Consortium Minutes
April 30, 1999

Welcome: Mary Vaughan welcomed the group to the last consortium of the year.

UPDATES: Bruce Schroeder started the meeting.

ULRC: Davalee Miller gave the mentor news. Marilyn Sprick will be presenting in May. There will also be Crackerbarrell sessions to present ideas from the mentors. She said the ULRC is still taking applications for next year. (Iron & Millard districts are already in, thank you.) May 17th is the deadline. Next year’s dates for the Mentor Academy were in the folder. In October, Phil Stella will be coming to do Effective Presentation skills with the Mentors. He would also be available for districts before hand. Call Davalee if you might be interested.
Tracy Stewart said that planning is under way for Precision Teaching Conference. There is a conference announcement in the folder plus a call for presentations. June 30 is the deadline. There will be incentives for presenters, such as a special training before the conference.
Jerry Christensen introduced the April issue of Utah Special Educator. He said it was the best issue ever. It is the last in the series of IDEA principles—Procedural Safeguards. It contains outstanding articles. He also encouraged everyone to look at edu-quiz on the web page (www.ulrc.org).
Karen Marberger called attention to a survey in the folder for consortium to get feedback on the meeting for the last year. This is to help us plan better for the coming year.
Randy Schelble passed out an invitation to attend a session by Marilyn Sprick who is coming to Granite District to talk about reading. She also called attention to the Index from the last year’s Utah Special Educator. She announced that those who wrote this year received a geranium as a thank you. Randy also introduced the focus of the Utah Special Educator for next year. The ongoing theme will be "Effective Strategies for Student Success."
Bruce Schroeder talked about changes at the ULRC—Randy Schelble will be moving to Granite District as of July 1. He awarded a plaque to Randy for her outstanding service. He also awarded a plaque to Karen Marberger for her service to the ULRC. She leaves this summer to move to Boise, ID with her family.

PARENT CENTER: Helen Post announced an upcoming EdNet workshop training in partnership with USU about changes in the law on May 20 at 15 sites around the state. For more information contact the Parent Center.

USOE: Ken Reavis facilitated the following updates:
Brenda Broadbent gave an update for the preschool regional conference dates. She also introduced Michael Plotzker, the PreK Coordinator from New York who was visiting.
Mae Taylor said she hoped the districts got the announcement for special training presented by LRP called "Making Sense of the New Regulations" on May 18 in Salt Lake at the Salt Lake Hilton. Perry Zirkel will be one of the presenters. Contact the USOE for more information. On June 23rd another company will be doing a workshop in town on the law and will have local presenters. Mae and John Copenhaver will be presenting at that training. On Nov. 8-10 Improving American School Conference will be coming to present. The Special Education Law Conference will be August 2-4. Art Cernosia will present on Monday, August 2 on the new regulations.
Bruce Schroeder gave a State Improvement Grant (SIG) update. He explained the process of getting the grant. One aspect that impressed the federal government was the obvious strength of the connection between consortium and the education process. Bruce also talked about the "Utah Professional Educator Preparation Continuum" that will involve educators and the SIG money.
Nan Gray said that the state office is co-hosting the transition conference. There are 530 attending the conference.
Deb Andrews said that the last BEST meeting will be at the Ogden Eccles Conference Center. She also said that applications for next year’s track are in the mail.

