8 with 8

Welcome to the 9th season of the 8 with 8 podcast: The Co-Teaching Chronicles. The big idea behind co-teaching is that when general and special educators pair up to co-plan, co-instruct, and co-assess their students, it should provide instruction and support that is substantively better than what each teacher could provide on their own. But, like many collaborative endeavors, co-teaching is HARD to do well. So SST8 has been working like crazy over the last two years to create a range of supports for co-teachers in our region. In doing so, we have met dozens of teachers and leaders throughout our region with inspiring stories and unique angles on the art and science of co-teaching. In this season of 8 with 8, you’ll hear from teachers in a variety of settings and circumstances - from traditional districts to community schools to career centers - and across all grade levels. Regardless of what role and position in education YOU listen from, we’re confident that this season will bring you stories that ring true and ideas that will inspire. 

So get ready for a new season of 8 with 8 - The Co-Teaching Chronicles - coming to Anchor and all other podcast platforms on Friday, December 1. See you soon!

SST8 Online Co-Teaching Resources:

As we wrap up this season’s exploration of the essential questions we should ALL be asking about special education, based on Ohio’s Special Education Profile, we have a great conversation for you with one of our favorite colleagues at the Ohio Department of Education, Amy Szymanski. Amy is the Secondary Transition and Workforce Development Consultant in the Office for Exceptional Children. In the decade-plus that we’ve known Amy, she has always been a tireless advocate for students with disabilities - with a particular focus on what we can all do to help SWD be more likely to transition successfully into the workforce, post-secondary education, or the military. Join us as we discuss with Amy the increased focus on graduation in Ohio - what has brought that on, what the research suggests we should be looking at, and Ohio’s big plans for helping districts close the graduation gap for students with disabilities.

Co-Hosts: Helen Brophy, SST8 Educational Consultant, and Stacia Kaschak, SST7-8 Career-Technical Education Consultant

About our Guest: Amy Szymanski, Workforce Development Consultant in the Ohio Department of Education Office for Exceptional Children

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What does the movie Grease have to do with the Special Education Profile? Today’s essential question about special education focuses on students’ readiness for life beyond school: Are youth with disabilities prepared for life, work, and postsecondary education? From the perspective of Ohio's Special Education Profile, this essential question covers Indicators 1, 2, 13, and 14. In other words, at what rates are students with disabilities graduating by regular education standards, how often do they drop out, do they have a transition plan in place to guide their final years of schooling, and do they enroll in college or vocational training, enlist in the military, or obtain employment once they graduate? These are the required data points that the federal government and Ohio monitor - however, we know that there is so much more that predicts post-school success for our students. Joining us today are Helen Brophy, SST8 consultant and transition guru, and Stacia Kaschak, Career-Technical Education consultant for SST regions 7 and 8. Grab your Pink Ladies/T-Birds jacket and take a listen as we "tell you more" about what it really means to be successful beyond school, and what to focus on to promote positive post-school success.

Co-Hosts: Mike Kaschak and Helen Brophy, SST8 Educational Consultants, and Stacia Kaschak, SST7 and 8 Career-Technical Education Consultant

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“Dispro” is a term familiar to seasoned special education leaders, but may not ring a bell for other educators. It refers to disproportionality, or significant disparities in our data regarding how we identify, serve, and discipline student with disabilities from various racial and ethnic groups. From the perspective of the Special Education Profile, it would seem pretty clear - you either have this phenomenon happening, or you don’t.  But as we tackle this week’s essential question - Are children with disabilities receiving equitable services and supports? - we will talk about ways that hidden disparities could be lurking in your data, and what you can do about them.

Co-Hosts: Jenine Sansosti, SST8 Director and Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Educational Consultant

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Welcome back to our season focused on critical questions we all need to be asking about special education. Today we are focusing on an essential  question that actually gets a lot of attention because it focuses on compliance. However, in today's episode we will bring to light the REAL reason why dotting our i’s and crossing our t’s in special education is so critical - and spoiler alert, it’s NOT about trying to stay out of trouble with the state.

Co-Hosts: Dee Dee Howes and Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultants

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Ohio currently ranks 31st in the country with regard to education of our young people and one has to wonder, "why? What can we be doing differently to improve the academic outcomes of our students?" Join us as SST8 consultants interview Bernadette Laughlin, Education Program Specialist with the Office for Exceptional Children, to discuss state, district, and classroom level practices that can influence all students systemically, not just those with neurodiverse needs.

