| Members of Mass Families Organizing for Change have been invited to take part in an exciting opportunity to directly impact the implementation of high-quality Individual Education Programs (IEPs) by participating as a stakeholder in the Massachusetts IEP Improvement Project.
What does it mean to participate as a stakeholder in the IEP Improvement Project?
Stakeholders will play an active role in achieving the project’s goals of:
- Developing student-centered IEPs driven by data and written to ensure real educational benefit to students
- Ensuring a high-functioning process for evaluation and ongoing assessment across environments
- Ensuring that students with disabilities have access to the general curriculum and all aspects of school life
- Closing the achievement gap between students with disabilities and their general education peers
- Raising the achievement of Black, Latinx, and low-income students with disabilities
- Increasing productive collaboration between general educators, special educators, and related service providers
- Strengthening parent/educator relationships that benefit all students across the state
- Promoting student voice and engaging students in their own IEP process
What kind of commitment is involved?
Participants will commit to:
- Reviewing current drafts of documents and completing reflections based on their review of those drafts and any supporting documents
- Actively participating in regularly-scheduled stakeholder feedback meetings (currently scheduled to happen monthly, depending on the availability of the resources under review)
- Open and honest collaboration with fellow group members, EDCO facilitators, and DESE
- A minimum of two years of participation, with the potential of a third year
How do I sign up?
The EDCO Collaborative is reaching out to organizations and individuals throughout the Commonwealth and asking for help in spreading the word on this meaningful opportunity. Should you know anyone who might be interested in participating in this project, please take a minute today and forward this communication. If you yourself are interested in participating, please go to this link and complete the sign-up form by Monday, August 10, 2020.
Important: In recognition of the fact that schools and districts across the state are currently planning for the safe re-engagement of their students during this pandemic, EDCO and DESE have decided to delay issuing our stakeholder invitation to school- and district-based personnel until October 2020, and are focusing on attracting non-school-based stakeholders to the project at this time. We tremendously value the input of school and district personnel and will be inviting their participation when their involvement is likely to be more productive to all.
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