Friday Sessions
Keynote
Living, Teaching, and Leading with Courage: Using the 4 Pillars of a Courageous Attitude
Presented by Sam Glenn
In this speech, Sam will highlight and equip attendees with the essential tools needed to develop a courageous attitude and make a positive impact on every aspect of their daily lives.
Learning Points:
* It’s not all about what you know, but what drives what you know.
* When we care, we earn trust.
* How to find the good when things aren’t so good.
* Why excellence is never an accident.
10:15 AM - 11:25 AM Breakout Sessions
Session 1: Promoting Successful Post-Secondary Transition for Intersectional Learners
Presented by Erin Yosai, Ph.D. & Kelly Lee
Students are not always celebrated or prepared to advocate for their whole selves as they transition from secondary school. This interactive session will include discussion of best practices educators and case managers can use to help students with disabilities with intersectional identities prepare for the post-secondary transition.
Session 2: We Are the Children: Hear Us Roar
Presented by LEAD Students
Local high school students with disabilities will share what they have learned about their specific disabilities through their class: LEAD (Learning and Educating About Disabilities). Come hear about their journeys navigating through their K-12 education and what they have lost and gained along the way.
Session 3: Reversing the Damage: Pre-K to Prison Pipeline
Presented by Lynn Knight, Tim Peters, & Karen Krepps
The “School-to-Prison Pipeline” can be averted at many stages within the K-12 system. Even within the prison system that is hope for inmates to be successfully transitioned back to the community with positive results. This session will cover three different “back up” stations where educators can make a difference.
Session 4: Freshman Academy - The First Step Towards Graduation
Presented by Danica Vincent, Bill Moore, Denise Abts, & Kenna Urwiller
Learn how Special Education supports can benefit all students, not just students with disabilities. Through a collaborative effort, Freshman Academy teachers are able to provide academic support for students with and without IEPs. See how pushing in Special Education supports can help benefit all students within the general education classroom.
Session 5: Communication & Collaboration: Key to Successful Teaching & Learning
Presented by Adrienne Sarff & Jessica Bodden
Teaching middle school and high school can often make you feel like you are teaching in a silo. Co-teaching and collaborating with others opens doors and provides the opportunity for small group instruction and the gift of variety.
Session 6: Building Trauma Informed Care for Head Start
Presented by Dr. John Christopher Hicks & Monica Lujan
Learn more about how our agency built an integrated trauma informed care approach using promotion, prevention, and intervention strategies to address very real difficulties that staff and families experience. We focus on how to improve protective factors, build resilience, and promote healing for children, families, and staff.
Session 7: Youth Diversion & The Messy in Between
Presented by Rhonda Jo Conger
A new approach to integrate social-emotional learning and personal development for youth as an intervention within the juvenile justice system, and as a component of prevention efforts in response to at-risk behaviors as identified by educators, child welfare professionals, or parents. (examples from Youth Diversion in the 13th JD)
Session 8: Inclusion - We Can Make it Happen - Together
Presented by Dr. Kara Halley, Charlie Buckley, Rebecca Canges, Michelle Trujillo, Jeanne Connelly, & Janelle Johnson
We will consider full inclusion for all students, especially those with the most significant needs. Participants will assess inclusion assets and areas for growth. In small groups based on individual priorities, participants will identify practices that promote meaningful inclusion and actionable steps for their setting. Inclusion resources will be shared.
Session 9: Understanding Students’ Mathematical Development: Let’s do this!
Presented by Dr. Mindy Adair
Numbers, shapes, patterns, and quantities - mathematics is beautiful, complex, challenging, and empowering! Mathematical development is a dynamic process. Understanding how students construct meaning with numbers is a critical component in helping us to recognize how and why they struggle. We will examine how tasks can help students to develop conceptual understanding and gain confidence.
Effectively Targeting Your Reading Instruction Handout (PDF)
Session 10: Anxiety, Depression, and OCD: Living, Teaching, and Breathing
Presented by Caron A. Westland, Ph.D. & Holly Brazzle
Come explore the many facets of anxiety, depression, and OCD. The shame of mental health silences; start slaying shame and empower the individual, not the mental illness. Participants will learn strategies to give voice to emotions, to build resilience, and to lay a social emotional health foundation for students/teachers.