Co-Hosts: Tracy Mail and Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Consultants

About Our Guest: Bernadette Laughlin is a Related Services Program Specialist at the Ohio Department of Education where she oversees all areas of related services in special education and provides professional development and training throughout the state to educators. Bernadette has a wide range of previous professional experience as a due process coordinator, education consultant, pupil services department facilitator, speech language pathologist, and as a lawyer. She completed her Bachelor of Science degree in Education-Speech Pathology and Masters of Arts in Education Policy & Leadership from The Ohio State University. She then attended Capital University Law School where she graduated Magna Cum Laude. Bernadette has been working for the Ohio Department of Education since 2010, with 26 years of previous experience at Westerville City Schools.

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Welcome back to our 8th season, which was inspired by Ohio’s Special Education Profile, a tool that helps districts know how their students are faring on key indicators - these indicators are aligned to six essential questions that we ALL should be asking about special education. If you missed last week’s episode, you may want to go back and take a listen so you can get an overview of the profile and the essential questions it poses. Today, SST8’s Stacey Smith and Dee Dee Howes will talk us through the first essential question of Ohio’s Special Education Profile, focused on how we’re supporting our youngest learners.

Co-Hosts: Stacey Smith and Dee Dee Howes, Educational Consultants, SST8

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This week we're kicking off a new season where we dig into some critical questions about how students with disabilities are really doing - questions that come from Ohio’s Special Education Profile. But our goal is to go much bigger than just the monitoring compliance implications of the Profile, and really get into what our goals are for students with disabilities, and what are some key considerations that we should be focusing on. Take a listen to get a handle on the six questions that EVERY educator should be asking for students with disabilities.

Co-Hosts: Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultant and Jenine Sansosti, SST8 Director

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We’re bringing our season on PBIS connections to a close… but not before we talk about what is most important of all: the people who do this work. How do we build a sense of collective responsibility and shared ownership across all educators in a building, so that everyone is contributing to a safe, predictable, and positive learning environment? Join us as we spend a few minutes summarizing some effective ways to get everyone involved in building and sustaining PBIS across the system.

Co-Hosts: Heidi Kerchenski and Mike Kaschak, Educational Consultants

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Expectations for today’s youngest students are higher and more rigorous than ever, but these little learners are also just learning how to be safe, respectful, and responsible as they interact with each other. With so much to teach in such little time, where do we start? SST8 Early Childhood consultants Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith are back this week to talk about one particularly critical skill for early learners, and the ways that developmentally appropriate practice and PBIS help us build it. 

Co-Hosts: Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith, SST8 Early Childhood Consultants

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Did you know that PBIS can give you a major leg-up when it comes to preschool licensing and Step Up to Quality? Today we discuss some ways in which the PBIS framework not only creates safe and secure learning environments for our youngest students, but sets preschool programs up for success with their regulatory and quality programming requirements. Two birds - one stone... or rather, one highly effective and impactful evidence-based framework!

Co-Hosts: Michelle Smith and Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultants

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The last two years have been trying for educators: Staffing shortages, limited access to substitute teachers, students whose learning, development, or behavior is off-track due to the pandemic, financial shortfalls... Every corner of the educational system is feeling the strain. In a recent survey 78% of educators feel physically and emotionally exhausted at the end of the day. Is there hope for a shift in education? Is there anything we can do about it?

Co-hosts: Frank Gant, SST8 Educational Consultant and Kim Labriola, Summit ESC Community and Family Partner Liaison. 

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Did you know that the US Surgeon General, Dr. Vivek Murphy, issued an urgent advisory statement on youth mental health? Increases in youth mental health needs were observed even prior to the pandemic, with 1 in 3high school students and half of female students reporting in 2019 that they experienced. persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness. This was an overall increase of 40% from 2009. And that was before the COVID-19 pandemic dramatically reshaped the mental health landscape. It’s clear that schools have a lot to deal with these days. That’s why this week we are talking with some local mental health leaders who can show us how PBIS helps to support districts’ mental health needs.

