Category: Special Education

Requests for Applications (RFA) for the Maine Transition Regional Interagency Collaborative (MeTRIC) Grants

The Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education at the Maine Department of Education is now accepting applications from school administrative units for the Maine Transition Regional Interagency Collaborative (MeTRIC) grants. The purpose of these grants is to provide students with disabilities the necessary support and resources to seamlessly transition to post-secondary education or employment.

To qualify, applicants must demonstrate innovative and sustainable partnerships among multiple agencies to provide inclusive transition services such as vocational training, job readiness, financial literacy, and advocacy.

The MeTRIC initiative also encourages inclusive transition opportunities like apprenticeships, work based learning, mentoring, and community college partnerships. Applicants must facilitate a forum for sharing best practices and resources with students and agency participants.

The Maine DOE, Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education applied and received a $$750,000.00 ESSA grant award to develop regional transition collaboratives. Each SAU applying and approved will receive a minimum of $100,000.00 each to establish their seamless and sustainable coordinated set of transition program(s) in their region. The number and size of awards will depend on the number of applications received and available funds. The Department reserves the right to eliminate the lowest scoring application(s) and/or make awards for amounts less than requested, whichever is in the best interest of the State.

Eligible schools interested in the Maine Transition Regional Collaboratives (MeTRIC) Grant Program opportunity may access the application through the Grant RFPs and RFAs webpage.

A timeline for the RFA process is provided below.

Deadline Action Steps
Fri      – 06/30/23 Questions due date from SAUs emailed to titus.orourke@maine.gov
Mid July Answers will be posted to the public via Procurement
Wed   – 07/26/23 RFA Applications due

All questions related to the Maine Transition Regional Interagency Collaborative (MeTRIC)  RFA should be submitted to:

Titus O’Rourke, Transition Specialist, Office of Special Education and Inclusive Education, titus.orourke@maine.gov no later than Friday, June 30, 2023.

REMINDER: 2023 Summer Symposium on Inclusive Practices for Students with Autism and Developmental Disabilities

Join the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) Division of Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD) groups face-to-face at UMaine Orono or join via Zoom on July 21st from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm for a full day of inclusion-building topics in education centered around two strands of learning- 1) access to the curriculum and 2) quality of life. There are multiple ways of joining and learning. Get more information and register HERE now!

Contact hours are available. For more information please reach out to Anica Miller Rushing anica.miller.rushing@maine.edu.

Webinar: The Role of Special Educators in School Safety Efforts

The U.S. Department of Education, Office of Elementary and Secondary Education, Office of Safe and Supportive Schools and its Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools (REMS) Technical Assistance (TA) Center will host a Webinar on Tuesday, June 13, 2023, from 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 p.m. ET. This Webinar will highlight the role of special educators in school safety, security, emergency management, and preparedness activities, including emergency operations plan (EOP) development.

The objectives of this 60-minute Webinar are to:

  • Demonstrate the importance of a collaborative planning team, as outlined in Step 1 of the six-step planning process detailed in the Guide for Developing High-Quality School Emergency Operations Plans.
  • Discuss the role that special educators play in implementing the National Preparedness System mission areas before, during, and after an emergency.
  • Reinforce how special educators can enhance EOP development and serve as key stewards in the behavioral threat assessments, continuity of operations, recovery, and more.
  • Share relevant resources to be used by special educators and core planning teams.

Register on the REMS TA Center Website to participate in the Webinar!

Presenters

  • Maryland Department of Health
    • Dr. Toni Beckett, School Administrative Coordinator
  • REMS TA Center
    • Janelle Hughes, Project Director

Questions

Contact the REMS TA Center Help Desk at 1-855-781-REMS [7367] or info@remstacenter.org from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. ET, Monday through Friday. Can’t make the live event? This Webinar will be archived on the REMS TA Center’s Website within 7 business days.

MADSEC Names 2023 Special Education Honorees of the Year

Maine Administrators of Services for Children with Disabilities (MADSEC) has announced its 2023 Honorees of the Year working in the field of Special Education in Maine schools.

