Description of graphical content is included between Description Start and Description End. Transcript Start Christy Householter: But we're going to go ahead and jump right in and talk about the Expanded Core Curriculum. There is a little pole going on at the top left-hand corner of your screen. You can answer that pole and see if everybody gets the answer correctly. But bottom line there's been a lot of discussion over the past twenty years about the Expanded Core Curriculum and students with visual impairments. And the pendulum has swung all the way from kids being at schools for the blind to, now, where there's actually a law that addresses the Expanded Core Curriculum. So, we're going to review a little bit about how that trend has happened, what it means to us now, and how administrators and Teachers of the Visually Impaired and Orientation & Mobility Specialists can address the Expanded Core Curriculum. I don't think that we're going to have all the answers, but I hope that we do have some answers today. And as KC said, please feel to jump in and ask questions as we go, and then we'll leave a little bit of time at end to take questions also. So administrators out there-- hopefully when we're finished with this today, you'll have a better idea of how you can assist your vision staff, your O&M and your VIs in addressing the Expanded Core Curriculum efficiently and effectively, and to the standards of the law, now. Alright, overview! What we're going to be doing for the next 50 minutes. A little bit on an overview of, What is the Expanded Core Curriculum?, What's the role of the VI and O&M? What's the role of the administrator?, and then we're going to touch a little bit on evaluation and IEPs. But basically it would take us a couple of days to review evaluation of the Expanded Core Curriculum IEP development. And hopefully we'll have some more information about potential for that training later on at the end of this presentation. And then, of course, we have some wonderful resources at the very end. OK, so pole number one, "What does the ECC stand for?" Well, it does look as though all of you are vision specialists and you answered 100 percent correctly, all 12 of you so far, it is called the Expanded Core Curriculum. And so nice job, pat yourself on the back there. The acronym is Expanded Core Curriculum. We're going to look at the 9 areas it encompasses really quickly, and then we're going to look at how the trend has changed from what's 'best-practice' and national agenda, all the way to what the law actually says. Now, back when I was in school, and that was only a few years -- plus maybe 20 years ago -- we had an acronym to help us, and it was "ACROSS VI." Well that's now changed to "ACCROSS SI" with 2 Cs and 3 Ss. But these are the 9 areas that are listed on the screen here. Technology, compensatory skills, career education, rec and leisure, O&M, social interaction skills, sensory efficiency, self-determination and independent living skills. Now those of you who may be administrators and not as quite familiar with Expanded Core Curriculum, in our field we've always said that the Expanded Core Curriculum are skills that have to be systematically taught to students with visual impairments. It's those skills that all of us, that are visual, learned when we were young, when we were growing up, because 90 percent of learning is through the sense of vision. And so if a child has a visual impairment, obviously those skills have to be taught very systematically. So, after -- back in the dark ages, when kids were all shipped off to schools for the blind -- back in the 90s, a group of stakeholders, a group of vision professionals, people in the profession, people in the field got together and created the National Agenda. And in particular, for children with visual impairment, the Goal Eight. And the National Agenda is a statement of consensus by these stakeholders, by these vision professionals... 

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Householter: Ok. Somebody was talking about downloading some information. I'm glad you got that one taken care of. But the National Agenda was dated back in the early 90s. 

