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SAYREVILLE — Communities must bring disabled residents to the table when planning for disasters because their insight is invaluable, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Office of Disability Integration and Coordination said Thursday.

Click here to register!What:Please Join the Southwest ADA Center and the Texas Governor's Committee for People with Disabilities for another ADA Virtual Round Tables webinar.   Attorney Deborah A. Green with the Law Offices of Deborah Green, and Attorney Tom Ruffner, Court Investigator with Travis County Probate Court in Austin, Texas will discuss a range of financial and legal tools for planning for a lifetime of support. When:Monday, December 5, 2011 12:00 PM Mountain  Contact:Phone: (713) 520-0232Email: ilru@ilru.org

What:Join us for a presentation on "Special Needs Planning Solutions" by Michael Ray, parent of a child with disabilities and a partner at Yellowstone Financial Services.You'll learn vital information and important steps in Planning for a secure future for your child, when you're no longer here to care for him or her.When:Thursday, February 2, 20126:30 pm - 8:00 pmWhere:Easter-Seals Goodwill1537 Ave D, Suite 115Billings, MTContact:Kelly MeliusPhone: (406)657-9728

Download the full flyer for the Sue Gendron Workshop here!What:Education teams will gain a clear understanding of how the new standards and assessments differ from what is currently taught and tested. Participants will be provided with tools and strategies to address today’s standards and assessment needs while preparing to move their instructional programs to the new standards and assessments, to be phased in over the next few years.  Issues and topics to be discussed will include the following: Planning for Evolutionary Reinvention – Understanding Classroom Implications for 2014 Planning Tool — Characteristics of Standards Alignment Checklist Introduction to the Common Core State Standards: ELA, Mathematics, Science Next Generation Assessments Meeting the Needs of All Students Technology Implications and Planning Communication/Engagement Strategies Target audience:School-based Teams (Administrators, Coaches, Curriculum Directors, Teachers). Register online on My Learning Plan (directions are attached above). When:March 22-23, 20128:30 am - 4:00 pm both daysWhere:The Commons1794 Baxter Lane EastBozeman, MTContact:Sharon RedfernRESA4U Executive Director Phone: (406) 422-5049 (Home)      (406) 672-1549 (Cell)Email: sredfern@resa4u.org or smredfern@optimum.net

A parent must request, in writing, that their child be assessed by their school district. Assessment areas include social/emotional, academic, occupational, recreational and physical therapy, speech and language, physical education, vision, and hearing. Assessments are determined by the unique needs of each child. The district must provide an assessment plan within 15 days of this request. The district has 60 days from receipt of the signed assessment plan to conduct the assessments and hold a meeting. After the district has completed its assessments, and if a child qualifies, an Individual Education Plan is developed at a meeting with the district assessors and parents. The types of areas discussed at an IEP meeting include results from the assessments, eligibility, goals, related services and placement.

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.)