 Executive
Summary/OverviewThe State
Education Department (SED) and the Office of Vocational and
Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID)
recognize that educational and supportive programs will best help
students reach their full potential when parents, families and
schools work collaboratively. A significant body of research exists
to support the premise that when schools work together with families
to support learning, children tend to succeed — not only in school,
but throughout life. Three decades of studies have demonstrated
that parent-family involvement is a critical element of effective
schooling, and contributes significantly to improved student
outcomes. Students, parents, teachers, administrators, and
communities all derive benefits from family involvement.
The VESID Leadership Team has developed the following
Family
Principles Policy to insure New York State (NYS) families of
students with disabilities are informed, and to promote and
support the involvement of families in educational and vocational
processes. (VESID recognizes the vital role of families in achieving
positive educational, vocational and community living outcomes for
individuals with disabilities. VESID seeks the involvement of family
members at all levels of policy development, planning,
implementation, service delivery and evaluation. To reinforce these
principles, VESID will:
- Actively seek advice from
families on statewide policies, programs, and plans, as well as
feedback on the delivery of services;
- Recognize individual and family
strengths as a starting point for planning and providing all
services;
- Honor the racial, ethnic,
cultural and socioeconomic diversity of families; and
- Ensure that all individuals with
disabilities and their families have access to consistent and
accurate information necessary to exercise choice and participate
as full partners in decision-making.)
The VESID Family Principles
represent a construct for significantly increasing the provision
of information to parents, and the participation of parents and
families in all aspects of their child’s education. The
implementation of these principles will increase the involvement of
parents and families at all levels of the educational process, as
well as to enhance the formation of public policy affecting special education in
New York State.
The significant steps that have been taken towards implementation
of the principles ensuring that all individuals with disabilities
and their families have access to information are reflected in the
activities listed below:
- Nineteen new special education
publications were developed in 2003-04.
- One hundred (100) percent of the
nineteen new special education publications were placed on VESID’s
web site and e-mailed to all constituent groups, including
parents, advocacy groups, schools teachers, professional
development networks, State agencies, etc.
- A “Parent’s Guide, Special
Education in New York State for Children Ages 3-21,” and the
“Procedural Safeguards Notice” were translated into four different
languages for families whose primary language is not English.
These were: Spanish, Haitian-Creole, Russian and simplified Chinese.
- Printed materials included:
- Over 150,000 copies of “Special
Education in New York State for Children, Ages 3-21: A Parent’s
Guide” regarding the special education process, due process,
notice, mediation, 60-day complaints, impartial hearings, etc.
- Over 150,000 copies of the
“Revised Procedural Safeguards Notice.”
- Over 100,000 copies of the
brochure “Resolving Concerns About Your Child’s Special
Education Services.”
- SED provides fiscal support or
complete funding for Parent Centers in Western New York, New York
City (3) and Long Island. The Long Island Parent Center (Sinergia)
and the New York City (NYC) based centers were designed
specifically to provide outreach and direct services to unserved
and underserved families. During the 2003-2004 program year, more
than 4,009 parents attended parent center training sessions and
presentations, and more than 15,200 parents were provided information about special education and related topics.
- Through a Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) with the Department of Mental Health, the SED
provides funding and support to Families Together in New York
State (FTNYS) to expand school-based mental health programs across
the state. FTNYS is part of the leadership team for New York's
Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports (PBIS) initiative
and provides parent staff members for each of seven regional PBIS
technical assistance centers. New York designed its PBIS
initiative specifically to include a strong parental component.
- SED funds 15 Early Childhood
Direction Centers (ECDCs), which provide information and referral
services to professionals and families of young children with
disabilities, birth through five years of age. During the 2003-04
program year, 2,908 parents participated in training events, and
the Centers responded to 24,084 requests for information.
- SED funds 42 Special Education Training and Resource Centers (SETRCs)
and 10 Regional Trainer positions. These resource provide technical
assistance and training to professionals and parents across the
State. During the 2003-04 program year, 4,909 parents participated
in training events provided through the SETRC network, and
information was disseminated to 13,369 parents.
