2001 - 2002 Accomplishments

Continuous improvement is seen as a valued and integral feature of this Network. We rely on both qualitative and quantitative data to inform us about our Network impact and practices. The Field Based Consultant Network was developed using a continuous improvement model and will continue. During Year 2 of the project extensive revisions were implemented to attempt to standardize outcomes of FBTA. Additionally, dissemination was prioritized to increase statewide awareness of the FBTA and FBPD activities of the Network. These findings are described in this report. In Year 3 the Network will continue to refine evaluation as described below. All progress reports from this project are posted on our website at www.ku.edu/~inks.

1. Project Impact

   We will continue to report our project’s impact according to three general outcomes of 1) reaching Kansans across the entire state, 2) delivering customized technical assistance, and 3) providing customized professional development.

4.11. The Network will address the technical assistance and professional development needs across Kansas.

The Network is committed to ensuring that Field Based Technical Assistance and Professional Development activities are available and occur in all districts and special education cooperatives in Kansas. To achieve this the Network distributed over 2500 project brochures to all special education directors and cooperative directors, KSDE student support services personnel, KU faculty, and at all Network professional development workshops.. Additionally, over 1400 brochures advertising our professional development were mailed across Kansas using KSDE databases to target specific participants. Technical Assistance was provided to 14 school districts or special education cooperatives. Six occurred in eastern Kansas, seven in central Kansas and two occurred in western Kansas. Two professional development activities occurred during Year 2. The summer institute addressing Alternate Assessment and Reading and Literacy Skills for students with moderate to profound disabilities was held in Overland Park, Kansas (eastern Kansas) and the spring seminar was held in Wichita, Kansas (central Kansas). Of the 101 total participants, 58 were from eastern Kansas, 48 from central Kansas and 5 from west Kansas. Additionally, eleven professionals who attended the Summer Institute sessions have formed study groups that meet electronically on a monthly basis to plan implementation activities. They represent participation from central and eastern Kansas. Finally, of the 21 Field Based Consultants, thirteen are based in eastern Kansas, five in central Kansas and three in west Kansas.

2. The Network will deliver customized technical assistance.

   The Network strives to ensure that the technical assistance is carefully matched to the needs and skills levels of the team requesting the support. The Network uses a careful needs assessment process and formative evaluation measures to ensure that the technical assistance continues to remain customized to the site. The Network delivered 33 days of onsite consultation to 15 sites throughout Kansas during Year 2. Topics addressed include: aquatics instruction, appropriate education/scheduling and data collection for students with severe disabilities in more inclusive programs, curricular adaptations, nonsymbolic communication, transitioning students from kindergarten to 1^st grade, feeding and collecting assessment information to design effective behavior and instruction. In many cases the requests addressed multiple topical areas. Satisfaction evaluation suggests that the Network was very successful in meeting the requested needs of the site. Site team satisfaction evaluations have been returned from nine sites thus far. Of the thirteen guiding questions 29 respondents reported overall satisfaction of 4.40 on a 5 point scale with 1 representing strongly disagree and 5 representing strongly agree. Prompt questions include: The FBC was flexible and able to address my concerns and was able to work effectively within the structure of this site to promote ideas.

   Additionally, of nine technical assistance sites with data in, 52 unique team and 38 student specific recommendations were made and resources, examples and readings were distributed on 24 separate topics in those nine sites.

   4.1.3. The Network will provide customized professional development.

   Professional development was directed to both the FBCs and to other professionals during Year 2. The professional development activities relied on traditional large group presentation formats, discussion groups, small work groups, panel presentations, case studies to augment learning, follow-up application activities in the form of study groups using, chat room discussions and conference calls. During the year positive behavioral supports, transition to adulthood, alternate assessment and reading and literacy issues were addressed. All professional development sessions were limited in size at the speaker’s request, room size and to ensure for application activities. In all cases the upper limit was met and slightly over. The workshop for alternate assessment and reading and literacy featured awareness, skills acquisition and application aspects. The workshop for PBS and SIT addressed advanced skills and some application.

   The Network offered excellent professional development during Year 2 as rated by evaluation collected at the conclusion of each of the three activities. For the Summer 2001 professional development workshop entitled, Alternate Assessment, 18 respondents rated the session 6.00 — 6.50 on a 7 point scale with 6 questions. For the Summer 2001 professional development workshop entitled, Reading and Literacy, 36 respondents rated the session between 5.37 — 6.53 on a 7 point scale with 6 questions. And finally, for the Spring 2002 seminar entitled, Hairballs and Boiled Frogs: Aligning SIT and PBS satisfaction was rated between 5.94 and 6.38 on a 6 point scale by 37 respondents.