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Householter: And so... really and truly, the National Agenda was developed for us to meet the changing needs of students with visual impairments, in the field of education particularly. And this Goal Eight, addressed instructions that said, "Evaluation and Instruction need to happen for children with visual impairment in a school setting." And as you can see... there, the National Agenda's effect was, in addition to the core curriculum areas, those math and science and reading, language preparation, included in the general educational curriculum, well, students with a visual impairment need to be assessed and receive instruction in very specific skills that have been demonstrated to be potential problem areas for persons with visual impairment. So, I think another pole just got put up. You guys can be looking at the answers for that one, while I move on to, "What happened after the 90s and best practices?" Well, by 2,000 -- and honestly this was about -- when I had been in the field for a good 10 or 15 years, and I began to notice that... that [inaudible] was developing a topical view of the standard core curriculum. But Phil Hatlen, who was the past Superintendent for Texas School for the Blind, had a quote back in 2005 that said, "The Expanded Core Curriculum provides opportunities for equality for the blind and visually impaired; to NOT teach is to deny this basic human right." So we moved from 'best practice' to a strong philosophical value in our field. And then, unfortunately -- any administrator's worst nightmare came true -- and about 5 years ago, a district in our state was sued by a parent, for multiple reasons, two of reasons having to do with O&M Expanded Core Curriculum. And in both cases, the parent won those areas. And so, even 5 years ago, before the law came into effect... there was a legal lawsuit that demonstrated that a school system did not systematically evaluate and provide instruction in all 9 areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum. So now, all of a sudden in our field, not only 'best practice' and a strong philosophical value, it was now -- could be considered a legal issue. Now, let's look at the pole here. "How confident are you that your vision staff are addressing all areas of the ECC?" It looks as though, about 50 percent of you are 'somewhat confident' and about 33 percent of you are 'extremely confident' -- that's great, and about 15-16 percent are 'not confident at all.' So, let's move on and see if we can make those percentages go up after this presentation. All right, we've moved forward to this past summer. This was not a new law, by any means, this was adding verbiage and adding all 9 areas of Expanded Core Curriculum with Senate Bill 39. Basically, the law -- the added verbiage was all 9 areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum. Now in the slide is does not look as though O&M was not added to it, and I apologize for that. It was left out earlier and we need to add that in. But the summary states that the bill adds language that would require the evaluation of and subsequent instruction in Braille, concept development -- Orientation and Mobility should be added right there -- social skills, career planning, assistive technology, including optical devices, independent living skills, rec and leisure enjoyment, self-determination and sensory efficiency. So now the law states that you have to systematically evaluate and provide instruction in those nine areas, as needed. And then... pretty much -- I did [inaudible] the other day, I saw some of the legal framework coming out with all the updated language, but it's not all formal. You can't go to the legal framework, yet -- as far as I can tell -- and see the complete new law, as it should be rewritten. But hopefully that will be happening pretty soon. But we do need to note, most important on that next slide Kate -- Oh, there it is right there -- that effective date was June fourteenth 2013. So that law's been out 9 months. And so it's even more important at this point, right now, that our vision and O&M folks are systematically addressing -- evaluating and addressing the need for all 9 areas of the ECC. This is where we are now. And we're going to move on a little bit more in just a second about the VI and O&Ms role, but I have to take this moment to do a quick segue on the O&M law. This is a new law and one that will not take effect until the start of school 2014-15. And I always say that wrong, because I get my years so confused, but when our next school year starts this law will take into effect. And just FYI for you administrators, I hoping that everyone is aware of this one, but Orientation and Mobility... evaluation -- the eligibility will now -- eligibility of a child with a visual impairment will include an Orientation and Mobility evaluation. In addition, an O&M specialist who needs to be a part of that multidisciplinary team, who looks at the need for reevaluation every 3 years. So, make sure that we are aware of that law, and maybe at some point we'll have more presentation and training on look like for our school districts and our O&M instructors. Effective date... Now, shall we move on to the legal part. We've talked where we were in the beginning, we've talked about 'best practice,' we've talked about the law suits, we've talked about what the new law is; now, for those of you who love [inaudible] let's talk a little bit about data and supports, the fact that we need to be addressing in the