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Click here for more information! (PDF) What:9-month Parent Support Group Free of Charge. This group is designed for parents who are interested in adoption, in the process of adopting, those who have newly adopted, and interested others. EQUIP is a structured, psycho-educationally based group lead by a licensed therapist. Each month, we will concentrate on a specific topic relevant to adoption and have time for both teaching and discussion. This group is designed to support those beginning the adoption journey who would like information and the camaraderie of other families at the same early stage in the process. For parents who need the support of other families in dealing with specific challenges usually encountered once their adoptees are settled in (~ 1 year or more into the adoption), we offer the CONNECT group, also available once a month.When: The second Thursday of each month7:00 pm to 8:30 pmWhere: Evangelical Free Church S. 19th St. Bozeman, MT, Room 102Contact:Kate Cremer-VogelPhone: 582-5480 Email: cremervogel@theglobal.net

Click here to Download Flyer for This Event (pdf file)   What: This group is designed for parents who are interested in adoption, in the process of adopting, those who have newly adopted, and interested others. EQUIP is a structured, psycho-educationally based group lead by alicensed therapist. Each month, we will concentrate on a specific topic relevant to adoption and have time for both teaching and discussion. This group is designed to support those beginning the adoption journey who would like information and the camaraderie of other families at the same early stage in the process. For parents who need the support of other families in dealing with specific challenges usually encountered once their adoptees are settled in (1 year or more into the adoption), we offer the CONNECT group, also available once a month. Please contact Kate Cremer-Vogel* for more information about this option. We hope you’ll join us aswe launch EQUIP for the first season this fall 2011! We look forward to seeing you there! *Please contact Kate Cremer-Vogel at 582-5480 or by email atcremervogel@theglobal.net if you would like more information about this option. When:The second Thursday of each month, 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm  Where:Evangelical Free Church S. 19th St. Room 102Bozeman, MT

States are quickly lining up behind a set of ambitious national academic standards that set a high bar for students with disabilities. Already 27 have adopted the plan known as the Common Core State Standards and several more states are expected to sign on in the coming weeks. The standards, developed by members of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, are designed to establish uniform guidelines for English and math instruction in kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Washington, D.C. –The Federal Communications Commission today adopted rules requiring text messaging providers to enable Americans to text 911 in an emergency. Building on commitments made by America’s four largest wireless carriers to support text-to-911 by May 2014, the new rules will ensure that all remaining wireless carriers and certain IP-based text application providers are prepared to support text- to-911 by the end of the year. After that time, if a 911 call center requests text-to-911, text messaging providers will have six months to deploy the service in that area.

Click here to register for this webinar What: The rapid growth in adoption of "Response to Intervention" across the nation's public schools, sparked in large measure by changes to IDEA's identification procedures for specific learning disabilities, is raising issues of compliance with IDEA's Child Find mandate.   Specifically, under IDEA (2004), school districts are no longer required to use a discrepancy model when determining eligibility, but instead, may use alternative means (e.g., response-to-intervention (RTI) or processing deficit approaches) to identify students. Consequently, significant variability among states in the SLD identification criteria now exists. The implementation of new criteria - particularly RTI - may result in delay or failure to properly identify students as eligible for IDEA services.   This Webinar will present the latest information on RTI adoption across states and the use of RTI for SLD identification. It will review recent challenges, including litigation, and provide guidance on an array of practical advocacy options that can be used to capitalize on the RTI process-to help struggling students regardless of whether they are suspected of having SLD-and deal with the delay or denial of access to special education potentially posed by RTI.  Time will be provided for questions from participants. When: Wednesday, November 2, 2011  12:00pm - 1:30pm Mountain

A rural Washington school district has found a new way to better support students needing speech therapy. Moses Lake School District 161, a 7,000-student district located in Moses Lake, WA, recently adopted PresenceLearning, a live online speech therapy service, to lighten the caseload for its staff of speech-language pathologists, according to Darcy Johnson, special services director for the district, in a prepared statement released today by PresenceLearning. More than 70 students are participating in the new program.

Special needs parenting is a lifestyle.  For many of us, it is not the lifestyle we chose.  And even if we did choose to become a special needs family through adoption, there are still plenty of reasons to be cranky – and then joke about it later.

Click here for more information! What:MCT in Missoula is putting on two special performances of Once Upon A Mattress, designed specifically for people with Autism and Aspergers.  This means they will be moderating noise levels, using increased visual aids, eliminating any lights shining into the audience and making other adaptations to make the play accessible and enjoyable for people with different sensory processing. Quiet areas will be provided for children who want to withdraw for a break.  A company in New York originally did an adaptive play for school children on the autism spectrum to great success and heartfelt appreciation by the children and their families. MCT is adopting some of the lessons learned by the NY company and doing some adapting of their own. MCT plans to put on at least two performances and may extend if that seems desirable. To help apprehensive theatre-goers who might not know what to expect, a website is being created so that families can travel step-by-step through the evening and be fully prepared for the fun to follow. When:Tuesday, January 24, 2012Show begins at 6:30 pmWhere:Missoula, MTMissoula Childrens TheatreContact and Reservations:Alexandra Volkerts - (406)449-2344 or email her at Alexis@disabilityrightsmt.orgTickets are available at the MCT Box Office or to make your reservations call (406) 728-7529. All seats are $10.