Co-Host: Heidi Kerchenski, SST8 Educational Consultant

Guests: Kristin Fazio, Summit Educational Service Center (SESC) Director of Student Services and Wellness Initiatives; Kim Labriola, SESCCommunity and Family Partnership Liaison

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The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration defines trauma as the response to an “event, series of events, or set of circumstances that is experienced by an individual as physically or emotionally harmful, or life threatening, and that has lasting adverse effects on the individual’s functioning and mental, physical, social, emotional, or spiritual well-being.” Trauma can result from a single event or it can result from multiple traumatic events over time. Potential traumatic events include, but are not limited to accidents, child abuse and neglect, bullying, medical illness, parent/caregiver death, inconsistent parenting due to mental health/alcohol or drug issues and more. The sad fact is that educators are becoming more and more familiar with trauma in the classroom because we are seeing it more often in the students we serve. Today we'll discuss how specific PBIS classroom practices can help us create a system of support that is ready to address these needs.

Co-Hosts: Heidi Kerchenski and Mike Kaschak, SST8 Educational Consultants

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We're continuing our focus on the many connections PBIS has - or should have - with the rest of educational practice. This week, we’re hitting another pretty obvious connection: social emotional learning (SEL). Join us as SST8’s own Rachel Undercoffer discusses practical considerations for aligning social emotional learning with the PBIS framework, why that matters for our students, and how that can make our work as educators a whole lot easier.

Co-Host: Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Educational Consultant

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Welcome to the first episode of our new season, where we’ll focus on the many ways that PBIS - AKA Positive Behavior Interventions and Support - connect to and strengthen the rest of educational practice. This week, SST8 consultants Frank Gant and Mike Kaschak are going to kick us off with one of the most obvious - but also one of the most consequential - connections: school discipline.  More and more districts are realizing the unintended consequences of disciplinary removals - those times when students are removed from the educational environment - and looking to PBIS as a way to shift educators’ energies to teaching and encouraging desired behavior.

Co-Hosts: Frank Gant and Mike Kaschak, SST8 Educational Consultants

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PBIS is everywhere and in everything! That’s what’s on our minds and in the research, in our seventh season of 8 with 8. You might think that SST8 would have nothing new to say about PBIS. After all, we have been aggressively supporting PBIS for over a decade! But once you see the power of this framework, you can’t help but see all of the ways that it strengthens or supports other educational priorities. Some of the connections we’ll cover this season are obvious: PBIS plays a big role in decreasing student discipline, promoting social-emotional learning, providing trauma informed care, and of course addressing student mental health needs. But what does PBIS have to do with curriculum and instruction? How can PBIS help you with preschool licensing? And, perhaps most important to our administrator colleagues: what can PBIS teach us about how to create a thriving workplace, overcome burnout, and onboard new staff?

For just about every challenge our profession is facing today, implementing PBIS can play a significant role in helping address it. So get ready for “8 Connections to PBIS”, 8 with 8’s seventh season - coming to your favorite podcast app or the Anchor website, starting next Friday, October 28th.

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As we close in on the end of this podcast season, and the end of another busy school year, we’re continuing to challenge ourselves with the question: Why are we still doing that? (Also the title of a great little book by Persida and William Himmele!) In this episode, we’re looking at social studies - why do we continue to short-change it as an instructional priority? In this episode, SST8’s Sarah Egan-Reeves talks to two state and local leaders in the area of social studies: Jim O’Connor, President of the Ohio Council for the Social Studies, and Adam Motter, a Learning Specialist for Social Studies in Akron Public Schools. In this ever-changing and complex society we live in, it’s critical that students understand our past and present in order to be prepared for the future - and we know that high-quality social studies instruction is a major part of how our children prepare to participate in our society as adults… and we know that it contributes to improved reading ability and overall learning!

Co-Host: Sarah Egan-Reeves, SST8 Educational Consultant

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We’re continuing this season’s exploration of educational practices that are mainstays in many schools - even though research may be saying it’s time to let them go. This week, we’re tackling a big one - behavior charts. You know... if you're having a good day, you're on green... if you've made some bad choices, you're on red. Different classrooms use different approaches, including colors, clips, etc., but they all work the same basic way: by publicly displaying the level of behavioral performance for each particular student in a class. Behavior charts have been used for decades as a means of displaying behavioral progress and adherence to classroom rules. BUT - does this practice actually work the way we think it does? How does this practice align to the PBIS framework so many of us are working to implement? And most importantly, can behavior charts, like some of our previously covered practices, actually backfire and cause more harm than good? 

Co-Hosts: SST8 Consultants Heidi Kerchenski and Mike Kaschak 

Additional Resources:

As we continue this season's focus on enduring educational practices that really don't have the research support we might think. Today, Mike Kaschak and Michelle Smith from SST8 have a quick but powerful conversation about recess and play time. Should we be taking it away from students when they misbehave? We know some educators consider this to be a tried and true consequence for challenging behavior - but take a listen for some great considerations about how this might backfire… and what we could be doing instead.