ECC, other than the law. IDEA says that we have to prepare students for further education, employment and independent living. All nine areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum do that for students with visual impairments. Research has shown, in 2001 -- this is an amazing, amazing study done, that even surprised me when I first read it years ago. Students with visual impairments are attending post secondary institutions at the same rate as their peers, their sighted peers, without disabilities. However -- and their graduating with the same amount of degrees as their sighted peers -- I don't if any of know what the unemployment rate is in the state of Texas is right now. Probably around 10 percent, give or take there, but this study showed that 29 percent of students with visual impairments were competitively employed after graduation versus about 70 percent of youth in general. That is a dismal amount of youth with visual impairments who graduate with college degrees and do not get jobs. The study also showed that a little less than 50 percent of kids with visual impairments live independently, versus about 60 percent of kids with no visual impairment who can live independently. So, the bottom-line for this study was that vocational skills for youth with visual impairment need to incorporate the use of compensatory skills. And compensatory skills back in 2001 was the umbrella term to mean all of the Expanded Core Curriculum. You know there were quite a few studies that were done during this time period, and the bottom-line on a lot of them were several pointers. One, most vision teachers and O&Ms were focusing on compensatory skills, the Braille and the large print, and O&M. That left seven more ECC areas untouched. There was another study that showed unemployment deficits were because a lack of instruction in assistive technology and social skills, and independent living skills. Two of the top three things that were needed to be competitively employed. There was another study that was shown that most of the Expanded Core Curriculum was done just kind of in an unplanned and unstructured manner. There was systematic way that they were addressing it. And that is what we see on a regular basis with vision teachers that are really good at what they do, and are really good identifying the different areas of needs; they address them, but they don't address them systematically. So there can be gaps and cracks in addressing those skills. And of course, as we know in our field of education, that a lot of emphasis was on high-stakes testing, and it was a little more difficult to be able to address those nine areas of the Extended Core Curriculum. So, some of our favorite folks again making statements that having ECC skills make the difference between life and a successful life. And another one of our favorite quotes from Hatlen and Sapp was, "Students who receive high quality instruction in the Expanded Core Curriculum have a richer quality of life, then those who do not." Now, I don't about you guys who may be tax payers out there, 'richer quality of life' is an amazing, wonderful thing, but I would like them to be taxpayers. That's bottom-line for students with visual impairments. I want them to have all the skills necessary to have jobs, and to become taxpayers. So, here's the question that we all ask, "How in the world can we fit it all in?" If there are vision teachers out there and you're looking at this for the first time, I know it's a little scary. And there's no way for me to say that... it's not, that it doesn't take extra time. It absolutely does. But there's systematic way that you can do it and hopefully later in the year or over the summer, we can. So, let's move on to just -- for those VIs and O&Ms that are out there, this is kind of the part for you guys. Let's look at just some ways you can address this. And administrators it's important for you to know it is not the role of the O&M and the VI to do all of the work in Expanded Core Curriculum. It's their role to be that facilitator. That leader of the band, as we say. So, evaluation is a tough topic and takes much more time. At Region 10 we use a systematic system of the -- using TSBVI eval. And that's the portion of this we'd like to provide on a statewide level to -- this summer. And there'll be some more information coming out about that as time goes on, but right now there's no way for us to get into that, how we systematically address all those nine areas. So, that's one part of it. The second thing is just direct instruction. Of course the VI and O&M can provide direct, IEP-based instruction. The third was is through consultation and then, of course, use and abuse all our friends out there, collaboration with other related service and educational professionals. And then the last option would be to use our statewide and our community resources. So, let's -- before we go on to looking in a little more detail on how direct instruction looks versus consultation, let's look at our next pole, right quick. "How confident are you that your vision staff are completing evaluations?" Completing evaluations? Not just addressing it any more, but actually completing evaluations in Expanded Core Curriculum. And I know this one's little bit tougher, because... systematically addressing them is hard... it's hard to do. It looks like we have about 20 percent 'Extremely Confident,' about 50 percent 'Somewhat' -- 60 percent 'Somewhat Confident,' and I guess I can't see the bottom of that, that would leave us about... 

