{"id":5408,"date":"2018-09-09T20:00:23","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T00:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/?p=5408"},"modified":"2018-09-09T12:09:40","modified_gmt":"2018-09-09T16:09:40","slug":"have-your-say-on-the-next-steps-in-delivering-services-to-students-with-disabilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/have-your-say-on-the-next-steps-in-delivering-services-to-students-with-disabilities\/","title":{"rendered":"Have Your Say on the Next Steps in Delivering Services to Students With Disabilities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Last school year, ACPS commissioned an evaluation of the services it provides to students with disabilities. We are getting ready to share the report from this evaluation with you in October.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The evaluation report commended the use of high-yield co-teaching models, resources available to city-wide classes, guidance for English Learner students, inclusive settings and parent engagement. It also commended the low drop-out rate and successful graduation rate for students with disabilities.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some of its recommendations include improving referral and assessment practices that lead to the over-identification of certain groups; ensuring clear academic expectations set for students with disabilities; focusing on staff recruitment, retention and morale; and ensuring the implementation of specially designed instruction and targeted interventions.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once the report is publicly available, ACPS will seek public comment from various groups in the community to make sure that we have a clear roadmap to best serve our students.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We will be hosting meetings with the Special Education Advisory Committee, families with students with disabilities and the wider ACPS community to seek comment on the proposed plan to improve services and what is needed to take the services we offer to the next level.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In October, the full report along with key findings will be presented to the Alexandria City School Board. We will update you as soon as we have the dates for this presentation confirmed. You can <\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.acps.k12.va.us\/acpstv\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">watch the School Board meeting live on ACPS-TV<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Following the presentation to the School Board, there will be a series of meetings to comment on an action plan developed from the report\u2019s findings. A group of 36 staff and community members have been working collaboratively to recommend actions to improve the delivery of special education services. The action steps they recommend will be open to comment from vested groups and the wider community throughout October and November.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Along with in-person meetings and discussion groups, ACPS will also be sending out an online feedback form to parents to solicit their open-ended comments on the next steps. We will be sharing this via ACPS Express and your school newsletters in the coming weeks. Please watch out for the feedback form.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The goal is to have a final plan of action for the next steps by late fall.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/esbpublic.acps.k12.va.us\/attachments\/9990430d-47b2-4a74-bfd0-5369ab5bfe6a.pdf\">See the presentation from the Board meeting in June (PDF)<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ACPS commissioned an evaluation of the services it provides to students with disabilities. Learn about the next steps following the release of the report this October.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":5409,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5408","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news-and-announcements"],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-22 01:11:55","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5408"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5434,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5408\/revisions\/5434"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.acpsk12.org\/staff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}