1:45 PM - 2:55 PM Breakout Sessions
Session 11: Preparing Students with Disabilities for the Postsecondary Environment
Presented by Maribeth Resnickick & Stephanie Deker
Preparing students for postsecondary education is an exciting time, but it can be very overwhelming for students with disabilities. In this presentation, we will discuss self-advocacy skills (define/strategies) and life skills (list of skills students should be able to do). We want the audience to leave with useful tools to support all involved on this journey.
Session 12: The Role of SLPs in Trauma-Informed Practices
Presented by Kallie Haritopoulos
Trauma-informed practices are utilized to address the outcomes of students in the educational environment. We will discuss the practices that are currently being implemented by SLPs in Colorado during evaluation and intervention to promote safety, trust, connection, and the ultimate success of their students.
Session 13: Increasing Positive Outcomes for Students with Neurocognitive Challenges
Presented by Nicole Crawford, Ph.D. & Toni Grishman, BSN, RN
We will explore various types of brain injuries and factors that can impact cognitive development. We will introduce Building Blocks of Brain Development as a framework for understanding cognitive vulnerabilities and impact on learning and behavior. Resources for strategies, interventions and assessments related to the Building Blocks will be shared.
Session 14: Legal Strategies to Avoid the School to Prison Pipeline
Presented by Emily Harvey & Sara Pielsticker
This session will explain the legal requirements of the IDEA, ECEA, and Section 504 when students are disciplined at school. We will also cover the requirements for functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans. Additionally, we will discuss restraint and seclusion of students with disabilities, including the potential impact on a student's ability to receive a free appropriate public education. Finally, we will discuss various administrative complaint processes available to parents when a student's rights under the IDEA, ECEA, and Section 504 are violated, and how these can be used in the context of the juvenile justice system. To conclude, we will discuss how this information can be used to help avoid the school to prison pipeline.
Session 15: Setting Up SSN School Businesses
Presented by Heidi Rettig
Have you ever thought about setting up a school business within your SSN classroom? Well, I've got the session for you! Let's get together learn howto set up school businesses, work on fun inclusion in your school, and collaborate.
Session 16: Paraprofessionals- training, appreciating, and retaining
Presented by Heather Kilburn-Lyons & Ginette Auton
We are learning ways to get to know paraprofessionals with a preference profile, sharing ideas on how to provide training with clear expectations to be shared with Evaluators and Teachers. Sharing ideas for appreciating the hard work paraprofessionals do every day. Lastly, ideas are shared out with ways to retain paraprofessionals successfully.
Session 17: Moving Forward-Strategies for a successful kinder transition
Presented by Cristina House & Kiki McGough
We all face transition at various points in our life. The transition from preschool to kindergarten is the beginning of the journey for a child in our educational system. We will be presenting a framework for successful transition with a focus on young children and will provide additional examples for elementary to middle, high school and into the adult world. The strategies will support participants to see CHANGE as the opportunity or CHANCE for success moving forward. Specific tools, strategies and resources will be provided to all participants.
Session 18: How the Science of Reading Informs Writing Instruction
Presented by Mikayla Storey
Learn actionable strategies that will allow you to effectively incorporate SOR-based writing instruction into your literacy lessons. Participants will reviewthe neurological processors in the brain used for reading and writing, review what the research actually says about writing instruction, and leave with useful strategies that can be
implemented immediately.
Session 19: Low Frustration Tolerance: Strategies and Solutions
Presented by Jenny Nordman, PhD & Justin Adcock, PhD
This session will provide teachers with practical strategies to address the effects of low frustration tolerance (LFT) in students with special needs. An overview of research surrounding LFT will be provided, and ideas for building students’ capacity to handle frustration will be presented and discussed.
Session 20: The Implementation of Inclusive Form Theatre with CLDE Students
Presented by Michele Trujillo, Ed.D.
Inclusive Form Theatre (Boal, 1970) is utilized at The Justice and Heritage Academy to perform skits about social inequities that exist in the community. It is important to present these issues to the community in order to begin thinking about solutions to these problems.
