On May 15, 2012, JoAnne M. Malloy, Ph.D., of the Institute on Disability at the University of New Hampshire presented a Webinar for the Community of Practice for School Behavioral Health titled “Personal Futures Planning and Youth Engagement.” The presentation centered on students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD) and ways for engaging EBD high school students in their academic and career planning. This group of students is…

Read More

On Tuesday, February 28, Dr. Laura C. Brown, Director of Georgia Learning Resources System (GLRS), presented a Webinar titled, “GraduateFIRST: The Dropout Prevention Destination.” During this event, Dr. Brown described Georgia’s GraduateFIRST program, identified ways schools can make improvements, shared tools and resources available to schools, and highlighted the successes of specific schools using the program.

GraduateFIRST has a two-fold mission aimed at (1) increasing graduation rates for students with…

Read More

At the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Project Director’s Conference in Washington, D.C., last month, Greg Roberts and Christy Murray of the Center on Instruction (COI), Special Education Strand, presented findings from COI’s meta-analysis on the effectiveness of interventions for adolescent struggling readers.  The meta-analysis looked at the effect of different types of reading interventions for struggling readers and the implications for…

Read More

Do you have suggestions on how to invest IDEA Part D funds to support the transition of students with disabilities into colleges and careers?  The U.S. Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) is collecting suggestions from the public on the future of IDEA Part D investments in the areas of Early Childhood, Transition to College and Career, and Deaf-Blind.  Members of the public may identify challenges and emerging…

Read More

The National High School Center and the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC) have produced an annotated bibliography that reviews over 50 resources on high school redesign from a special education perspective. Special Education in High School Redesign is designed to identify research-based programs and tools focused on improving high school student outcomes and preparing them for life after high school, specifically for students with…

Read More

In our most recent posts, we have examined indicators that can identify students with disabilities who are at risk of dropout.  In order to increase the graduation rate of students with disabilities, the National High School Center suggests the following recommendations:

1.  Focus on ninth grade achievement: To increase the graduation rate for students with disabilities, the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) recommends that educators support students with…

Read More

In our previous post, we noted that the Consortium on Chicago School Research (CCSR) identified four predictors of risk for dropout during ninth grade: course grades, course failures, absences, and “on-track” status.[1]  This post explains how these indicators apply to students with disabilities.

Course Grades:

According to the CCSR report, What Matters for Staying On-Track and Graduating in Chicago Public Schools: A Focus on Students with Disabilities (2009),…

Read More