3. Progress on Project Goals and Activities

Table -- describes the implementation and evidence of each objective for this project from July 1, 2001 through April 30, 2002.

Table --: Year 2 Project Goals and Activities Accomplishments

Goal 1. Goal 1: Provide field-based technical assistance to student teams in 3 consultation contents (severe disabilities/deaf-blind; positive behavior support and transition to adulthood), adding school wide approaches.

Objective	Impact/Outcomes	Evidence
Provide up to 120 days of consultation statewide	33 days of onsite consultation to 15 sites have been provided between July 1, 2001 and April 30, 2002. Of the 15 TA visits 8 addressed PBS assistance, 2 addressed transition issues and 8 addressed issues for students identified as having severe disabilities, deaf-blindness. It is important to note that many of the requests address more than one content area. An additional 23 phone and resource consultations were made during the project year by the Coordinator, FBCs and the Project Directors. These consultations did not result in an onsite consultation and are not included in the days of consultation. Evaluation measures will be designed to begin in Year 3 to capture this effort.	-Consultation reports -Billing invoices from FBCs districts -phone records
Provide oversight for each content area: recruit members, develop working procedures and meet regularly	The 2001-2002 oversight committee consists of: Gwen Beegle, Donna Wickham, Peter Griggs (INKs project staff), Wendy Blauuw (transition to adulthood expertise), Rachel Freeman (PBS expertise), Susan Bashinski (SMH expertise), Jeff Cook (DB expertise), and Dawn Miller (SIT expertise). Monthly oversight meetings were held in Topeka or Lawrence to plan for professional development, determine FBC needs and plan for coordination of service. Additionally and oversight listserv has been created to facilitate frequent contact.	-Oversight Committee Meeting Minutes -Proceedings of the Oversight Committee listserv
Recruit and select up to 25 qualified FBCs	The Network currently has 21 FBCs representing all content areas and geographically located across the state. Three new FBCs, representing general education, occupational therapy and infants and toddlers began participation in the network in July 2001. As an outcome of the March oversight committee meeting an action plan was written to increase the number of FBCs in our transition to adulthood component. Letters were mailed to 6 potential applicants for a May informational meeting.	-FBC application procedures listed on the INKs website and mailed to districts -FBC portfolios -Transition recruitment letter
Build mission among new and former FBCs	Each professional development activity has at least _ day devoted to building mission among FBCs as a part of the agenda. A _ day meeting was held in July 2001 and a second _ day meeting occurred in March 2002.
Advertise availability of consulting and technical assistance services	A project brochure was mailed to all directors, past recipients of FBC onsite consultation and attendees at the Network’s professional development in the fall of 2001 The request for consulting services is available at www.ukans.edu/~inks. Project staff also presented at a Special Education Advisory meeting in January 2002 and had a poster session at the special education administrator’s meeting in July 2001.	-INKs website -KSDE website -brochure

Goal 2: Create and maintain effective structures and procedures to enact the Network’s activities.

Objective	Evidence	Impact
Unify coordination methods and consultant procedures across all content areas	The FBC procedural manual (coordinating consultant procedures was revised in January 2001). Efforts were made in Year 2 to implementing and evaluating these procedures with the new Coordinator. Time was developed at the July 2001 and March 2002 FBC only meetings to reviewing methods and procedures. Additionally, time is devoted to discussion of methods and procedures at Oversight meetings.	-Minutes from Oversight Committee meetings -FBC only meeting agendas -FBC Procedural Manual
Accept technical assistance and professional development requests	The Network received a total of 40 requests between July 1, 2001 and April 30, 2002. Of those 40 requests 19 were generated from school personnel, 2 were from families, 2 from county mental health centers, 5 from the DDC at KU Med, 2 from Children’s Mercy Hospital and 10 from miscellaneous sources. Of those 40 requests 13 have been completed, 3 are still in progress, 5 will be completed at the beginning of the next school year, 5 did not occur due to no action taken by the person requesting, 7 did not occur due to no action taken by the school personnel, 3 did not occur due to the parent not taking action and 4 were withdrawn when local resources were located to address the need.	-TA requests -Phone logs -TA request records -TA reports
Match consultant to technical assistance (TA) request and negotiate TA agreements	The Networks continues to use the same procedures of relying on the Coordinator to determine an appropriate consultant, describing the consult and transferring the contacts and information to the selected consultant. The Oversight Committee discontinued the use of a TA agreement after reviewing expressed dissatisfaction project data collected from sites.	-Phone logs -Email correspondence logs -FBC procedural manual
Update existing procedural manual and develop new procedural materials as needed	The manual was revised and disseminated in January 2001.	-Updated FBC procedural manual
Secure employer agreements for FBC participation in Technical Assistance and Professional Development components of INKs	Employer agreements were completed by October 2001 for the 2001-2001 school year. Each FBCs employer was contacted by one of the Project Directors. Each employer agreed to allow each FBC to consult up to 5 days during the school year and donated 2 days for professional development through the Network.	-Letters to each FBC employer
Maintain payments to employers and consultants	While securing employer agreements a payment schedule was agreed upon. In all cases the employer agreed to invoice for reimbursement of the FBCs consultation time in December and May of each year. This timeline was at the request of the Life Span Institute who oversees the Network’s budget. The Coordinator writes a letter to each of the employers listing the FBCs consultation activity for the specified time to be reimbursed.	-Employer letters to signal invoice preparation. -invoices
Provide communication among all Network participants and partners	A listserv, established in the fall of 1999 continues to serves as a highly effective, timely and active means of communication among all FBCs and Oversight Committees. Employers of each FBC received correspondence from the Network three times since July 1, 2001, describing their FBCs contributions, Network updates and upcoming professional development.	-Listserv proceedings -Correspondence to FBC employers

