In the Polk County School District (Florida), there are no LD Services, or
any other ESE services, for adult education students. We do have a full-time
guidance counselor at each of our two adult centers, but they are not
qualified to do any type of psychological testing. Unlike the K-12 schools,
we have no reading coaches. Our full-time teachers have attended a day-long
seminar designed to help them recognize LD characteristics and utilize
appropriate strategies, but there is no district support for adult education
students.

 

Loretta Cameron

Administrator

West Area Adult School

Polk County Public Schools

 

  _____  

From: learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:learningdisabilities-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Bonnita Solberg
Sent: Wednesday, April 25, 2007 10:47 AM
To: The Learning Disabilities Discussion List
Subject: [LearningDisabilities 1135] Re: FW: (LearningDisabilities 1131)
WAState LD Project - Day 2

 

Good Morning Listers:  I have read with interest the discussion of LD
services and realized this morning that most of the information is centering
on the availability of services to LD students in the community college
systems.  I would pose the same questions for Adult Ed programs in the K12
school districts.  In Oakland, we have one counselor in the HS subjects
program and one reading specialist.  HS subjects, ASE and GED lumped
together are a small program in comparison to ESL.  We fund the counselor
position out of a budget in competition for other services.  We have no
special services available for ESL students at this time.  There is nothing
at the state level in place that funds LD services in AE programs that are
part of K12 districts, as far as I know.  What is the experience of other AE
programs in the K12 districts?  

Bonnita Solberg
Teacher on Special Assignment
Oakland Adult and Career Education
Oakland Unified School District
"Rennegarbe, Candyce" <crennegarbe at tacomacc.edu> wrote:

Thank you again, Rochelle, for inviting us to spend these 3 days talking
about our LD Project. Here is a response to a question that came in on
Monday.

1. Does Washington State have an approved state policy on serving adults
with LD? If so, is that available online to review? Can you tell us more how
your policy was developed and who was involved?

No, Washington State does not have an approved state policy on serving
adults with LD. Wish we did.

Coming up with policies in Washington State about learning disabilities has
been slow and difficult. Our LD Project with its beginning in the Learning
Disabilities Quality Initiative (LDQI) started with ABE practitioners and
administrators from the bottom up instead of policies from the top down. We
developed a flagging, screening, interventions, and ld testing process. We
developed training for teachers that is rooted in universal design. Our
efforts were initially directed towards adult basic education programs.
Currently we have 15 community colleges and 1 community based literacy
program who have been trained in this model. We also have trained 11 LD
Specialists with 3 more in process. The more we have worked in this area
over the past 6 years, we realize it is not just about adults in ABE
programs but all adults with learning disabilities who are not getting the
help they need while struggling in any community college classes. Yet the
only funding which has been av
ailable has been through our Adult Basic Education Programs and Israel
Mendoza. 

Another factor that has slowed our policy development effort is that unlike
many states, our state is very decentralized in terms of decision-making.
Our State Board rarely makes a decision independently of local college
staff. Policy development involves the input and feedback of staff at every
level. 

We try to work together as collaborative systems to develop resources but
there is no policy mandate from the state to provide these services. We need
to create an environment for political advocacy in our state that supports
public funding for these services and are working towards this. 





----------------------------------------------------
National Institute for Literacy
Learning Disabilities mailing list
LearningDisabilities at nifl.gov
To unsubscribe or change your subscription settings, please go to
http://www.nifl.gov/mailman/listinfo/learningdisabilities

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/learningdisabilities/attachments/20070425/8436f885/attachment.html