This newsletter is the first of a new, periodic series for school and special education leadership about all things connected to Special Education.  

We will provide resources and information for teachers and other school staff working with students with disabilities and their families. 

We are planning to send this newsletter out about once a quarter and hope that it helps schools and families create stronger connections, and supports better outcomes for students with disabilities by supporting the professionals who work with them.  

In this newsletter we have information about - 

We also have information you can share with your families, including resources,  an update about our current operations and a great virtual mindfulness meeting to de-stress and connect.   We recently put together a list of our most popular Spanish Language Resources for families, you can find them here to share with your families who might be interested.  

Please let us know at information@aje-dc.org , what information would be most helpful to receive,  and please   .

TIES Center is the national technical assistance center on inclusive practices and policies.  TIES stands for Increasing (T)ime, (I)nstructional Effectiveness, (E)ngagement, and State (S)upport for Inclusive Practices.  The TIES Center focuses on serving students with significant cognitive disabilities.

Its purpose is to create sustainable changes in kindergarten-grade 8 school and district educational systems so that students with significant cognitive disabilities can fully engage in the same instructional and non-instructional activities as their general education peers while being instructed in a way that meets individual learning needs.

They have an excellent webinar series on distance learning and the student with significant cognitive disabilities and webinars that schools can share with families to help them support distance learning for their students with significant cognitive disabilities.  They have a wide range of resources for educators, including suggestions for IEPs that support inclusionary practices.  

Do you frequently communicate with Deaf families via text or email?  Did you know that this presents some unique barriers that might not be readily apparent to you?  

Join us on July 14 at noon for a virtual Lunch and Learn with attorney and interpreter Carla Mathers about how professionals can work and communicate more effectively with Deaf parents.   

Carla will provide practical information, resources and needed context for working with Deaf families.   We hope you can join us for this event! 

You can find all of our Lunch and Learns and other upcoming events on our online calendar.

• The Katherine Thomas School 
• Kingsman PCS

Transition planning for students is intended to prepare them for life after school - specifically further education/job training,  independent living and employment.

Knowing how and when to access medical care in the adult system is part of independent living, as is understanding your own medications and diagnosis.  However, we understand that many families and educators don't know how to support this transition to adult medical care systems as part of the secondary transition process.  

Thankfully, Got Transition, a project of The National Alliance to Advance Adolescent Health has created some great resources to help schools and families support students.  

• Health Care Transition readiness assessment for students with disabilities in English and in Spanish 
• Sample IEP Goals related the Health Care Transition 
• Family Toolkit on Health Care Transition 

You can find all these, and more, at the  Got Transition website.    

During this time, our staff remain available to assist and support families and professionals. Our team is working remotely and the office is closed, but we are available to talk with families via Zoom and other technologies.  

For assistance, please call 202-678-8060, and press 1 to reach our intake line where you will be connected 

t o the AJE Advocate of the Day.  You can also leave a detailed message there.  We are returning calls as soon as possible.  

You may also email us at information@aje-dc.org.

We have several new on-demand trainings for families  our Special Education Thursday webinars are still a great resource for families!

We also have resources there to help families support their student with a disability, including

• How to support a child's speech/language needs at home during COVID-19 and 
• How to encourage resilience.