Houston Community College
West Loop Campus
5601 West Loop S
Houston, TX 77081

Program Description

One-day special education law and advocacy programs focus on four areas:

• special education law, rights and responsibilities
• McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act
• tests and measurements to measure progress & regression
• SMART IEPs
• introduction to tactics & strategies for effective advocacy

Wrightslaw programs are designed to meet the needs of parents, educators, health care providers, advocates and attorneys who represent children with disabilities regarding special education. The program is not disability specific.

NOTE: Pete will discuss the McKinney-Vento Act and the two recent unanimous U.S. Supreme Court spec ed cases and how he expects those two cases will be used to open more doors to the school house and the court house for our children with special needs.

Due to road cleanup and detours, the start will be delayed by a half hour, lunch will be shortened to forty-five minutes, and the program will end fifteen minutes later than the original schedule. That will provide the full six hours of continuing education so that the program will be in compliance with the accrediting agencies.

* * * * * Registration begins at 8:30! * * * * *

Agenda

	Registration
9:30-11:00	IDEA IDEA History, Book Overview, US Supreme Ct Cases Section 1400 - Findings, Purpose Section 1401 - Definitions: Disability, Special Education, Related Services, LD, etc.
11:00-11:15	Break
11:15-12:30	Section 1412 - ESY, Child Find, LRE, Private Placements Understanding Tests and Measurements, and the Bell Curve, Standard Scores, Scale Scores, % ranks, Grade Equivalent, Age Equivalent, Determining progress v. regression using Bar Graphs
12:30-1:15	Lunch
1:15-2:45	Section 1414 - Evaluations and IEPs Section 1415 - Due Process, Rules of Procedure, Discipline Section 504, ADA, FERPA, ESSA Episodic Conditions, Allergies, Epilepsy, etc. Recent US Supreme Court Cases, OCR, USDOJ The Parent as the Special Ed Manager and Expert Developing the Master Plan Knowing the Rules of the Game Recognizing and Avoiding the Fatal Obstacles How to Deal with Conflict, a Healthy and Normal event Crisis, Emergency, Help Organization of the Child’s File
2:45-3:00	Break
3:00-4:15	Tactics and Strategies Rule of Adverse Assumptions Private Evaluations Paper Trails The Letter to the Stranger 5 Ws + H + E Preparation for Meetings Meeting Strategies
4:15-4:45	Questions and Answers