Co-Hosts: Michelle Smith and Mike Kaschak, SST8 Educational Consultants

Additional Resources:

Welcome back to this season’s discussion about some of the “sticky” practices in our profession that have persisted, despite lack of research evidence. Today’s topic is a very polarizing one: retention. Education researcher John Hattie has been quoted as saying, “No single intervention by schools is worse than retention.” That’s a pretty serious condemnation! Yet it continues to be something that schools consider when students are encountering serious learning struggles.

In today’s episode, SST8’s Frank Gant talks with Lisa Shannon, the Director of Special Services for the Lake Local School District in Stark Co.  Throughout her career in northeast Ohio, she has had numerous opportunities to discuss retention with educators and families - starting first as a co-teacher in her district’s first co-teaching team, then as an assistant principal, assistant superintendent, and director of special services. Lisa and Frank will consider why we have retained retention as a routine educational practice, and what alternatives can be explored. They close out this episode with 8 critical factors for educators and families to consider when having a conversation about retention. Be sure to listen to the whole episode to under why these are so critical! 

1. Present level of achievement, particularly in reading and math
2. Gender
3. Intellectual ability
4. Present grade placement
5. English language proficiency
6. Size (height/weight)
7. History of previous retention
8. Presence of a disability

Co-Host: Frank Gant, SST8 Educational Consultant

About Our Guest: Lisa Shannon is the Director of Special Services for the Lake Local School District in Stark Co. She has served students with exceptionalities for the majority of her career, with more than twenty years of leadership experience in Ohio’s public schools.  Lisa started her career as the general education teaching counterpart of her district’s first co-teaching team where she provided specially designed instruction alongside an intervention specialist.  She later moved into building and district leadership roles working in positions ranging between Assistant Principal to Assistant Superintendent.  Lisa states that her greatest professional fulfillment is supporting thousands of students, staff, and families and watching children grow by leaps and bounds by maximizing their various and unique strengths. 

Additional Resources

This season, we are diving into the research to practice gap, exploring why it is that ineffective teaching practices continue to hang on despite growing evidence that it’s time to let them go. We are so excited to welcome to the podcast Dr. Judy Willis - a board-certified neurologist who made a dramatic switch into classroom teaching, where she taught in elementary middle school for 10 years. Today we talk with Dr. Willis about about common misconceptions about learning, including teaching to learning styles, and ways to promote use of research-based practices among educators.  

Co-Host: Sarah Egan-Reeves, SST8 Educational Consultant

We’re wrapping up our season called 8 Great Literacy Learnings, and today we want to step back from the specific frameworks, strategies, and research on teaching kids how to read and instead, lean into considerations for how to make our literacy instruction more equitable and accessible for all. Listen as some of our SST8 literacy team members share some great ways to ensure that our literacy instruction efforts are truly reaching and benefitting all learners.

Co-Hosts: Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist and Heidi Kerchenski, SST8 Educational Consultant

Additional Resources:

Literacy instruction does not end in the elementary grades! It is still very much a need for our adolescent learners - but it can be hard to figure out how best to integrate that with all of the other content area instruction that secondary education demands. Well, if you are looking for ways to break down the barriers of Adolescent Literacy, you are in the right place. Today, we are joined by Roger Howard, one of Ohio's Adolescent Literacy leads and also a consultant at the ESC of NE Ohio. He has a rich history of high school and curriculum leadership, and was named 2011 Met Life Ohio Principal of the Year.  In his conversation with SST8 literacy team members, Kim Nagy and Sarah Egan-Reeves, Roger will discuss 8 common barriers to adolescent literacy, along with the research that supports how districts and teachers can make meaningful shifts that will yield noticeable results.

Co-hosts: Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist, and Sarah Egan-Reeves, SST8 Educational Consultant

About Our Guest: Roger Howard is an Adolescent Specialist–ODE Literacy Network for State Support Team - Region 3 at the Educational Service Center (ESC) of Northeast Ohio. Roger began his career as a residential treatment counselor at Parmadale/St. Anthony before serving 10 years as a teacher and coach at Tallmadge High School. He then dedicated the majority of his career to serving as a building administrator in multiple secondary schools: Tallmadge Middle School, Solon High School, Chagrin Falls High School, Hudson High School, Stow-Munroe Falls High School, and Independence High School. Roger was selected as the 2011 Met Life Ohio High School Principal of the Year and served two terms on the Ohio Association of Secondary School Administrators Board of Directors. Roger also performed multiple central office responsibilities for six years as the Director of Curriculum and Instruction for the Independence Local Schools.

