New Initiatives in the Department

2007 was an outstanding year, and 2008 looks even better

The past academic year has been exciting as the Department celebrated 50 years as a Department. (See "KU Special Education marks 50 years" for more information about the year's celebratory events.) This event alone has made it an exciting year.

However, the Department has been busy on a number of fronts. Following is a snapshot of other Department highlights and faculty work over the past year. Additional information is featured throughout this issue of the Special Education Connection.

Department Highlights

U.S. News and World Report in April released its latest edition of "America's Best Graduate Schools" (2009), ranking KU Special Education as the top program in the country among all public and private institutions. Since the inception of this annual publication in 1990, the Department has held a top position as either #1 overall or #1 among public universities. This is a tremendous honor considering the hundreds of programs that prepare special educators as teachers, teacher educators, and disability researchers.
The Department has added a half-time master’s-level student advisor to the Department’s support staff last spring. Pam Cullerton helps facilitate masters-level recruitment, advisement, and student retention efforts. This past fall Cullerton helped implement the “New Master’s Students” orientation and an Adaptive group advisement session. She also visits undergraduate education classes to share information concerning special education programs and special education endorsement information.
Faculty member Sandra Gautt last year assumed role as Doctoral Program Coordinator for the Department. In this position she provides leadership for doctoral program policy and processes; provides leadership related to recruitment of high-quality students; develops additional experiences that provide ongoing development opportunities for doctoral students; collaborates with and provides programming support for KUPD officers; and provides a preparing future faculty component for doctoral students interested in academic careers by teaching a seminar on Understanding Academic Life. In the coming year, Sandra will be serving as the Department's Associate Chair. She will be assisting Chriss Walther-Thomas in ongoing work and development of new student and community initiatives.
Special Education faculty member, Nancy Peterson, is assuming the new role as Coordinator of the KU School of Education PDS Program (Professional Development Schools Alliance). She will be serving both as the Coordinator of the PDS Program for the School of Education and will continue to be a member of the PDS Collaborative Teaching Team with Drs. George Crawford and Bob Harrington. Dr. Fred Rodriguez was the previous PDS Coordinator. Link to the PDS Web page for additional information about this program.
Lynda Schoonmaker, senior accountant, retired after 33 years of dedicated service to the Department of Special Education. Since 1971, Lynda's contributions have facilitated the work of hundreds of Special Education faculty, staff, and students, and she has helped to ensure the appropriate use of more than $150 million in state, federal, and private funds. The Department thanked Lynda for her commitment and service at a May 8 reception. Cards and best wishes can be sent to Lynda through the Department.
The Department received a 2007 master’s-level transition studies scholarship donated by Cathleen Stevenson, KU Law School alumna and current chair of the Board of Governors for the KU Law School, to honor her son Daniel’s high school transition coordinator “Mr. Mike.” The $1500 gift provided master’s-level tuition for Jennifer Rovel, the lead teacher in a community-based transition program for students aged 18-21 in Lawrence. Based on Ms. Stevenson's interactions with Dr. Mary Morningstar and the Department, her family recently established a $30,000 endowed scholarship for generating future transition studies scholarships.
This spring, Eva Alley and her children, Steven Alley and Melissa Sears, endowed a $30,000 Gordon Alley Family Scholarship to honor Gordon R. Alley, deceased husband, father, and KU special education professor. This year's scholarship recipient was Susanne James. To read about Gordon's contributions to the Department and the field of learning disabilities link to the following article. Full article>>
In conjunction with the Department's 50th Anniversary celebration, the KU Department of Special Education published a faculty-authored book concerned with the evolution of special education policy and practice. The book assesses what has been accomplished in the field over the past several decades, what remains to be done, and what must be reconsidered. Taking Stock of Special Education Policy & Practice: A Retrospective Commentary, edited by Tom Skrtic, Eva Horn and Gary Clark, is available from Love Publishing Company.
The Department of Special Education is fortunate to have as members of its Teacher Academy a dedicated group of teachers who offer support and guidance in a variety of forms of service, from cooperating teachers who provide field experiences for our students to presenters and co-presenters at local conferences including the Department’s Professional Development Day and the Midwest Symposium for Leadership in Behavior Disorders. Of particular note are those who presented at the Professional Development Day. They are Barbara Weatherford on the subject of mentoring new teachers; Rebecca Showalter on the development and use of social stories; and Debby Byrne on transition topics. Future activities are planned with our Teacher Academy group.
The 2008 Council for Exceptional Children Conference, held in Boston, Mass., was a rewarding event in many respects. Link to highlights offered by KU students, faculty and staff who attended to get a sense of the wonderful opportunities afforded by this event. In addition, KU graduate students and faculty delivered nearly 30 presentations at the conference (see presentations section below).
Published Works: In 2007, Department faculty produced over 100 published works (11 books, 24 book chapters, 58 refereed and invited articles, among other resources). Citations and related information can be retrieved on the Department's Web site by using the provided search features.
Presentations: Department faculty delivered 213 presentations —13 of which were keynote—for international, national, regional, state, and local conferences and workshops in 2007. A listing of these conferences can be accessed on the Department's Web site. Recent faculty and student presentations delivered at the national 2008 Council for Exceptional Children in April and at the Department's Professional Development Day in May are shown at their respective links.
Awards: Students and faculty received a variety of national awards in recognition of their excellence in scholarship, teaching and service. Many of these are highlighted in the "In the Spotlight" section of this issue of Special Education Connection. Two of the Department's faculty were honored in May by the KU School of Education: Eva Horn received the 2008 Service Achievement Award and Tom Skrtic received 2008 Teaching Achievement Award. At the School of Education Convocation, Ann Turnbull was announced as the 2008-2009 Gene A. Budig Teaching Professorship in Special Education.
Grants: The Department secured a number of personnel preparation and leadership grants to support special education master's and doctorate students. In 2007, the Department managed 71 new and continuing external grants totaling over $74 million dollars.
Program Completion: In 2007, 137 students completed the following programs: 18 doctoral students and 60 Master's students completed programs in special education; 25 students received a graduate certificate—20 in transition and 5 in building level special education leadership; 18 students completed endorsements, and 16 students completed their bachelors in education with an emphasis in special education.