Session 21: PERA
Presented by PERA
3:15 PM - 4:25 PM Breakout Sessions
Session 22: Why isn't it different? Trauma Based Behaviors
Presented by Tara Butler
Why isn’t what I am doing helping? Using a trauma informed lens, we will start with some definitions and understanding of trauma; talk about the effects of trauma and trauma-based behaviors in the classroom. How we can react and what we can do to be best prepared with the knowledge and tools to support kids coming with increasingly complex trauma stories.
Session 23: “Neurotypical spectrum disorder:” Bridging the neurodivergent-neurotypical communication gap
Presented by Kimberly Neely, MM, MS, CCC-SLP
Communication breakdowns abound between neurodivergents and neurotypicals and labeling differences between two groups as deficits of only one group only widens this gap. Bridging that gap, however, requires reframing the perspectives of both parties. This presentation will provide a trauma-informed framework and strategies to help bridge this communication gap.
Session 24: Let's Talk About Co-teaching with Students with SSN
Presented by Katrine Gosselin & Aimee Massafra
Federal law encourages access for students with SSN to general education and instruction. Murawski and Dieker (2008) indicated co-teaching can be effective for meeting students’ needs. As we discuss including students with SSN in the overall school experience, co-teaching is a framework that should be considered to meet student needs.
Session 25: The Executive Functioning Experience
Presented by Cyle Feingold & Tammy English
Experience activities that simulate the hardships and frustrations of what it’s like to have an executive functioning deficit and leave with strategies and supports which lead to greater independence. Come to our interactive workshop to problem solve, collaborate and find solutions to the everyday challenges executive functioning deficits bring.
Session 26: Bridging Trust with Equity During the IEP Process
Presented by Tracy Gershwin, PhD, BCBA-D & Tena Green
The individualized education program (IEP) process can be overwhelming for educators and families. This session will present research-based procedural strategies that effectively generate a meaningful IEP designed to address the unique needs of students. Educators and family members will learn strategies to use before, during, and after the IEP meeting.
Session 27: Using the Building Blocks of Brain Development to Support Students with Learning Disabilities
Presented by Veronica Fiedler & Dr. Peter Thompson
This presentation will focus on using the neuroeducational framework Building Blocks of Brain Development to guide IEP teams in developing intervention, specially designed instruction and accommodations for students with SLD.
Session 28: Formative OG Assessment and Processor targeted Instruction
Presented by Tammy Curran & Gay Carlson
In this session, we will examine an assessment that will help to determine student(s) need prior to instruction. We will then discuss the different reading processors and how to engage them in a typical lesson for reading. This guidance will help teachers keep a running record of concepts introduced and mastered and concepts needing review.
Session 29: School Based Vocational Opportunities for Transition Students
Presented by Ann Symalla, Robin Singer, Annie Haskins, & Casey Daley
Improve post-secondary success for the most impacted students by creating viable work opportunities at your school. Creating school-based coffee shops, cafés, stores, and more help develop skills that students can take with them post-graduation. Oftentimes, there are limited opportunities in the community to provide work experience for those students that have significant support needs. Education leaders at local facility schools have created a variety of work experiences for students within their own schools to provide meaningful post-secondary preparation for their students. Join us in learning how you can replicate these successful opportunities in your own schools.
Session 30: Leveling up Proactive Collaboration
Presented by Leslie Gaiser, Michelle Brenner, & Kelly Miller
Explore the lessons learned as one district leveled up their collaboration with outside community providers: advocates, families, and outside private providers to ensure student needs remained at the forefront of the partnership. A workshop packed with practical tips for supporting teams in their proactive partnerships.
Session 31: Be Brave: Teach Writing!
Presented by Debora Davidson
This interactive session led by Deb Davidson, Special Education Instructional Coach for Harrison Schools D2, demonstrates a simple, concrete, standards-based writing process to teach students, grades 3-12, how to plan, write, revise, and edit any genre of writing, and progress monitoring strategies which align with students’ IEP goals and objectives.
Session 32: Effectively Implementing the Science of Reading
Presented by Corey Pollard
This session discusses how to implement the science of reading effectively across settings. We will discuss what the science of reading is and provide actionable strategies and scripts to incorporate into your teaching. Within the session we will provide a framework for each of the five core components of reading.
CO - TED Meeting
More information to come.