District News
DDESS Schools in the News
DoDEA’s Educational Partnership Offers Training for Military-Connected Schools
DoDEA Partnership
| September 18, 2012
The DoDEA Educational Partnership Program provided free seminars for teachers in three military-connected school districts over the summer of 2012. Cumberland County Public Schools serve students with parents stationed at Fort Bragg, N.C. The Midwest City-Del City School District serves students whose parents are stationed, Fort Sill, Okla. and Central Kitsap School District serving families in the Joint Base Lewis McChord in Wash.
Through a contract with Cambium Learning Group, the Partnership Program provides special education professional development and based on a set of 16 special education training modules. DoDEA also offers these training modules via DVDs or online for any schools that serve military-connected students.
The modules cover topics that include: Response to Intervention, challenging behavior, autism, and various literacy and mathematics interventions. A full list of topics is available on the Partnership Website.
The in-person seminars featured prominent experts in special education who could effectively articulate proven practices that teachers can implement in their classroom. Materials were also provided to the teachers so they have what they need to be successful. The training and materials benefit all students within the school district.
Cambium and the Partnership Program worked with each host district to customize the training to meet local needs, with the ability to support up to 300 teachers for four days on two topics.
"This summer's DoDEA Educational Partnership seminars were outstanding," said Greg Lynch, superintendent of Central Kitsap School District. "Our staff had been asking for more special education-related professional development, but recent funding reductions made that difficult.
Cumberland County teachers received training in working with challenging behaviors for general education teachers, and another session specifically for special education teachers. Midwest City-Del City School District teachers were trained on effective strategies for students with mathematics difficulties and also challenging student behaviors, while teachers in Central Kitsap also were trained on challenging student behaviors and universal design for learning.
“The seminars were a great, no-cost opportunity that we really appreciated,” Lynch said. “The speakers were engaging, and the content helps us work better with all students as we continue to advance student achievement."