Faculty News

Judith Carta and Charles Greenwood have recently learned that they will be the recipients of a 10 million dollar cooperative agreement from the Institute of Educational Sciences to establish the National Center for Response to Intervention in Early Childhood (CRTIEC). Carta received a subcontract from the Technical Assistance Center on Social-Emotional Intervention (TACSEI) to establish a three-tiered intervention model for preventing challenging behaviors in Early Head Start programs. Her recent Center for Disease Control-funded project, "Preventing child maltreatment through a cellular-phone technology-based parenting program" was featured in a front-page story in The Kansas City Star. In addition, along with Governor Kathleen Sebelius, Carta was part of a panel focused on the importance of investing in early childhood development. The event sponsored by the Committee on Economic Development addressed business and educational leaders in Johnson and Wyandotte Counties.
Gary Clark conducted a transition workshop titled "Breaking the Big Steps into Manageable Units"—a workshop for the Kansas Instructional Support Network, KSDE, April 4, 2008. The workshop presentations were videotaped for school districts’ use and the live presentations were fed to 15 KISN sites across Kansas.
Don Deshler co-authored two new instructional materials for teachers of struggling adolescent learners to improve their reading comprehension: The Inferencing Strategy for Improving Reading Comprehension and The Paraphrasing Strategy: Scaffolded Student Lessons. He also obtained a new grant from the Wal-Mart Foundation to provide after school goal setting and academic tutoring supports. This work will be done with the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. The $700,000 grant is the largest made by the Foundation in the state of Kansas.
Juliet Hart, in collaboration with colleagues at the College of William and Mary, conducted research on effective and inclusive strategies for students with Autism Spectrum Disorder within the general education setting, as well as collaborative approaches to re-integrating students with Traumatic Brain Injury to life in school. Initial findings from these research projects have been presented at national and international conferences and are currently in press for publication.
Eva Horn, together with her colleague Susan Palmer, continues her research and development work on the Children’s School Success curriculum for preschool children at risk for school failure, through a five year NIH multi-university research grant. Horn, Judith Carta and Barbara Thompson received a four year ($800,000) leadership preparation grant to develop highly effective ECSE/ECE teacher educators. Horn, Susan Palmer, Marcetta Reilley and John Poggio led the $450,000 School Readiness for Kansas Kids project.
Ed Meyen and the eLearning Design Lab completed a large scale pilot test of Blending Assessment with Instruction Program (BAIP) in mathematics with 187 school districts in Kansas. Three doctorate, two Master's and one bachelor’s degrees were earned by students working in the eLearning Design Lab this year. In addition, the Lab has begun development work on parent resources for instructional supports for students with disabilities to enhance academic achievement.
A recently awarded KU New Faculty Research Grant has allowed Mary Morningstar to launch a line of research specifically to identify the levels of collaboration, information sharing and behavior changes among students involved in online classes. She, along with the parent training and information center in Missouri, has also received federal Rehabilitation Services Administration funding to develop online training for family members who will be supported to be transition advocates across vocational rehabilitation and independent living centers in Missouri. Morningstar and the Transition Coalition offered online graduate coursework through the KU TransCert Program to more than 60 participants from Kansas, Missouri and 20 other states, as well as established a new online community of practice for Missouri teachers and secondary practitioners. The Transition Coalition was awarded the Association of Continuing Higher Education Regional Award for Excellence for a series of online short courses in transition. In June Morningstar will host the week-long 11th annual KU Transition Summer Institute for 55 practitioners from across the country.
Wayne Sailor’s Kansas-Illinois Tertiary Center on Positive Behavior Supports and Interventions hosted a training event on Wraparound/RTI for Kansas City, Kans., and Topeka school districts on June 4-5, 2008. The Center (partnering with Illinois PBS Network) shows how and when resources and systems are organized to ensure the success of all students in accordance with a response to intervention (RTI) logic model that consistently delivers evidence-based approaches embedded in an ongoing problem-solving process. Sailor is presenting at the KU SOE’s "No Child Left Behind" conference on June 13 on “School-wide Response to Intervention (RTI) for All Teachers.” Sailor also provides ongoing consulting and technical assistance to the Ravenswood City School District in East Palo Alto, Calif.