Kate Hurst: 25 percent. 

Householter: Ok, as... none at all. All right! So again, that might be something you want to consider down the road, looking at that systematic addressing a little bit, a little bit better. Let's look at options for direct instruction. And again, if you're all vision teachers out there, we'll go through this quickly, cause you know this. Just be creative. You know these are pictures of an O&M working a post office, and a student choosing his selection at his work location -- an off-campus work location -- choosing a drink. And so, you know, that first of course is direct instruction, IEP; we have that on a very regular basis, we even at Region 10 get to have joint lessons, where the VI and O&M work together. So, very, very simple. Some of the ways you can collaborate with your VI or O&M -- administrators you might see happening would be a grocery store lesson. The VI teacher works on the letter of the week, creates the grocery list in Braille or large print, and then the O&M takes the student out with a monocular, or their magnifier and their devices, and their cane, and they go to the store and purchase the items. They come back to school and everybody learns how to make a snack together; daily living skills, rec leisure skills, and self-determination, Orientation and Mobility all those different areas of the ECC being addressed in that simple, one little lesson. Multiple, different kinds of options for direct instruction. OK. Consultation. Same thing. Vision teachers and O&Ms work with other related service providers and educational providers on a very regular basis. For example, vision teacher working with a classroom teacher on picture size. Or with a speech teacher who's using augmentative communication, on whether a picture or an object symbol, or -- if it's 2 inches or 4 inch size. So on a regular basis those kinds of consultation visits occur. And O&M consulting with a community-based instruction teacher on what's the best route from the bus into the employment area. The young man purchasing the Powerade in the picture in this slide is exactly that. There was an O&M working with a young man who was -- spent half of his day, everyday, working at a community-based facility. And the O&M skills were just amazing in how far he came and how independent he traveled in that area. A Teacher of Visually Impaired and an O&M may be working with a student with multiple impairments and visual impairment in helping the classroom teachers set up routines and calendars, in preparing all the materials for those kind of activities. So, collaboration and consultation are very big in our field. All right, the third option, collaboration. I think that some of you have heard me say this before. This is the -- my theory of use and abuse as many people as you can; parents, school personnel, community agencies, during or after school hours, as often as you can. And... we're going to talk a little bit more -- administrators, about instruction beyond the school day. Because it's incredible important, and it's always a question that we ask -- that not too many people have available to them. So, we will be addressing that in just little bit further. But let's look at some very specific options for this collaboration. Access the general curriculum and special ed classes. I cannot stand the fact that our school systems are doing away with home ec classes and consumer math classes and keyboarding classes and work programs. So, if you're lucky enough to have those still in your communities, use them and put students in there. Modify the things that are in that classroom as the vision teach or O&M, but use those opportunities. Community programs such as Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, Division of Blind Services, they have fabulous programs for our students, and you can work closely with them. Be creative, develop local credit classes; and I understand that's a little easier then it used to be in the day, because some folks at TSB have helped do just that; developing local credit classes. So if you need some information about that, you can probably contact someone at Texas School for the Blind. Any kind of extracurricular activity, any kind of school social clubs -- then vision and O&M teachers should be getting their students involved in those activities. Community college credit and noncredit classes, and of course one of our favorites, if adult... adults with visual impairments in your community, use them for mentoring. They -- our kids will listen to them a lot better than will listen us as their vision teacher and their O&Ms. OK. Option four, moving on pretty quickly here, Facilitation with Community and Statewide Resources. TSB, TSB, TSB! I don't need to say too much more, other than that. [laughing] Absolutely, use your long and short-term programs at TSB. I have 15 VI and O&M staff here at Region 10, and we have filled out so many applications for those program -- for these programs this year. I don't they're just coming out of the woodwork, but the things that are happening, and the growth that's happening with the kids, and the experiences that are happening are phenomenal. So, get -- and especially out in small, rural areas, get those kids to their short-term programs. And there's a whole list of the ones they've had in the past and they will be having in the future; particularly, Rock Band always strikes me as being lots of fun. So, use TSB. OK, other ones. Division of Blind Services. If you happen to have a Lighthouse for the Blind or an Independent Living Center, absolutely partner with them. I know Region 7 does a fabulous job of that. Here in the Region 10 area we have American Foundation for the Blind living centers. Lions Camp -- I'm a Lion myself. If you have any questions about Lions Camp and sending your kids to Kerrville, let me know and I'll give you all that information, or