We are pleased to announce the release of Extended School Year (ESY) 2023! ESY is a 4-week extended school year curriculum for K-12 students with moderate to severe disabilities. This year’s theme is “Summer in My Community: Choose Your Own Adventure!” Students will engage with rich content about learning, exploring, and contributing to the community they live in.
As an educator, fall, winter, spring and summer vacations are often welcome breaks from the hustle and bustle of standard school routines. I think we can all agree that rest and relaxation are key in preventing burnout, right? This holds true for your students with moderate to severe disabilities, too. While we want to ensure that relaxation is baked into a break from school, it’s also important to provide parents/families with tips to provide structure, predictability and a sense of security for your students with extensive support needs during a break from their usual routine.
Heading to the beach? Looking forward to longer, slower days? Planning to teach ESY? For many special education teachers, the answers here are: check, check, check! When a traditional school year ends though, what comes next for students with moderate to severe disabilities? For many, an ESY program is an important part of their IEP that helps ensure they continue making progress on key skills.
Have you ever applied for a job and noticed that the application you were filling out had an Equal Opportunity Employment (EOE) disclaimer listed? That’s there because employers are required by law to notify applicants that they don’t (and legally can’t!) discriminate based on certain things, like disabilities. Similarly, as the EOE law is in place to protect workers, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has been established to protect the rights of special education students.
Today, schools are faced with heightened challenges brought on by special education teachers and related service providers leaving the profession at faster rates than new hires are entering it. Staff shortages can lead to disruptions in learning for students, and it's essential to find ways to support and retain the teachers who make a difference in their lives. Let’s talk about some strategies that can help to offset the burdens fueled by staff shortages, from professional development and mentorship to higher pay and providing high-quality curriculum resources.
TeachTown, a leading provider of special education curriculum for students with moderate to severe disabilities, is pleased to announce that its K-12 standards-based, adapted core curriculum, enCORE, has been named a finalist in 2 categories of the EdTech Cool Tool Awards 2023: Adaptive Technology Solution and Curriculum and Instruction. enCORE is firmly rooted in evidence-based practices that have shown to be effective for students with moderate to severe disabilities, including the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) and systematic, explicit instruction.
Think about your everyday life as an adult involved in your community. What do you do? What skills do you need to have to go, for example, grocery shopping? Or to a restaurant? For students with disabilities, life skills – the skills needed to manage selfcare, are correlated to improved education, employment and independent living outcomes.
It goes without saying that learning safety skills is important for everyone, but it’s critical for students with moderate to severe disabilities. If these skills are not taught directly and systematically, they often will not be learned naturally. Let’s tap into key safety skills that can be taught in the classroom and practiced in natural environments, as well as how you can teach them effectively.
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), students with disabilities have the right to receive a free and appropriate public education. This means that all students will receive the same academic opportunities as their typically developing peers. As a special educator, you recognize that academic progress for your students with moderate to severe disabilities is important, but you also know it’s not the full picture. Supporting prosocial, adaptive, and functional skills, among others, is key in helping your students reach their full potential and live as independently as possible one day.
TeachTown announces today a statewide partnership with the Pennsylvania Association of Intermediate Units (PAIU) through PA Instructional Media Services (PAIMS). As part of PAIU, PAIMS strives to develop, maintain and deliver high-quality partnerships for schools and intermediate units. Through this collaboration, PA districts that elect to purchase TeachTown’s special education solutions will receive discounted and incentivized pricing.