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) joins MADSEC in congratulating these individuals on their recent honor as well as thanking all the professionals who work in the field of special education supporting students.
MADSEC will be honoring the awardees at their annual Directors’ Academy in June.
To learn more about MADSEC and these awards visit their website: https://www.madsec.org/ 

2023 Summer Symposium on Inclusive Practices for Students with Autism and Developmental Disabilities

Join the Council for Exceptional Children’s (CEC) Division of Autism and Developmental Disabilities (DADD) groups face-to-face at UMaine Orono or join via Zoom on July 21st from 9:00 am – 3:00 pm for a full day of inclusion-building topics in education centered around two strands of learning- 1) access to the curriculum and 2) quality of life. There are multiple ways of joining and learning. Get more information and register HERE now!

Contact hours are available. For more information please reach out to Anica Miller Rushing anica.miller.rushing@maine.edu.

Webinar McKinney-Vento Program 101 – May 30th 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Join MAIER and Maine’s Department of Education’s Amelia Lyons for a webinar on the McKinney-Vento program. This session will provide an overview of the act that allows each state to provide a program to assist students with their rights when they are experiencing unstable housing situations.  Participants will learn about student rights including the rights to immediate school enrollment even when records not present, remaining in the school of origin, if in the student’s best interest, receiving transportation to and from the school of origin, and receiving support for academic success. Amelia Lyons will go over the McKinney-Vento Act, common misconceptions of the program requirements and ways educators and family members can help youth receive these services so that every student can have an opportunity for academic success. Registration is free but required.

When/Where: Online Zoom meeting (link provided once you register). Tuesday, May 30th, 3:30 – 4:30 pm

Come to the webinar (register here) and get your questions asked, but if you miss it, this webinar will be recorded and made available on the MAIER website within a few weeks after the event.

Contact hours are available. For more information please reach out to Anica Miller Rushing anica.miller.rushing@maine.edu.

New Series: Co-Teaching for Inclusion in Maine

Maine Access to Inclusive Education Resources (MAIER), a collaborative between the Maine Department of Education (DOE) Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education and the University of Maine, has a variety of professional learning opportunities for the field and is pleased to announce a new series of co-teaching supports for inclusive classrooms and schools.

Co-teaching is being implemented in schools across the nation to address the needs of all students in classrooms with the goal of creating more inclusive environments.   Co-teaching involves having a general education teacher and special service provider (e.g., special education teacher, Title I teacher, ELL specialist, speech/language pathologist) collaboratively planning, teaching, and assessing to ensure success of all students.

Dr. Wendy Murawski, national expert and author on co-teaching and CEO of 2Teach, has created Co-Teaching Modules for Maine.  These modules, titled Co-Teaching 101, provide professional learning for Maine educators addressing co-teaching, planning, and assessing learning options for your classrooms and school.   These asynchronous modules may be found at https://umaine.edu/maier/co-planning-101/.

Additionally, MAIER is providing a Co-Teaching Community of Practice facilitated and supported by MAIER’s Research Associate, Dr. Anica Miller Rushing, and 2Teach’s Dr. Melissa Jenkins.  The purpose of this CoP is to increase both general and special educators’ ability to use co-teaching to improve inclusion practices. The CoP starts meeting in May and you may register at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSc4HBkVmuPIiJ3eaqoT0kj11ZcfaMJop9DfrvWpeG6OdYKzoA/viewform.

Contact hours are available.  To learn more about this programming, please contact Anica Miller Rushing at anica.miller.rushing@maine.edu.

Family & Caregiver Effective Dispute Resolution Information Session

The Maine Department of Education (DOE) Office of Special Services and Inclusive Education and the Maine Parent Federation will host a Family & Caregiver Effective Dispute Resolution Information Session on May 9 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm. The session will provide information about procedural safeguards, facilitated IEPs (Individualized Educational Plans), and dispute resolution options.

Date/Time: May 9 from 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Location: Virtually via Zoom
Join the information session here – There is no need to register for this info session, just click the link at the time of the session.

For more information about the session, please contact Maine DOE Due Process Coordinator, Leigh Lardieri, at leigh.lardieri@maine.gov.