just contact your local Lions Club. It's a great camp. If you have Expanded Core Curriculum activities at your service center, like we do here at Region 10, they -- that might be an option for you also. And then -- there's a whole list -- and Division of Blind Services had a great list of summer and [inaudible] programs that they can provide to you. So... administrator that might be some new information for you. Vision teacher, you knew all that. So, let's move on to administrator's role. One of the main things that administrators can do is just check assessments in their evaluation reports. Now, this is gonna be something that I'm gonna -- at the very end I'm going to talk a little bit about, do we actually put the ECC finds in our FVE/LMAs, but even if their not in your evaluations, is their evidence of them; whenever your doing your reviews -- your annual reviews, when you're reviewing paper work -- those kinds of things, that's the first thing. The second thing, is there evidence of their IEP goals? Simple enough, to tell your Special Ed manager or UMCorp or whatever program you use to -- [inaudible] do IEP goals have areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum? Are they including rec and leisure? Are they including daily living skills for those kids who receive direct instruction? And then also, during your observation, cause we all have to do those fun things, is there evidence of instruction in the staff observation. I'll tell a story, one of my favorite stories. Recently, during an observation this year. I had a staff tell me that we were going out for a high school student, very seriously visually impaired, and we were on Windows commands for the computer, and it's a 45 minute lesson. And I'm thinking, wow, that's gonna be just a maybe a little bit boring, because 45 minutes of Windows commands on a computer with JAWS. You know, 45 minutes is a long time. Well, during the course of that instruction, we worked about 15 minutes, because it was a very bright kiddo, who had created her won notebook already, of all the shortcuts and the commands. But, we -- she also sent the child to an unfamiliar restroom, and the young lady did not want to go by herself, cause she'd never been there before. She encouraged her and sent her on, giving her directions -- O&M. She taught her how to peel an orange with an orange peeler. Did you even know there was such a thing as an orange peeler out there? Well, I now know there is, and this child never experienced that before. And the orange happen to come from a trip from Florida, so there was a whole lesson there on oranges and season for oranges. She also was having troubles with this young lady remembering when they were meeting for their weekly lessons. And so, impromptu, she asked her to take out her iPhone and taught her how to use the commands to set calendar alerts, and set alerts for the next several things they had to do together. It was just a fabulous, fabulous lesson. And at the end, of course, as an administrator I asked to find out if she had those kind of goals in her IEP, and absolutely, yes. Besides the instructional IEPs for learning commands for JAWS and Windows, she also had independent living skill goals, and self-determination goals and then also some social skills goals. So, just a really neat way to see a lesson happen there. Those are the kinds of things that you can look for when you're doing your observation. OK. Ways to support staff. I'm gonna move on to ways that administrators can support staff. And this is gonna be the tuffy one, you guys. This is the one that we have to do a little different some times. And if your interested, I'd like to share some resources with you. It's not something that we have as part of this presentation, but if you're interested, we can share that. And... one thing, support training for VI and O&M staff. We hope to be able to present some training to our statewide leadership group this summer. And through that they can back to the service centers and be Trainer-Trainers and spread through the district and through their region. So, any other opportunity you have -- go to national conferences, go to local conferences, let your staff come to the service centers for training, ask for TSB Outreach, if that's a possibility. Any of those kinds of things that can get your staff more immersed in understanding how to address the Expanded Core Curriculum. Number 2, provide resources. Any kind of material, books, curriculums, the evals from TSB; anything that your vision teacher has requested in order to evaluate or teach the nine areas of the Expanded Core Curriculum, support them in making sure that they have those kinds of things. All right, big long breath, this is the big one. Provide support and time for your collaborative teams to discuss Expanded Core Curriculum. There has to be a multidisciplinary team. There is no way that the vision teacher and O&M can do these kinds of things by themselves. Parents have to be included. For kids with multiple impairments, the OT, the PT, the speech, the Adaptive PE, the classroom teacher, the classroom aide, the child's nurse. All those people need to be in on the discussions on -- are they doing everything they're supposed to be doing in those nine areas, and if not, how can we write goals to address it, and then thirdly, who's going to be addressing those goals. Are the service people, the classroom teachers, the VI, the O&M. So multidisciplinary approach is hard to do sometimes, but incredibly important. And then... just remember all the different options for addressing the ECC. Vision teachers, O&Ms, do we have to do it all ourselves? No, we have to find all those friends out there, whether we bribe them with chocolate cookies and chocolate milk, or we ask them nicely -- whatever it takes in order for that entire group to get together to address those areas. 