Additional Resources

Dr. Fierro is back to help us improve our effectiveness in teaching literacy to students who are simultaneously learning the English language. This can seem like a daunting task, but it is absolutely doable. In our last episode, Dr. Fierro shared four considerations for supporting literacy development in English language learners. If you missed that episode, we encourage you to go back and listen now to the first half of Dr. Fierro’s conversation with SST8 literacy leads Kim Nagy and Pam Kennedy. Today, we’ll pick up where we left off and hear four more ideas that will take you and your students even farther!

Co-Hosts: Pam Kennedy, SST8 Regional Early Literacy Specialist, and Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist

About Our Guest

Antonio A. Fierro is a former Texas State Teacher of the Year and currently a member of the national LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) cohort of literacy consultants led by Dr. Louisa Moats. He also is a visiting professor working with university and college professors throughout Mississippi. Dr. Fierro has more than 25 years of experience in the field of education and has contributed to several literacy curricula focusing on instruction for the English learner. He is a co-author of Kid Lips®, a curriculum that teaches the phonetics of English to young children. His areas of interest include early childhood education, all aspects of phonology, and research that impacts students’ learning of English as a second language. Dr. Fierro has a personal interest in advancing the knowledge base and understanding of dyslexia and other reading disabilities because he has a child living with dyslexia.

Additional Resources

Over the last ten years, Ohio’s percentage of EL students has doubled to approximately 60,000 students. Spanish is the home language of almost 40% of Ohio’s English learners, along with 90 other home languages. How are we teaching these students to read WHILE we teach them to speak English?

We are thrilled to welcome to the podcast Dr. Antonio Fierro, an award-winning educator and one of our very favorite LETRS trainers. We’ve asked him to share the 8 critical considerations for teaching reading to students who are simultaneously learning the English language. Our conversation with him was so rich that we had to break it up into two episodes. Today, Dr. Fierro will share the first four tips - and we’ll bring you the final four next week.

Co-Hosts: Pam Kennedy, SST8 Regional Early Literacy Specialist, and Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist

About Our Guest

Antonio A. Fierro is a former Texas State Teacher of the Year and currently a member of the national LETRS® (Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling) cohort of literacy consultants led by Dr. Louisa Moats. He also is a visiting professor working with university and college professors throughout Mississippi. Dr. Fierro has more than 25 years of experience in the field of education and has contributed to several literacy curricula focusing on instruction for the English learner. He is a co-author of Kid Lips®, a curriculum that teaches the phonetics of English to young children. His areas of interest include early childhood education, all aspects of phonology, and research that impacts students’ learning of English as a second language. Dr. Fierro has a personal interest in advancing the knowledge base and understanding of dyslexia and other reading disabilities because he has a child living with dyslexia.

Additional Resources

Raising literacy achievement is one of our top priorities at SST8, and we bet it's one of yours too. But it's not the only priority! How can design our instruction in one area of learning so that it supports learning in other areas of development? Today, two of our team members will discuss resources and strategies for helping some of our youngest learners build social-emotional competencies while also developing critical emergent literacy skills. Research shows that when we tackle these important learnings together, we don't just get two for the price of one - we might get even more than that.

Co-Hosts: Pam Kennedy, SST8 Regional Early Literacy Specialist and Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultant

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We’re expanding our view of literacy by delving into the world of writing - emergent writing in particular. We are joined by another outstanding guest: researcher and author Dr. Lucy Hart Paulson. In the space of just 30 minutes, Lucy will have our listeners looking up the science of WRITING, searching for golf pencils and art easels, and maybe rethinking how and when we introduce keyboarding for young writers. Intrigued? You should be!

Co-Hosts: Pam Kennedy, SST8 Regional Early Literacy Specialist and Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist

About Our Guest

Speech-Language Pathologists (SLPs) are experts in language, by definition - but they may be an untapped source of professional learning for colleagues, as well as a support for developing readers and writers. What role can SLPs play in supporting literacy development in our schools? SST8’s Tracy Mail recently attended a conference called Reading, Writing and the SLP: Preschool to High School, sponsored by the American Speech and Hearing Association, and she talks with our own Kim Nagy about what she learned - and how buildings and districts can put this learning to use.