Announcing: The L.I.F.E. Readiness Program Career Exploration Fair

The Maine Department of Education in collaboration with Maine educators, is excited to announce the L.I.F.E. Readiness Program Career Exploration Fair. This opportunity is for ALL our scholars with I.E.P.s to engage with hands-on career exploration activities designed to help students experience, learn, and develop an interest in their future career choices. Students can explore up to 10 career clusters at the career fair and complete transition-aligned activities and record self-directed assessments in their event “Passport.”

In turn, the “Passport”  support case managers in developing their scholars’ transition portfolio, thus informing the development of their transition services and plans, specifically section 9 and section 4 of the I.E.P.

This opportunity is part of the Maine Department of Education’s 2022 – 2023 Transition Tuesday Power Hour Series, a best practices forum to provide opportunities for our state educators and transition leaders to grapple with and actuate strategies and support for our scholars’ diverse needs and pathways to post-secondary opportunities. for more information about the Transition Tuesday Power Hour Series, contact Titus titus.orourke@maine.gov.

Filing of Chapter 101: Maine Unified Special Education Regulation Emergency Rulemaking

The Maine Department of Education has identified a barrier to its obligation pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Maine Unified Special Education Regulation (MUSER) to ensure the provision of a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) to all eligible students, including the availability of a continuum of educational placements. The current funding structure outlined in Section XVIII.3.C(2) of MUSER for private schools that serve exclusively students with disabilities (referred to throughout as “special purpose private schools”) is causing those schools to limit or cease operations, leaving some of Maine’s most significantly impacted children without the educational placements they are entitled to by law. Further breakdown of this critical component of the continuum of educational placements will leave the State unable to maintain compliance with IDEA and MUSER. 

The Department has determined that a rule change is necessary on an emergency basis in order to protect the public health, safety and general welfare by ensuring that there is a continuum of placements available for all students with individualized education programs (IEPs) in accordance with federal and state law as follows: 

  • Change #1: Section XVIII.3.C(2) is amended to change the required number of instructional days to the “sum of the days on which instruction was provided in accordance with the school’s calendar” rather than the actual days of student attendance for the year.  Rationale:  The current funding formula penalizes the private school when a student is unable to attend, even if the lack of attendance is due to a disability-related reason, despite the obligation of the private school to have staff and supports available for the student every day of the school year. 
  • Change #2: adds a section (2A) to allow the Department to “recalculate the number of student days for the remainder of the fiscal year 2023 and the entirety of fiscal year 2024 using the number of days on which instruction was provided in accordance with the school’s fiscal year 2022 calendar and recalculate each school’s allowable expenditures and 2023 tuition rate using the revised number of student days.  The Department shall notify each special purpose private school of its revised tuition rate, which shall be effective immediately and applies to the remainder of fiscal year 2023 and the entirety of fiscal year 2024.”  Rationale:  The current funding formula operates on a one-year delay – this change ensures that additional monies will flow to the impacted schools now, to prevent closures or cutbacks.    
  • Change #3: adds a section (4A) which provides that “nothing in subparagraph (4) shall limit any increase in the tuition rate resulting from the change in calculating the number of student days in subparagraph (2) from the actual days of student attendance to the days on which instruction was provided in accordance with the school’s calendar.”  Rationale:  This change ensures that any increase in tuition resulting from the change in 2023 does not get reduced by the cap on the percentage of increase from year to year. 

A period of public comment opens today, March 24, 2023. Due to the need to prevent imminent harm to the students who depend on these educational placements and the emergency status of this rule change, the public comment period has been reduced to 10 days.  

Written comments may be submitted to DOE Legislative Team member Laura Cyr, State House Station #23, Augusta, Maine 04333; 207-446-8791 or laura.cyr@maine.gov until 5:00 p.m. on April 3, 2023. 

In addition, a public hearing for the proposed new rule will be suspended due to the emergency nature of this change. As an emergency filing, the proposed changes become active upon filing and are in effect for a period of one year from the filing date.  

Timeline for Rulemaking for Chapter 101 – Emergency, Major Substantive  

Comment Period Begins: March 24, 2023 

Comment Period Ends: April 3, 2023 

Anticipated Date of Adoption: April 10, 2023 

The proposed amendment to Chapter 101 can be found here: https://www.maine.gov/doe/about/laws/rulechanges