Special Education Leadership

ADE Exceptional Student Services
This webpage offers complete information for all Arizona special education programs regarding regulations, procedures, and compliance. Information and resources for specific special education areas are available.
Publication Date: May 2022
Publisher: Exceptional Student Services, Arizona Department of Education

ADE Program Support and Monitoring
This webpage offers necessary information, documents, and resources for all Arizona special education directors.
Publisher: Exceptional Student Services, Arizona Department of Education

Guidance Manuals for Educators of English Learners with Disabilities: Ideas and Lessons
This report describes ideas and lessons learned from leaders in four states, a statewide association, and a school district, all of which have developed guidance manuals. These ideas and lessons will assist leaders who are creating or are in the process of revising procedures and policies of their own.
Author: Elizabeth Burr
Publication Date: April 2019
Publisher: National Center on Educational Outcomes

Instructional Accommodations
This webpage provides detailed information for accommodations in presentation, response, timing/scheduling setting, assessment, including students in the decision-making process, documentation on IEPs and 504 plans, and more.
Author: Sandra Thompson
Publisher: National Center on Educational Outcomes, University of Minnesota

Making the Time: Relationships Among the School Specialists
This study examined the relationships among school specialists; specifically, special education teachers; Child Study Team members, school psychologists and school social workers; and school counselors, who provide support to students with specific learning needs and their families.
Authors: Meredith Drew and Michelle Gonzalez
Publication Date: 2021
Publisher: School Community Journal

Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools
To facilitate efforts to eliminate discrimination against students with disabilities, OCR offers this resource guide to provide answers to questions that OCR has received and increase understanding among parents and members of the school community of the Federal civil rights laws that protect students with disabilities in public schools, and in particular, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504).
Publication Date: December 2016
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights

School Accommodation Ideas for Students who Receive Section 504 or Special Education Services
This is a list of possible accommodations for textbooks and curriculum, classroom environment, instructions and assignments, time and making transitions, handwriting, grading, tests, math, behavior, and more.
Publication Date: 2018
Publisher: PACER Center

School Modification Ideas for Students Who Receive Special Education Services
This is a list of possible modifications for books, math, assignments, tests, grading, behavior, and discipline to assist an IEP team in identifying the best adjustment for each individual student.
Publication Date: 2019
Publisher: PACER Center

School Practices and Accountability for Students With Disabilities
This study presents descriptive findings on school practices for elementary and middle schools explicitly held accountable for the performance of the students with disabilities subgroup.
Authors: Jenifer Harr-Robins, Mengli Song, Michael Garet, and Louis Danielson
Publication Date: January 2015
Publisher: U.S. Department of Education

Supporting Students with High-Incidence Disabilities in U.S. Schools National Findings from the American Educator Panels
This report explores the extent to which supports are available to general and special educators, based on the results of the Measurement, Learning, and Improvement Survey to the RAND American Teacher Panel, a survey administered to a nationally representative sample of teachers.
Authors: Laura Stelitano, Rachel Perera, and William R. Johnston
Publication Date: 2019
Publisher: RAND Corporation

The Identification of Specific Learning Disabilities: A Summary of Research on Best Practices
This report summarizes research on the identification of SLD and makes recommendations for practice. It begins with a summary of the legal requirements for SLD identification and what constitutes a comprehensive evaluation. It then discusses the attributes of SLD according to different conceptual frameworks and reviews research on the reliability and validity of different methods for SLD identification that emanate from these frameworks. The report concludes with recommendations for best practice, regardless of the specific identification methods employed.
Authors: Jack M. Fletcher and Jeremy Miciak
Publication Date: 2019
Publisher: Texas Center for Learning Disabilities

The Special Education Handbook: A Brief Overview of the History and Requirements of Part B of the IDEA
This handbook provides an explanation of federal and state special education requirements in a readable and accessible format that includes relevant citations.
Authors: Kacey Gregson and Shannon Chavez
Publication Date: January 2018
Publisher: Arizona Department of Education

The UDL Guidelines
These guidelines offer a set of concrete suggestions that can be applied to any discipline or domain to ensure that all learners can access and participate in meaningful, challenging learning opportunities.
Publication Date: 2022
Publisher: CAST