INSTITUTES OF HIGHER LEARNING
University of Utah: Jack Mayhew said that they just had their annual student alumni reception. This us a way to honor past students who have made outstanding contributions. J.D. Berkland was the recipient for this year. Jeanette Misaka Outstanding Service Award was given to GIFTS program from Granite District. He talked about their course in Human Specialities. He was appreciative of those who helped with providing service opportunities for the students in connection with this class.
Utah State University: Ronda Menlove gave a quick update for their administrative endorsement program. The Special Ed Law class will be the recommended course; they have also added an at-risk class. The University is working toward a masters program for mild/moderate area via ed net. Marty Agran is leaving USU and they have lost Richard Young to BYU. They are looking for new people. USU is partnering with Utah Parent Center on EdNet course and they are excited for this partnership. She also announced the Interventions Conference on June 14-18.
Brigham Young University: Richard Young talked about the 22nd annual Conference on Interventions for At-Risk Children & Youth held at USU. There will be 16 or 17 people with national recognition presenting this year. BYU has over 60 students in revised certification program, 20 of those coming in from speech and language backgrounds. The school has made major changes in the master’s program to help students become dynamite teachers. They want to build a program for people who are already good teachers in the area of special education.

Consortium Partners: Linda Smith gave a Utah legislative update. She gave the results of the legislature concerning funding. The funding was the smallest increase that education has received in several years, which means a decrease in funding in several areas and programs. She told how Mae Taylor and Brenda Broadbent came up to help with getting preschool education funds. (Counts for preschool children need to be in by first week in January in order to help get funding.) She gave a handout on different bills passed that dealt with disabilities. Additional information is available on the internet or call 801-363-3300, (bills can be accessed from the USOE website, www.usoe.k12.ut.us).

Announcements:
Dale Sheld (USOE) received Outstanding Alumni Award from speech/language department at the University of Utah. Tom Hehir will be leaving OSEP and a new person will be appointed.

Tom Hudson is retiring from Nebo District.

Salt Lake City will be the site of the 2006 CEC convention.

PRESENTATION:

ROB GARDA, from the law firm of Fabian and Clendenin, presented "Lessons Learned from Due Process Over the Years." Best advice—Don’t want to be there! If you have to be involved in due process, the steps to take to present yourself well are:
1. Make sure you do everything you need to do. Make sure the proper people are at the IEP meeting. Parents can choose who needs to be at the meeting.
2. Go by the book.
3. Have all the components of the IEP filled out (objective monitoring criteria). Have at least two objective monitoring criteria for each goal.
4. Don’t make the placement before the IEP Meeting. Key is parental input here.
5. Child Find procedures (dissemination of information). You want to make sure district has adequate child find procedures. Did you overlook a clear sign of disability?
6. Does the current level of educational performance meet IEP goals. (have goals and objectives meet all goals) PLEP is very important, but need more than just scores. Must have a narrative as to what those scores mean. Involve parents as much as possible. Put more than just weaknesses down; put strengths down as well and how they achieved the goals from the past year.
7. Base IEP on good data. Be sure you fill in the least restrictive environment box.
8. Document everything.
9. Write down supplementary aids and services. Information from the IEP is critical for everyone who will be educating the child. Be sure that your objective monitoring criteria are documented and showing progress. Let parents know.
If you find yourself in a due process hearing, make a list of events that have happened and look at what has occurred. Make changes on IEP that are necessary to correct any mistakes you may have found. Try to find out just what the parents are concerned about and try to make changes that are necessary for agreement.

Gerry Giordano, Dean of the College of Education at Utah State University addressed the Consortium. His background is in special education. He has never been in a state where the universities and the school districts cooperate as well as here in Utah. He wanted to impress on the group his sincere appreciation of what the group does for special education. College of Education at USU is one of the largest in the country. A large number of those in the department are in the Center for Persons with Disabilities. USU ranked 40th in the nation for college of education. It was 6th in the nation for outside funding and 19th for master’s graduates.

Donna Suter wanted to tell more about the training programs for teachers of students with severe disabilities—ABLE training. She talked about the purposes for the training. She introduced Erica Smith from Ogden and Wendy Bills from Jordan who came to share their information about the ABLE training. This training looks at what the students are doing for evaluation. ABLE allows teachers to come up with positive things such as: likes, dislikes, learning characteristics and potential postschool activities. They have found it very helpful in dealing with students with severe disabilities.

Meeting adjourned at 12:05 PM