Goal 3: Provide an array of Field Based Professional Development activities corresponding to RBSD performance.

Objective	Evidence	Impact
Develop annual plan to provide results-based professional development on best practices within 3 content areas	The oversight committee continues to provide professional development in three content areas following awareness, demonstration and integration levels. It was determined that Summer Institute would address the content areas of SMH/DB and PBS, Fall Seminar would address PBS and transition or SMH/DB and Spring would address Transition and SMH/DB or PBS. Additionally it was determined to provide awareness, demonstration and integration levels for all sessions.	Summer Institute, Fall Seminar, and Spring Seminar brochures, agendas, handouts, evaluation data
Partner with IHEs, state agencies, state and federal projects, and state organizations to co-sponsor the professional development array	One hundred one participants from across the state attended the two professional development activities during Year 2. The Network partnered with Dr. Diane Nielson (University of Kansas) and the Kansas City, Kansas school district Reading Recovery program staff for one session of the Summer Institute for a session on emergent literacy skills. The Network partnered with Lynnet Wright of KSDE for Alternate Assessment content for a second session of the Summer Institute in July 2001. University graduate credit was offered during both Summer Institute sessions. The Network partnered with Wendy Blaauw to support the statewide transition conference and Dr. Dawn Miller for a session on the connection between School Improvement Teams and PBS.	-Network brochures -Professional Development handouts -course enrollment records
Promote awareness of effective and best practice in each of the 3 content areas through partnerships with IHEs, state organizations, and grant projects	For all professional development activities conducted from July 1, 2000 — April 30, 2001 workshop evaluation was collected. For all sessions the attendees indicated that attendance at the workshop would provide beneficial.	-summarized evaluation for each of the professional development activities
Promote demonstration of skills in each of the 3 content areas, through partnerships with IHEs, state agencies (including KSDE), and grant projects	For all professional development activities conducted from July 1, 2000 — April 30, 2001 a workshop evaluation was collected. A component of each workshop was devoted to practicing using the content and getting feedback on skills.	-workshop agendas and workshop packets
Provide professional development designed to integrate skills into proficient/excellent practice, through mentoring and coaching	Two of the professional development activities, Alternate Assessment and Extended Standards and Literacy and Reading Skills for students with moderate to profound disabilities were directed to increasing participants’ ability to integrate the content into their practices. Study groups were offered to provide guidance and support to participants who implemented the practices within his or her employment situations. These study groups are ongoing and evaluation will be collected at the conclusion in June 2002. No data are available for reporting currently.	-Study group assignments -Study group listserv correspondence -Products from the Study groups
Provide support for FBCs to transfer their skills and knowledge to others in the Network through support for consultation and mentoring/coaching	All professional development for the FBCs only was directed to either integration or transfer. Additionally all FBTA conducted by the FBCs were to transfer their skills and knowledge to the sites. For 9 of the 15 TA requests with data available -14 family members, 12 regular educators, 8 administrators (Sped and Reg), 31 special educators and related services personnel and 5 students were recipients of the FBCs skills and knowledge.	-Professional development agendas -FBC consultation records

Goal 4: Develop partnerships with IHEs to enhance the statewide effect of the FBTA and FBPD.

