Thanks to Michelle Boutwell, SETRC trainer at Erie 2 CC BOCES who compiled the piece below. 

State Performance Plan Indicator #2 addresses the drop out rate for students with disabilities.  At the end of the first phase of our SPP, the expectation is that no more than 19.9% of SWDs will drop out (the bar will only get higher).  When a district is targeted as being at risk or in need of intervention for SPP #1(graduation) and SPP#2, we focus our attention at all three levels of students’ school careers.  We look for early warning signs at the elementary and middle school levels and target groups of students at the high school level who fall into the “at risk” category and see if we can keep them from jumping ship.

Here are some signs that you can look for in building risk profiles for your students: (2 or more research studies have supported these findings)

Elementary
• Low achievement (use universal screening data)
• Retention (student is older than his peers)
• Poor attendance
• Low socioeconomic status  

Middle School

• High-risk peer group
• High-risk behavior
• Low achievement
• Retention (older than his peers)
• Poor attendance
• Low educational expectations from school personnel
• Low socioeconomic status
• High family mobility
• Low family expectations
• Low family contact with the school
• Low number of family centered conversations about school

High School

• High number of work hours
• Parenthood
• Low achievement
• Retention (older than his peers)  1 grade of retention increases the risk by 40%; 2 grades of retention increases the risk by 90%
• Attendance  (Does your attendance policy contribute to low attendance?)
• Low educational expectations from the school
• Low commitment to school
• No extracurricular activity participation
• Misbehavior
• Low socioeconomic status
• Low education of parents
• Not living with both parents
• The top 5 reasons that students from ages 16-25 give for dropping out: (Rotermund, California Dropout Research Project, Statistical Brief #2, May 2007)
        1. Classes not interesting  47%
        2. Missed too many days of school  43%
        3. Friends are not interested in school  42%
        4. Excess freedom/too few life rules  38%
        5. Failing school  35%

Once we identify the students who are at high risk of dropping out of school, our collective challenge is trying to prevent it.  Between October 2005 and October 2006 enough students dropped out of US schools to fill 9, 690 school buses!  Think about what that does to our country’s economic and health care challenges.

Check out the National Dropout Prevention Center Network at Clemson University for more information.

This last week in April has been a tough one for me.  I received one letter of retirement, attended a good bye party for an aide who resigned to join the military, learnt of the mysterious operation of one teacher, toured a public school that is going to take students back from the BOCES, because the school has the staff and facilities to do so;   had to deal with an employee issue that was murky from the beginning and only got more so as the week progressed.  I feel battered and bruised.  The last issue is the most disconcerting.  However, some things are predictable I am told so we are all more learned the next time around. 

The student issue regarding the ability of a school district to educate its own, is actually very exciting.  Four special education classrooms fully equipped with staff, materials and dependable outcomes in terms of student exit at the end of high school are already in place within the component school.  Our Hewes Center has students that the district can educate and trade us.  Essentially we at the Hewes Center can return 4-5 students whose exit will be an IEP diploma and receive in return 8 students with the potential to receive High School Regents Diplomas ( one of the highest general education diplomas besides Advanced Regents) within 4 years.  This will be a win-win for the BOCES because we shall be able to curb the high drop out rate being experienced by this school district, improve the passing grades for graduating cohorts, increase college enrollments but most importantly help students navigate the road of success who otherwise would not have – students classified LD, high spectrum autism, ED, OHI would all fall in this category. 

Why is the Hewes Center poised at this time for such a  ready challenge?  We have 9 teachers who are now Highly Qualified and Certified Grades 7-12, in the core academic content areas whose committement to teaching, learning and students can pull this off with ease.  We have been working on this program plan for 5 years and every year we have grown this plan by recruiting teachers who are qualified, staffing the program with the right amount of paraprofessional support and infusing the classrooms with needed educational technology. 

The above plan will take effort and passion.  The teachers and staff at the Center are ready for this challenge.  The BOCES is living its mission….. After the tour of the 4 classrooms, debriefing about how this plan might work, selling the idea to the local school in terms of student outcomes, program qualification, drop out strategies and prevention, our next step will be a tour of our programs by the High School CSE chair and a Guidance Counselor.  One teacher has already visited from that High School and is impressed with what he sees and motivated by his role in this plan.  The other three teachers in the district know that the plan will take place and are inquiring about the students who will be returning.  CSE meetings have to be set within the next 7 weeks to plan for the return of these students and well as for the transfer of others to the BOCES.   We are stoked!

Buffalo St. leads child-learning study

Business First of Buffalo – by Allissa Kline

On February 2, 2009, Tom Duffy a trainer for the Model Transition Grant administered by the University of Buffalo, funded by New York State, visited the Hewes Center and conducted staff development around the topic of teaching self-determination and self-advocacy for students.  Our Erie 2 CC BOCES is part of this grant which monitors the growth and progress of students with disabilities in terms of their post- secondary goals and transition to adulthood. 

Our teachers were taught the meaning of self-determination and self-advocacy in light of life in general, their own needs and desires.  Following this curriculum for this was discussed, shared and referenced.

The Hewes Center Special Education Team focused on  indicator 13 and indicator 14.  Summary conclusions included

1  all students grades 3-12+ will be invited to their CSE meetings. 

2.  Students will bring class work samples with them and will be schooled to speak about their future goals and ambitions.

3.  Focusing on indicator 13 and 14 of the SED requirements that are now monitored for IEP development, students will be involved in the writing of their IEPs, understand what an IEP is and why they have one;  know the difference between and IEP diploma and a Regents High School Diploma.  These latter differences are a huge impact in terms of future employment and post-secondary training for students. 

I am very excited at the thought of conducting a tour of our High School Special Education Programs which are aimed at three distinct student groups – 4 year College bound, Career & Technical College education with immediate entry into 2 year colleges or the work place and students who will need supportive living and job coaching.  Our programs currently consist of five 1:6:1 classrooms and two 1:8:1 classrooms.  We have not had this level of programming within our BOCES in Chautauqua County and have planned for  this over the past 5 years.   

Calls are coming in to tour of high school programs and a brochure is being developed so that high school Principals and Directors of Special Education can equally begin to plan their cohort graduation results four years before students enter high school.  Both these offices within a school share equal responsibility for planning, developing and investing in educational programs that benefit students and which will lead to 4 year graduations from high school.  School districts that are showing interest in our work at the Hewes Center include – Southwestern and Randolph.  Our goal is to reach all schools in the Southern Tier and to accomplish this teachers will be heavily involved with me in the crafting of our brochure so as to reflect the exciting instructional work being accomplished and the student learning taking place at the Hewes Center in our grade 9-12 programs.

Program Highlights: 

English:  Big Read America Project in colloaboration with area libraries and colleges – To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. 

English:  Celebration of the 200th Birthday of Abraham Lincoln – reading of the Speeches at Gettysburg. 

Electives:  Marine Biology, Foundations of Music, Creative Writing, CPR training, Work Experience and Job shadowing.   

Field Trips:  Step Into Africa, an interactive Exhit at the Jamestown Savings Bank Ice Skating Rink, Illstyle:  a hip hop production staged at the Reg Lenna Civic Center/Theatre. 

Extra-Curricular:  HIgh Student newspaper written and published by students, Student Council, Popcorn and Pizza sales to promote student entreprenuership, student membership in NAMI – National Association for the Mentally Ill, donation to St. Susan’s Kitchen by students on behalf of NAMI.  Honor and Merit Roll. 

Monthly Guest Speaker Series:  To date Jim Tillotson, His Climb Up the Himalayas, Kelly Joslyn, How the Democrats took the White House.