Review Agenda Item

Meeting Date:

6/21/2018 - 7:00 PM

Category:

New Business and Reports to the Board

Type:

Info

Subject:

Students with Disabilities Evaluation Update

ACPS 2025 Strategic Plan Goal:

Objective 1.1 Educational Excellence

ACPS will regularly assess and respond to the needs, interests, and abilities of individual students.

Objective 1.2 Achievement Gaps

ACPS will target academic achievement gaps and increase positive educational outcomes across race/ ethnicity, income, disability, and language subgroups.

Objective 1.3 Disproportionality

ACPS will focus on increasing representation of minority students in talented and gifted programs and in Honors and Advanced Placement courses; decreasing suspension rates of minority students, particularly males; and preventing over-identification of racial/ethnic minorities for remedial or special education services. ACPS will also focus on eliminating gender and racial/ethnic disparities among students enrolling in science, technology, engineering, math, and literature classes and in advanced classes such as honors and Advanced Placement.

Objective 6.2 Continuous Improvement

ACPS will engage in cycles of continuous improvement at every level of the school division, and it will employ evidence-based decision-making in its consideration of process improvements, policy making, and budgeting and accountability.

Policy:

IGBA - Programs for Students with Disabilities

Funding Source or Fiscal Impact (where applicable)

File Attachment:

180621_SWD Evaluation Update_Board Memo_v1.pdf

180621_SWD Evaluation Update_PowerPoint_v1.pdf

180621_SWD Eval Subcommittee Assgnmts_v1.pdf

Agenda Item Summary:

This update provides the Board with an initial understanding of high level findings and next steps from the comprehensive evaluation of services for Students with Disabilities within ACPS. This information will be leveraged by the division over the summer months to convene committees of stakeholders to engage in planning to provide guidance to the division on how best to strategically address areas of recommendation. This guidance will then be leveraged in the finalization of a three-year division action plan that will chart the course for the future of special education services within ACPS.

Background:

ACPS has been working with Public Consulting Group (PCG) to evaluate services to students with disabilities during the 2017-18 school year. The purpose of this update is to provide the Board with information around the work completed to date, what are immediate next-steps in this project, and a review of high level commendations and recommendations as a preview to the final full report and presentation in September 2018. These high level findings will inform the division’s development of guidance documents through committee work in summer 2018 which will be used to develop a division action plan to be presented in October 2018.

Since June 2017, PCG has collected information from various sources and stakeholders within the division to develop these high level findings. The expanded scope of the project in fall 2017 resulted in all elementary and secondary schools within the division being observed multiple times through classroom observations and student shadowing. Parents, staff, and Board members participated in this evaluation effort through focus groups, interviews, or surveys conducted by PCG over the course of this school year.

Recommendation:

The Superintendent recommends that the School Board review the attached materials for possible planning, procedural, programmatic, and/or budgetary changes.

Approvals:

Recommended By:
Signed By:
	Dr. Clinton Page - Chief Accountability Officer

Signed By:
	Lois Berlin -