Objective	Evidence	Impact
Secure commitment(s) from IHEs to sponsor mini-courses and workshops, present best practices as inservice topics, and/or to lead discussion groups as innovative professional development for practicing educators and parents	The University of Kansas, was a co-sponsor of the Transition Workshop at the Spring Seminar and graduate credit was available at the summer institute.	-class rosters -Summer Institute and Spring Seminar brochures and agendas
Jointly plan IHE participation in statewide professional development promoted or provided by the Network	During Year 2 one Project Director worked with the state department identify priorities and recommendations for addressing functional endorsement issues of personnel preparation. Additionally, the Project Directors collaborated with the Department of Special Education to submit a personnel preparation grant to OSEP including FBCs to oversee some practicum experiences throughout the state.	-Meeting from Functional Endorsement meetings -Grant proposal
Develop resource sharing agreements to support shared professional development for the Network	Resource-sharing occurred with the KSDE State Improvement Grant and Kansas Deaf-Blind project for the Summer Institute for speaker fees, hotel costs, conference packets. KSDE waived registration for the transition conference FBC participants.	-Invoices
Collaboratively link FBCs with IHE programs	As described above the Project Directors collaborated with the Department of Special Education to submit a personnel preparation grant to OSEP including FBCs to oversee some practicum experiences throughout the state and the Project Directors are working closely with the state department and an IHE committee to address developing IHE capacity for the functional endorsement.	-Meeting minutes -Grant proposal

Goal 5: Improve Field-Based Technical Assistance and Professional Development processes based on continuous improvement evaluation.

Objective	Evidence	Impact
Create unified evaluation processes and targets across content areas that address systems improvement and student outcomes	New procedures creating a menu approach for FBCs to select some uniform outcomes (to aid in project impact summary) and individualized outcomes for systems and individual students was adopted in March 2001. FBCs write FBTA reports used this format during the 2001-2002 school year and data for uniform outcomes are collected.	-Revised FBC Procedural Manual -FBTA reports
Ensure that FBCs and others collect data needed for project evaluation, including levels of implementation and student change data	New evaluation procedures were adopted in March 2001 to allow the project to better summarize the project to measure impact and provide formative feedback to the TA recipients. Data was collected by FBCs and summarized in FBTA reports during the 2001-2002 school year.	-Revised FBC Procedural Manual -FBTA Reports
Summarize evaluation data from Field-Based Technical Assistance and Professional Development activities	Professional Development. Satisfaction data are collected at the conclusion of each professional development activity . For the three professional development activities conducted in Year 2 a 7 point Likert type scale was used to rate 6 general questions. For each workshop means are calculated for each question. Means ranges from 5. 37 — 6.53. Field-Based Technical Assistance For Field-Based Technical Assistance satisfaction and implementation data are collected for each site. Satisfaction. Satisfaction is collected from the site team and through a self-assessment from the FBC. Site Team Satisfaction. Site team satisfaction evaluations have been returned from nine sites thus far. Of the thirteen guiding questions, 29 respondents reported overall satisfaction of 4.40 on a 5 point scale with 1 representing strongly disagree and 5 representing strongly agree. Self Assessment. Thus far 11 self assessments have been collected and summarized. FBC assess their collaboration and team building skills as well as materials and strategies suggested using a 5 point scale responding to a total of 14 questions. For collaboration and team building the 11 respondents rated between 3.89 and 5 on a 5 point scale. For the materials and strategies questions the 11 respondents rated between 3.8 and 4.6 on a 5 point scale. Implementation. Thus far nine sites have collected implementation data on 52 team recommendations and 38 student specific recommendations. Of the team recommendation, 52% were fully implemented, 2% were partially, 10% were initiated, 5% had not been attempted and 31% no follow-up data had yet been collected. Of the student specific recommendations, , 29% were fully implemented, 19% were partially, 26% were initiated, and 26% no follow-up data had yet been collected.	-Individual FBTA data and reports -Field Based Consultant Self-Evaluation forms -Site Team Satisfaction Evaluations -Workshop evaluations
Bi-annually meet oversight committee to review and interpret evaluation data	Instead of a bi-annual presentation of evaluation data, discussion of evaluation data for project operations, coordination, FBTA and FBPD are addressed at monthly meetings.	-Oversight Meeting Minutes
Revise network operations, coordination efforts, Field-Based Technical Assistance and Professional Development activities based on evaluation	Revisions to the FBC procedures were made during Year 1 and are regularly reviewed at Oversight meetings and FBC only meetings. In the April meeting the needs assessment process was revised based on site and FBC feedback.	-Revised FBC Procedural Manual -Oversight Meeting Minutes
Annually create Network improvement plan based on evaluation	The summary of the 2001-2002 FBTA reports, oversight committee work, conversations with administrators, recipients of the FBTA. During the Summer Institute 2000 and collected ways to create individual improvement plans in conjunction that aligned with their work plans. Decisions for implementation of this will be made at the Summer 2001 Institute. Data from Year 1 professional development has been summarized and will be reviewed by the Oversight committee this summer to write the initial Network Improvement plan.	-Professional Development Workshop data



4. Evaluation Plan for Year 3