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Your one-stop connection to resources about the Office of Special Education Program State Personnel Development Grants!

The goal of Office of Special Education Program's (OSEP) funding program is to assist state education agencies and their partners to reform early intervention, educational, and transitional services systems to improve results for children with disabilities. To achieve this goal, the State Personnel Development Grants (SPDGs) may be used to improve systems of professional development, technical assistance and/or dissemination of knowledge about best practices.

Events

• April 2: SPDG Directors' Webinar (3pm ET)
  Reaching Rural Families, Districts, and Schools
     Karen Thompson, Ask Resource Center, IA
  Structuring SPDG Project Supports to Increase Sustainability
     Kim St. Martin, MIchigan SPDG
   
• April 9: MTSS Community of Practice Webinar (1pm ET)
  Common Processes to Inform Intensive Literacy Instruction: An Iowa SPDG Case Study
     Kathy Bertsch, Iowa Department of Education
   
• April 13: Coaching Community of Practice Webinar (2pm ET)
  Book Study: “If Instructional Coaching Really Works, Why Isn’t It Working?” (Moody)
   

NEWS

Are you considering applying for a SPDG grant? Please review these webinars that help potential applicants consider elements of an effective professional development system that leads to full implementation and sustainability:

Recorded Webinars with NASDSE for potential applicants
OSEP and NASDSE have joined together to help states think through their professional development system as they consider applying for the 2020 State Personnel Development Grants Program (SPDG). Each month, an expert presenter from OSEP, an OSEP funded technical assistance center, or a current OSEP funded SPDG grant are sharing their insights on an important aspect creating an effective professional development system.

Draft Revised EB-PD Worksheet

Please click the link above to review this draft, revised worksheet and edit if you think further revisions are needed.  Return to Jennifer Coffey (Jennifer.coffey@ed.gov) by April 15^th.  Big thanks to SIGnetwork evaluators and SISEP for their contributions!

APR Webinar with discussion of intervention fidelity, implementation teams, and sustainability plans.

FY 2020 SPDG APR Directions and 524B Form
If you have any questions, please reach out to your Project Officer.

Notable Efforts from your SPDG Colleagues

Iowa SPDG Spotlight on Preschool (March 2020, Issue 11, pdf)
The Preschool Strandi of Iowa’s SPDG is aimed at “ensuring preschool teams are confident and competent in providing high quality Specially Designed Instruction (SDI) in order to improve outcomes for young children with disabilities in inclusive preschool settings. By implementation year 3, 4 year-olds with disabilities meeting expectations for literacy grew by more than 45%.

Iowa SPDG Spotlight (January 2019, Issue 8, pdf)
Learn more about how you can use data to dertmine coaching strategies and frequency from this report on the external evaluation of the impact of the Iowa SPDG grant on teacher outcomes.

Kansas SPDG’s special education teacher retention data: https://ksdetasn.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/resource/upload/2398/2018-19_eMSS_Evaluation_Brief.pdf demonstrate that 95% percent of the SPDG mentees from 2012-2017 were still working as teachers in 2019.   76% of that 95% were still working as special educators.

Kansas e-Mentoring for Student Success, the SPDG-supported initiative, provided training, coaching, and reflection opportunities that guided new teachers to implement evidence-based instructional practices. Additionally, mentees participated in one to three Explorations (i.e., eight-week guided conversations with application and reflection components on a topic related to classroom management, professional practice, or family engagement).

Save the dates

July 20-22, 2020
Please save the date and plan to attend the OSEP Project Directors’ Conference: July 20-22, 2020, Crystal Gateway Marriot, Arlington, VA

Newly Recorded Webinars!

• Jennifer Coffey, APR Webinar with discussion of intervention fidelity, implementation teams, and sustainability plans.
   
• Lynn Holdheide, Aligning with Statewide Initiatives and Federal Programs
   
• Melissa Nantais, MIBLSI; the Vanderbilt IRIS Team, and the Illinois MTSS Team
  Using Technology for Training: Integrating High Quality Modules into Your Learning Progression
   
• Shauna Harps and Brad Keller describe best practices in writing and describing your measures in What You Can Do to Improve Your Program Measure Submission: http://coe-signet.uoregon.edu/media/Recordings/2019/11-01-2019_ImprovingMeasureSubmissions.mp4
   
• Dr. Carol Trivette shares learning strategies to better engage and motivate adults with Reflections on How to Enhance: Learning: HPL II  http://www.signetwork.org/event_calendar/events/1526
   
• Dr. Tanya B. Ihlo describes Differentiating Supports for a Wide Range of Systems & Instructional Coaches. She shares how coaches can match strategies to educator need and evaluate the impact of the strategy: http://coe-signet.uoregon.edu/media/Recordings/2019/09-09-2019_Coaching_CoP.mp4

This website is managed by the SIGNetwork support team at the University of Oregon and financially supported by SIG and SPDG projects. Feedback is welcome.

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