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Executive Summary


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Improving Academic and Behavioral Results for Children with Disabilities through Sustained Research Based Professional Development
Wisconsin State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG)

Executive Summary
April 21, 2008-March 31, 2009

Introduction

This executive summary represents the second year of Wisconsin’s five year State Personnel Development Grant (SPDG), which is focused on improving the educational results for children with disabilities birth through 26 through the delivery of high quality instruction and the recruitment and retention of highly qualified educators. Our SPDG has presented the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction with the opportunity to create a statewide Wisconsin Personnel Development System (WPDS). The WPDS provides data- driven, sustained research- based professional development opportunities focused on improved professional practice leading to successful academic and behavioral results for children with disabilities.

Two building blocks form the foundation of WPDS. The first building block is an effective research- based professional development model, the Wisconsin Personnel Development Model the WPDM (see attachment #2). The second building block includes of a system of five Hubs, each responsible for using the WPDM as the means to deliver content focused professional development opportunities that are aligned with the improvement strategies identified in our State Performance Plan (SPP).

Using the foundation of our WPDM and the five Hubs, the WPDS continues to support these three goals:

Goal A: Increase the application of scientifically based practices in identified core content areas through both preservice and inservice professional development for educators and early interventionists in targeted LEAs and communities.
Goal B: Sustain implementation of new knowledge and skills through regional infrastructure that provides and supports ongoing learning utilizing trained mentors, communities of practice, and other proven strategies.
Goal C: Increase participation of communities, family members, and youth in the system change process that results in organizations with the capacity to engage, support, and transition children with disabilities birth to 26.

Summary Year Two

In July of 2008, due to a cut in the federal funding of the SPDGs, Wisconsin was notified by the Office of Special Education Programs that our state SPDG would face a 53 percent cut in funding for the 2008-09, or this second year of our grant. In dollars, this amounted to a funding reduction of $711,678.00. Despite this decrease in funding, by managing year one funding more tightly, our year two SPDG accomplished the following activities:

  • Established a statewide SPDG Advisory Committee including individuals representing LEAs, IHEs, statewide parent organizations, WDPI administrators and consultants, Wisconsin Department of Health Services, Wisconsin Technical College System, Wisconsin Education Association Council, Wisconsin Council of Administrators of Special Services, Association of Wisconsin School Administrators, and CESA administrators.
  • Sustained the work of the SPDG Hubs, which includes an Early Childhood hub, Responsive Education for All Children or REACh Hub, Transition Hub, and the Parent Leadership Hub.
  • Established a fifth Hub, the IHE Hub whose members include representatives from IHEs, LEAs, statewide parent organizations, and the WDPI. This Hub is currently working with the National Center to Improve Recruitment and Retention of Qualified Personnel for Children with Disabilities (Personnel Improvement Center) to develop a personnel preparation program plan focused on increasing accessibility to higher education coursework for our urban and rural candidates in high need LEAs.
  • The Hubs have identified and presented targeted content based professional development activities that have been focused on building capacity to meet indicators found within the SPP annual performance report for Parts B and C. The indicators that have been identified include indicators #1, #6, #8, #12, and #13 of Part B and #2, #4 #8 of Part C.
  • All of the SPDG partners have been trained by the REACh Hub to use the WPDM, an effective research based professional development model, to deliver content based professional development activities. In total, this represents 148 individuals representing members of the Parent Leadership Hub, the Early Childhood Hub, the Transition Hub, as well as the Regional Service Network (RSN) facilitators in our CESA network.
  • Designed several guides to support training and implementation of the WPDM which include, “The Wisconsin Personnel Development Model Guide”, “The Wisconsin Personnel Development Facilitator Tool Kit”, and “The Wisconsin Personnel Development Implementation Guide.”
  • Developed a pre-implementation survey tool that can be used to help district leaders assess their district’s current professional development system and its alignment with the WPDM.
  • Continue to have monthly internal DPI workgroup meetings designed to improve communication between teams and divisions within the DPI, in addition to collaborative meetings among the five Hubs and external Hub regional meetings.

Another exciting accomplishment of our SPDG is that over the last year a voluntary WDPI cross -agency professional development workgroup (CA-PDAT) has been structured using the foundation of the WPDM. The CA-PDAT has been meeting to learn about the many forms of professional development that WDPI currently provides and to consider best practice information that may be useful for our staff. In addition, this group has been looking at how to improve connection and communication across various professional development activities offered by WDPI. The goal of this workgroup is to encourage the WDPI to endorse the WPDM as a way for state systems and school leaders to improve teacher professional development focusing on improved student learning. Through the support of the SPDG, this workgroup is currently involved in promoting our colleagues’ knowledge of the WPDM as a means to offer high-quality professional learning. In the next few months, we will be working toward developing professional development opportunities based on the same elements of the WPDM. These elements establish clear expectations of how high-quality professional learning is accomplished.

The last six months of the SPDG have seen much interest and activity around the WPDM and the goals established in the grant. This is a very exciting time for educators, parents, and community members as they focus energies and opportunities that will improve the targeted indicators of the SPP and educational outcomes for students with disabilities.