Eva Lavingne: Christy, this is Eva, we have a question on chat. I don't know if you want to address it know, but from Chrissy Cowan. How are you defining 'compensatory skills?' 

Householter: Compensatory skills are -- let me go back to my exact definition. Compensatory skills are definitely the areas that permit access to the general curriculum; such as Braille, concept development, Nemeth Code, communication skills, and study skills. And I think that even organizational skills is in there too, which an incredibly huge, important one. So access to the general curriculum, anyway that provides access to the general curriculum. Anybody else want to add anything else to that definition? And I'm sorry administrators, that's a big one, that's the first one on our lists, compensatory skills generally, and it's the largest one, it does encompass the most areas. Ways to support staff, provide solutions for addressing the Expanded Core Curriculum. This is the list of resources that we have that I -- I'm happy to share with anybody. TSB ladies helped put this one together. We all had some different links to TEA, sites to the law, to Administrator's Toolbox, which is my favorite thing. Administrators Guidelines and Standards, TSB's wonderful document -- that I'll talk about at the end of this presentation. And then just... Superintendent's Handbook. The ways that we can address the Expanded Core Curriculum sometimes do not happen throughout the day. We have to consider time outside the regular school day; before school, after school, in the summers and whatever it takes in order to address all these areas. It is highly recommended that we provide exchange or some kind of compensatory time -- I've always said, that there's always vision staff out there who like their summers and want to stay home, complete the whole summer, but there's also who really do want to work and have that exchange time. That's another option, there. Before and after school, as I talked about earlier can happen then. Summer instruction. One thing that you do have to consider is transportation. And every district is completely different when it comes to finding transportation. Some districts still use their own personal cars. Some districts hire a school car. Some districts have a school bus or a small school vehicle. Some districts require there being somebody be with the VI or O&M, when they're transporting students. So, it can be addressed so many different ways, but not addressing it is not an option, in my mind. And then also, there's got to be time to explore the community and those experiences. The law for O&M says, "In a variety of lighting conditions and in home, school and community." And if you don't provide transportation, then that whole community part is going to be a big issue. So, really, really need to think about supporting those areas. And this document I have does have links, like I said, to support that. And if you want to have that you can e-mail me later privately. My e-mail will be at the end of this, and I'd be happy to share that. 

Ann Adkins: Christy, this is Ann again -- again. And I know that one of the things that I think this group's really had a difficult time with is that whole issue of services that are provided outside of the school day. That's tough to understand, organize, arrange, justify -- and the new Guidelines and Standards, the 2014 version has really good information about the requirement for flexibility in programming for students with visual impairment. I wish I could remember the page number. But I could find that, and if anyone is interested or needs that information to support why the standard core concepts and skills need instructional support outside of the school day. 

Kate Hurst: Page 21. 

Adkins: Hold on. 

Householter: I was just gonna say, I pretty much have them memorized. And you know, that's a wonderful plug. On our resources list, the first resource we have on the next slide -- and before we even get there -- Kate -- I will tell you administrators that 2014 Guidelines and Standards for Educating Students with Visual Impairments in Texas -- it's on the TSB website. what I do for my local administrators is that any time we have a meeting, which is usually twice a year. They all bring questions. And I will tell you, to this day, every question they ask can be answered in that Guidelines and Standards. It's an amazing tool. Every vision teacher, every O&M, and every VI supervisor or coordinator or administrator should have that tool handy at all times, and tab it like crazy! When the questions come up, you can usually find the answers, and even the better part of it, is it's linked to the TEA website where you can even find the information. For example, as, I think Eva just said, page 22 of that Guidelines and Standards says, "The Texas Code TEC 30.002c5 has a requirement for flexibility. Texas law specifically notes that there should be flexibility on the part of the school district to meet the special needs of children with visual impairments through a variety of instructional and service arrangements within and outside of the local district." So... 

Adkins: I want to add that might be outside of regular school hours. 

Householter: Right, Exactly. There's several -- "Instruction in the Expanded Core Curriculum may need to be provided outside of regular school hours," that's Texas Education Code 30.002c5, and it requires for local school districts to provide for flexibility to meet the special needs of children with visual impairments, and section e10, that specifically requires a description of the arrangement for services beyond regular school hours. Vision teachers, you know what that is. That's your VIR Supplement. It's right there in writing. And it's there in writing because it's the law, and so we have to be able to address those things. I know it's not a comfortable [inaudible] for administrators and for a lot of vision teachers, but we absolutely must address them. It is law. So, I think maybe -- we'll stop there. Like I said, I have this, if you need it. [inaudible] In the handbook, the Superintendent's Handbook, it gives the specific example of a child with visual impairment having to need night instruction because of RP.