Rich Simpson created partnerships with several area school districts ( Blue Valley in Kansas and Center and Kansas City in Kansas City, Mo.) whereby full time grant-supported Autism Spectrum Disorders master’s and doctoral students in the Autism Spectrum Disorders/Emotional-Behavioral Disorders program are involved in cooperative staff development, consultation, technical assistance and research programs and projects. Simpson also organized the 2008 Midwest Symposium for Leadership in Behavior Disorders Conference in Kansas City, MO, in February, 2008.
Tom Skrtic co-authored a chapter titled, "Disability Studies in Education: Guidelines and Ethical Practice for Educators," for the edited volume, Social Justice, Peace, and Eco-Justice Standards: A Transformative Framework for Educators, to be published by the American Educational Research Association this spring.
Sean Smith was recently awarded an OSEP Personnel Preparation Grant to develop Master's level students in the area of special education and technology-based solutions. This four-year $800,000 project plans to collaborate with local urban and rural school district partners to develop licensed special educators as well as building and district leaders in the area of assistive/instructional technology. In addition, Sean Smith and Jim Miller head the $400,000 Animated Visual Supports for Social Skills. For this OSEP Steppingstones Technology Development project, investigators will apply virtual reality technology to augment social skills interventions for students with autism spectrum disorders. Finally, Sean continues to facilitate the Kansas Infinitec Coalition that works with 85% of the districts across the state of Kansas focused on integrating technology into the lives of those students that struggle.
Ann Turnbull, named a Distinguished Professor (Marianna and Ross Beach Professorship) this year, has been exploring how an on-line Community of Practice and other technology options can help synthesize and integrate research, experiential insight from families, and policy in enhancing the quality of family support for young children with special needs. Link to the Early Childhood Family Support Web page. In addtion, she and others at the Beach Center have been involved in synthesizing information on employment, home ownership, friendships, and community inclusion, along with all of the myriad public and private funding sources, to support individuals with disabilities to experience Whole L.I.V.E.S. – A Life of Inclusion, Valued Relationships, Economic control and self-determination. They will soon have numerous resources available on the Beach Center website – www.beachcenter.org. She is the co-PI of a brand new leadership grant focusing on family-professional partnerships.
Rud Turnbull, also named a Distinguished Professor (Marianna and Ross Beach Professorship) this year, completed his research into how North Carolina and Kansas policy and practice affect the national goals of participant-directed Medicaid services. He filed his report on the North Carolina approach and has consulted with state and regional policy leaders in that state concerning his findings and their use as evidence before the state legislature's oversight committee on mental health and before county boards of commissioners. He has not yet filed his Kansas report. He also conducted training for faculty and Master's students at three universities in China (in Shanghai, Beijing, and Chongqing) and mentored two Chinese students (one a doctoral student and one a visiting scholar) at the Beach Center.
Chriss Walther-Thomas is currently serving in two national leadership positions and is actively engaged in special education advocacy and national policy development. She is the 2008 President of the Council for Exceptional Children Teacher Education Division (TED) representing more than 3,500 teacher educators and teacher education researchers across the U.S. and Canada. In addition, she is the President (2007-09) of the Higher Education Consortium for Special Education (HECSE) that represents more than 65 universities engaged in the preparation of doctoral students for teaching, research, and leadership careers in special education.
Mike Wehmeyer published 11 articles, three books, and eight book chapters; completed his second year as editor-in-chief of Remedial and Special Education; and is doing research funded by a new grant from IES to conduct randomized trial study of model of teaching to promote self-determination.

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