Advocacy & Compliance for Charters

The Student Support Team believes that schools and educators play a vital role in creating and supporting systems that reduce barriers to learning for students with disabilities and English language learners. We can do this by supporting measures of compliance and advocacy. Research shows that efficiently managing the Individualized Education Plan (IEP) process and strategically advocating for students with disabilities play a vital role in improving student outcomes. The development and documentation of IEPs ensure that districts are held accountable for providing services that students need to reduce barriers to learning. For multilingual learners who are new to learning English, ensuring that their academic programs give them the fullest access to core content instruction, while also providing targeted language support, accelerates language and literacy development.

In 2015, the office of Exceptional Student Services in Arizona conducted a three year study to examine the common characteristics of schools that had higher proficiency rates for students with disabilities. Though the sites varied in educational approaches, there were four key indicators for success:

1. The use of data to identify students in need of interventions

2. The incorporation of various stakeholders' voices throughout the IEP process

3. Consistent progress monitoring on the impact of instructional and behavior strategies

4. Adherence to compliance and advocacy mandates which allowed special education teachers to spend more time in classrooms helping students.

New Visions aligns its support to these key indicators by:

• supporting our schools with the use of literacy interventions

• providing robust data tools and teacher facing education resources to support the IEP process

• direct school support with programming and contracting related service providers

• helping parents and students navigate the special education system to ensure quality of life during and after high school by providing guidance and access to consolidated information about the process.

We believe these indicators also ensure that schools utilize systems that best support multilingual learners. The key indicators enable our schools to utilize a multi-tiered response to intervention system that monitors language development for students who are new to learning English, and coordinate responses to address student needs.