You can download the My Learning Plan Directions here! Download the agenda here! What:OPI Tobacco Prevention InitiativeDana Geary will present the state initiative on tobacco prevention policy and incentives for school districts to become involved.  Dana will also indicate the policies that will change in the MSSA Rural Policy Handbook for adoption.  New tobacco products aimed at our youth will be presented during the course if this half-day workshop. Media Literacy 101 Kids spend an average of more than 7 hours a day with some form of media. As a result, they sometimes grow up having more interaction with TV, the Internet, and other media messages than people. Media Literacy refers to the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media messages of all kinds. This interactive training will explore basic concepts of media literacy by examining TV commercials, messages and print ads, and tobacco and alcohol marketing. We will work in small and large groups to discuss the language of persuasion, deconstruct ads, and create counter messages. After this training, participants will have a greater understanding of media literacy and walk away with tools they can use with their learners. Objective 1: Participants will define media literacy and understand some techniques of persuasion. Objective 2: Participants will understand how media literacy education helps prevent tobacco and alcohol initiation among youth. Objective 3: Participants will learn new media literacy activities and exercises they can do with their learners.When and Where: Thursday, February 23rd, 2012 at the Lewistown Yogo Inn Mountain RoomsMonday, February 27th, 2012 at the Butte Quality Inn Big Sky Room (formerly War Bonnet)Tuesday, February 28th, 2012 at the Bozeman Comfort Inn Big Sky Room8:30 am - 4:00 pm All daysContact:Sharon M. RedfernExecutive Director, RESA4UPhone: (406) 422-5049 (Home)  (406) 672-1549 (Cell)Email: sredfern@resa4u.org or smredfern@optimum.net

The Social Security Administration will become the latest federal agency to start using the term “intellectual disability” in lieu of “mental retardation.” In a final rule published in the Federal Register on Thursday, Social Security officials said they approved the change in terminology citing “widespread adoption” of the term “intellectual disability.”

An effort by the Obama administration to overhaul the troubled federal agency that is responsible for the education of tens of thousands of American Indian children is getting major pushback from some tribal leaders and educators, who see the plan as an infringement on their sovereignty and a one-size-fits-all approach that will fail to improve student achievement in Indian Country. As Barack Obama makes his first visit to Indian Country as president this week, the federal Bureau of Indian Education—which directly operates 57 schools for Native Americans and oversees 126 others run by tribes under contract with the agency—is moving ahead with plans to remake itself into an entity akin to a state department of education that would focus on improving services for tribally operated schools. A revamped BIE, as envisioned in the proposal, would eventually give up direct operations of schools and push for a menu of education reforms that is strikingly similar to some championed in initiatives such as Race to the Top, including competitive-grant funding to entice tribal schools to adopt teacher-evaluation systems that are linked to student performance. The proposed reorganization of the BIE comes after years of scathing reports from watchdog groups, including the U.S. Government Accountability Office, and chronic complaints from tribal educators about the agency’s financial and academic mismanagement and failure to advocate more effectively for the needs of schools that serve Native American students. It also comes a year after U.S. Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell called the federally funded Indian education system “an embarrassment.” The BIE is overseen by the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which is housed within the U.S. Interior Department. Pushback From Tribes The proposal, released in April, was drafted by a seven-person “study group” appointed jointly by Ms. Jewell and U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Five of the panel’s members currently serve in the Obama administration. Some of the nation’s largest tribes, however, are staunchly opposed to the proposal, including the 16 tribes that make up the Great Plains Tribal Chairmans Association, which represents tribal leaders in South Dakota, North Dakota, and Nebraska. “It’s time for us to decide what our children will learn and how they will learn it because [BIE] has been a failure so far,” Bryan V. Brewer, the chairman of the 40,000-member Oglala Sioux tribe in Pine Ridge, S.D., said last month in a congressional hearing on the BIE. In the same hearing before the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, Charles M. Roessel, the director of the BIE and a member of the panel that drafted the plan, said the agency’s reorganization “would allow the BIE to achieve improved results in the form of higher student scores, improved school operations, and increased tribal control over schools.” (Despite multiple requests from Education Week, the BIE did not make Mr. Roessel or any other agency official available for an interview.)

Montana Common Core standards were adopted in 2011 by the Montana Board of Public Education. The standards set a floor, the minimum knowledge that students should have at every grade level, said Tobin Novasio, Lockwood Schools superintendent. Schools may add to that as local boards decide.

Several years ago, I had a courteous, if troubling, e-mail exchange with the architect of a hugely popular instructional innovation. She had heard that I had been criticizing this approach. (I had.) In a series of e-mails, I explained my reasons, starting with the fact that there was no research or strong evidence to support its widespread adoption. I asked, with increasing importunity, for any such evidence. Only after multiple requests did I finally receive an answer: There was no solid research or school evidence.