There are many people who touch the lives of students who receive special education services through an Individualized Education Program (IEP) as they journey through public education.  The Local Educational Agency (LEA) representative is an important and required team member of each student’s IEP Team.  In many districts, the role of the (LEA) representative is fulfilled by building principals.  As a member of the IEP team, this person works collaboratively with other IEP team members to develop a program based on each student’s unique needs that is reasonably calculated to enable the student to make progress appropriate in light of the individual student’s circumstances, and assists the team in documenting that program in the student’s IEP. 

Read more.

Moving the Needle: Leveraging Legitimate EE Flexibility to Grow Teacher Practice and Student Learning

by Dr. Joe Schroeder, Associate Executive Director, AWSA

Educator Effectiveness (EE) has been a key component of Wisconsin’s Education landscape for over five years.  Policies, platforms, and processes have adapted over that time, primarily in response to feedback directly from Wisconsin educators who identified ways to make the process more meaningful, authentic, and impactful.  But throughout the years, two constants have remained the same:  (1) the founding EE purpose to improve practice and support for adults so that student outcomes improve and (2) the abiding reality that EE implementation requires a load of work.  The purpose of this article is to update you to current EE themes we are learning from the field, reinforce legitimate DPI flexibilities at your disposal to increase local EE impact, and highlight fruitful practices by a number of Wisconsin leaders for consideration by districts across the state so that we can increasingly “move the needle” for student learning via EE.

Read more.

Legal Requirements relating to Shortening a School Day for a Student with an IEP

by Daniel Parker, Assistant Director of Special Education, WI DPI

Each year the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction receives numerous questions from parents, school districts, and other stakeholders about the permissibility and requirements around shortening a school day for a student who is receiving special education services. Shortening a student’s day raises issues regarding the provision of a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as well as potential discrimination under 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.

Read more.

Transforming School Discipline: Shifting from power and control to collaboration and problem solving 

Education innovation is important to ensure that we are providing the best support and preparation for our children for all aspects of their lives. Therefore, it is important to examine and improve our practices in all aspects of education, including how we respond to challenging student behaviors. 

by Ross W. Greene Founding Director, Lives in the Balance; Department of Psychology, Virginia Tech; Faculty of Science, University of Technology Sydney 

The statistics are staggering. Every school year in the United States, there are 3 million out-of-school suspensions, 3 million in-school suspensions, and dozens of millions of detentions. Every year, over 100,000 students are expelled and there are several hundred thousand paddlings, restraints, and locked- or blocked-door seclusions. 

Read more. 

Ensuring the Continuation of a Free Appropriate Public Education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act