Co-Hosts: Tracy Mail, SST8 Educational Consultant and Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist

Additional Resources

Research indicates that, with effective instruction, over 90% of all students CAN read at grade level. Join us for our first episode of our 8 Great Literacy Learning season of 8 With 8, and you’ll leave with the stepping stones needed to move your instruction into that effective realm. Our very special guest, Dr. Carol Tolman, shares 8 ways to make this happen for each child in your classroom, building, and district using an approach called structured literacy. Dr. Carol Tolman, reading expert, international speaker, and co-author of Language Essentials for Teachers of Reading and Spelling (LETRS) joins us to share her thoughts on the most important steps for employing what science tells us works for teaching all students to read.

Co-Hosts: Pam Kennedy, SST8 Regional Early Literacy Specialist, and Kim Nagy, SST8 Urban Literacy Specialist

About our Guest: Dr. Carol Tolman

As we wrap up season 4, we have spent the last seven episodes shifting our thinking about so many important considerations for supporting students with disabilities: our mindsets in general, curriculum, assessment, family engagement, and so much more. But there’s an overarching theme that we haven’t touched on yet, and that is the topic of equity in education. The word equity has become a bit of a buzzword lately, but what do we really mean by equity?  Does it mean that everyone gets the same thing? Does it mean we are lowering our standards? What does it have to do with special education? In just the last few weeks, our team at SST8 been talking with ODE about some thought-provoking ways to think about and apply equity in our work, and how we can leverage these ideas in our work with students with disabilities. This week on 8 with 8, we'll hear from two key leaders at the Ohio Department of Education: JoHannah Ward, Director of the Office for Exceptional Children (OEC), and Joe Petrarca, Associate Director of OEC, about how we can better think about equity to make a meaningful difference for students with disabilities. 

Co-Hosts: Jenine Sansosti, SST8 Director, and Rachel Undercoffer, SST8 Educational Consultant

Additional Resources

This season, we have been reflecting on ways to reset/restart the year, with a focus on students with disabilities and eye toward getting back on track after the pandemic. We know that one of the biggest keys to the success of our students is the involvement and support of their parents. This is especially true for students with disabilities. In this episode, SST8's Helen Brophy talks with Marianne Lesko, herself a parent of a student with a disability, about a wonderful resource that SST8 offers to support parents of students with disabilities in their critical role.

Co-Host: Helen Brophy, SST8 Educational Consultant

About our Guest: Marianne Lesko is SST8's Parent Access Collaborative (PAC) liaison. She is the parent of a 21 year old son with Down Syndrome and a 19 year old son who attends Ohio State University. She also works for the Twinsburg City School District as a secretary for the Pupil Services department. She has a lot of experience dealing with parents of special needs students and can personally relate to their challenges and the complicated world of special services. She loves being involved with PAC because she continues to learn about so many things that impact her son's life and how she can help him make the most of it.

What is one thing all teachers do with all students? All teachers give assessments to check for student understanding! From formative checks to state-wide tests, it’s something we, as educators, all do. The hard part is figuring out if you’re getting a true picture of what each student knows and can do. As we continue our season on resetting and restarting education for students with disabilities, it is more important than ever to ensure that assessments of all types are truly designed to be accessible to students with disabilities - meaning that nothing about their disability gets in the way of them showing what what they are capable of. And that means that we, as educators, have to be creative and flexible.

Co-hosts: Tracy Mail, Educational Consultant, SST8 and Cherie Smith, Educational Consultant, SST6 

How do we address unfinished learning that exists for students with diverse needs? We can't possibly cover everything so what do we do? Listen in to learn how you can use the three easy to remember steps of "Weed, Feed, and Seed" to prioritize, target, & deliver instruction to meaningfully address gaps in learning!

Co-Hosts: Dee Dee Howes and Stacey Smith, SST8 Educational Consultants

Additional Resources

How do you support the establishment of an inclusive community to support the needs of students who receive special education services? Join us to hear 8 strategies for promoting a positive and inclusive school climate; one in which all staff believe that in order to meet the needs of ALL students, it’s necessary to meet the needs of EACH student.

Co-Hosts: Stephanie Denham*, former SST8 Educational Consultant and Stacey Smith, current SST8 Educational Consultant

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The circumstances of the 2020-2021 school year offered many opportunities for innovation and new ways of delivering learning, and in many ways our field has grown stronger as a result. But nevertheless, we are starting to see in statewide data that some students have experienced significant learning losses as a result of the pandemic, especially among vulnerable student populations - including students with disabilities.