Initiatives have been developed in
order to increase feedback on
services, and to promote the involvement of parents and families in
development of statewide policies, programs, and plans. Such
initiatives are
reflected in the following activities:
- The Commissioner’s Advisory Panel
(CAP) provides information on policy to constituent groups. More
than 50 percent of the members are either parents of children with
disabilities, or themselves individuals with disabilities;
- Monthly telephone meetings are
held with a network of 25 parent groups, which provide an
opportunity for continuous communication and exchange of
information with families;
- The Special Education Quality Assurance (SEQA) Unit has
incorporated parent surveys and parent forums into Quality
Assurance review processes that have resulted in increased
provision of information to parents, as well as improved
communication between parents and schools;
- As part of VESID’s mental health
initiatives, information to parents is distributed through family
organizations, web sites and other mechanisms of our interagency
partners;
- Parents have been involved in the development of the New York
State Alternate Assessment (NYSAA) from the beginning of its
development through membership in the NYSAA Task Force. The NYSAA is
currently administered to students with severe cognitive disabilities at the
elementary, intermediate and commencement levels and by 2005-06
will be administered in grades 3-8 and high school. A component of
the assessment is a parent/family/guardian survey. This survey was
developed by the NYSAA Task Force as a means of seeking
information about the assessed student, and encouraging ongoing
communication between school and parent regarding the student and
his/her education;
- The Coordinated Children’s Services Initiative (CCSI) is an
interagency effort directed at assisting children and their
families to maintain a child in their home, school and community
through collaborative programs, strength-based approaches and
family supports. CCSI reflects strong principles of parent
involvement. Results from counties implementing CCSI reveal
improved parent participation and outcomes in levels of care,
educational achievement and behavior. CCSI counties have developed
strong and innovative strategies for parent involvement, including
parent training;
- VESID staff and stakeholders have worked with representatives
from Consortium for Appropriate Dispute Resolution in Special
Education (CADRE), the National Center for Dispute Resolution in
Special Education, to design strategies for improving
school-parent relationships. As a result, fifteen pilot projects
were implemented in 2003-04 at the building level in selected
schools in order to improve parent-school relationships and to increase parent
involvement. Most of these projects plan to continue into a second
year of operation during 2004-05. As the plan is refined, a larger
group of schools, parents and stakeholders will be involved, and
the network of VESID technical assistance organizations will be
enlisted to assist in statewide implementation;
- A technical assistance document,
Educating our Children
Together: A Sourcebook for Effective Family-School-Community
Partnerships, continues to be available on the VESID web site on
the following “Additional Resources” page:
http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/resources.htm. The document was developed through a partnership between SED,
VESID and CADRE. The document provides a summary of research
supporting the effectiveness of family involvement, descriptions
of model programs and practical information to assist parents and
families, educators, administrators and other individuals who are
interested in building effective school/family/community
involvement programs; and
- New York’s State Improvement Grant (SIG) program is working with
a cohort of districts to address areas in need of improvement
based on VESID’s key performance measures and indicators of
disproportionality. Each district must, as a condition of funding,
enter into an agreement with a parent organization for the purpose
of coordinating home-school collaboration initiatives associated
with the SIG.
The greatest challenge to increasing parent and family involvement
is to reach the most at-risk and underserved parents of children
with disabilities who are the least connected to services that are
vital to educational success for their children. Systems for the
provision of information to parents must be improved through
identification of gaps and areas of unmet needs. All parents must
have access to information about regulations, entitlements, and
the range of school and community services that exist to assist
them. Initiatives must continually assess progress in reaching out
to those families that are difficult to engage, or unserved
because of language or cultural differences. Projects to increase
parent involvement at the local level will be evaluated to
determine the impact in key areas such as parent support of school
programs, parent-school disagreements, and student participation
and achievement. Parents, stakeholders, teachers, and school
personnel will need to be convinced that participation in this
effort and commitment of resources will result in successful
changes. Continuous changes in school personnel and the need for a
process that recruits new parents and renews enthusiasm for
involvement of experienced parent volunteers are significant
challenges that will persist. An important factor to consider in
the process of improving parent involvement is the preparation of
teachers and of leadership personnel. Pre-service preparation as
well as provision of sustained professional development and technical
assistance to teachers and school leadership personnel are needed
in order to increase awareness of the value of parent participation, and
develop specific skills of educators to increase parent
involvement.
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