Indian Peaks Elementary, Longs Peak Middle School and Soaring Heights PK-8. Read More
JOB POSTINGS
* Standards-Based Instruction Special Education PK-1 - Under the direction of the Executive Director of Student Support Services, the position will carry out assignments in support of certificated staff in the areas of curriculum development, review, evaluation, and resource selection with emphasis in special education (i.e. supplemental curriculum and modifications / accommodations). To learn more - Click here
* Special Education Teacher- Albemarle County Public Schools is committed to providing all students the opportunity to learn from talented, diverse teachers who represent the many cultures and experiences of our community. We seek to hire educators who demonstrate the ability to work with culturally diverse students, and who see themselves as lifelong learners – always willing to learn new things to best meet the ever-changing needs of our students. To learn more- Click here
* [2021-2022] Special Education Teacher (Learning Specialist) - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Special Education Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more- Click here
* ELA Special Education Teacher(Learning Specialist) - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the ELA Special Education Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* Middle School Special Education Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Middle School Special Education Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] Math Special Education Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Math Special Education Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] High School Math Learning Specialist - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the High School Math Learning Specialist will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] Elementary ICT Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Elementary ICT Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, primarily through integrated co-teaching. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* Special Education - Elementary & High School - Provide direct and indirect instructional and related services to students age 5-12 with a range of disabilities including but not limited to physical, cognitive, communication, social or emotional, adaptive, and learning disabilities. You coordinate the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) process. To learn more - Click here
* Learning Specialist - Reporting to the Regional Director of Online Programs, the Learning Specialist is responsible for providing personalized academic support services to online Dual Enrollment students and other individuals in the Bay Area, CA who need these supports and resources. To learn more - Click here
* Education Specialist (Special Education Teacher) - We are looking for talented and committed educators to serve as Special Education Teachers & Case Managers, working primarily with students with Individualized Education Plans in inclusive settings, resource programs, & highly specialized Special Education programs. We are a thriving nonprofit network of 16 free, public charter schools open to all students. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] Elementary Reading Interventionist - This position will serve as a school resource for staff and parents with regards to special education services and regulations. The Intervention Specialist will work closely with the Student Support Team (SST) to assist in observing, documenting, and referring students with suspected special education impairments. The candidate should be able to monitor students; continuous progress through data collection and observation and provide information/support and training to teachers and parents around their child's needs. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] ENL Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the ENL Teacher will be responsible for designing and leading ELL instruction, and collaborating with school staff to provide English language support. This is an exciting opportunity for a dynamic educator who is passionate about improving student outcomes for all students, and eager to apply their vision for rigorous, whole-child education in a growing, collaborative school community. To learn more - Click here
* Special Education Teacher (All Specializations) - We are looking for highly motivated and skilled Special Education Teachers to join our team at District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS). We are primarily hiring for several Inclusion/Resource classrooms as well as Communication and Education Supports (Autism) classrooms. We seek individuals who are passionate about transforming the DC school system and making a signi?cant di?erence in the lives of our students with special educational needs. To learn more - Click here
* [2021-2022] ELA Special Education Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the ELA Special Education Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, through integrated co-teaching, in small group settings, or a combination of both. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHER - (Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary) - (Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary) To create a safe atmosphere conducive for learning and implements instruction in ways that allows all students to learn. Plans and provides for appropriate learning experiences for students. To learn more - Click here
* Lower Elementary SPED Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Lower Elementary SPED Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, primarily through integrated co-teaching. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* Elementary ICT Teacher - Reporting to the Academic Dean, the Elementary ICT Teacher will be responsible for providing tailored support to students with special education needs, primarily through integrated co-teaching. This is an exciting opportunity for a seasoned educator who is passionate about ensuring all students succeed and thrive in school. To learn more - Click here
* Director, Special Services - Serves under the immediate direction of the Senior Executive Director, Student Services and must possess specialized in-depth knowledge and experience in leadership in the program and fiscal administration of special education programs with primary responsibilities that encompass compliance and program quality assurance, fiscal management, personnel matters, and more. To learn more - Click here
* Exceptional Children's Teachers - Winston Salem/Forsyth County Schools are looking for a variety of experienced and certified EC Teachers at the elementary, middle and high school levels. We offer a variety of benefits including: health, dental, and life insurance. In addition, employees are enrolled in the state retirement plan, accrue paid time off, etc. To learn more - Click here
* High School Learning Specialist 20-21 and 21-22 - Opportunity Charter School (OCS) teachers are trained in cutting-edge, research-based methodology of evaluating students’ academic strengths and challenges. To maximize each child’s personal development, an individualized education plan is created that is tailored to his or her unique needs. Students receive differentiated instruction in every curricular area with the goal of expanding their higher cognitive thinking. To learn more - Click here
* Special Needs Tutors - is seeking dynamic, state credentialed special needs teachers to tutor on our virtual platform teaching learners all over the world. This is a perfect second job to earn extra money from the safety of your own home. There is no minimum hourly requirement; all you need is a computer, reliable internet, a quiet space and willingness to teach. To learn more - Click here
If you are an Employer looking for excellent special education staff - Click here for more information
FOOD FOR THOUGHT
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched – they must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller
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