High school senior Alasha Christie is still not quite sure what she will do after graduation, but thanks to a recent encounter with a role model, she now has a few new ideas and a lot of hope.

“I learned a lot. I learned she never gives up. I give up easy,” said Christie, who plans to follow the example of Katey Fortun, the key-note speaker at the CESA 6 Youth Transitions Conference, held April 29 at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh. Fortun, a 26-year-old architectural designer, has a disability that required special educational accommoda-tions. She called her dyslexia a “difference ability,” not a disability, and shared her strug-gles as well as her successes.

With the support of her family, and despite the warnings of some that she would never make it, Fortun graduated in 2012 from

the University of Wisconsin-Stout with a bachelor’s degree in interior design and has embarked on a successful career. Her design work won awards in college and was featured in a book published by one of her professors.

If she could be successful, so could every one of them, Fortun told her audience. “Figure out what you’re good at. Everyone is good at something,” she said. “Take your strengths and weaknesses, and use them to your advantage.”

This is the second year for the conference, which was organized by Sherry Gundlach, coordinator, CESA 6 Parent Support Pro- gram, Teri Wegner, director of community

New leader evaluation systems added to Effectiveness Project© . . . .2RITE: An alternative path to licensure for hard-to-fill positions. . .2Supporting educators to improve outcomes for students with autism spectrum disorders . . . . . . . .3Alternative schools offer support for at-risk students . . . . . . . . . . . . . .4

Youth Transitions Conference

offers inspiration for students

with “difference abilities”

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SUMMER 2015

Celebrations

2935 Universal Court | Oshkosh, WI 54904 | (920) 233-2372 phone | (920) 424-3478 fax | www.cesa6.org

The Transitions Conference was for youth given by youth. Students learned about how to transition into higher education and careers from other students who were also transitioning.

Celebrate with us!CESA 6 is proud of our talented experts and their dedication to ensuring all students receive the best possible education.

GROW grant expertsWith the results known for 11 of 25 submitted grant proposals, five have been funded for more than $2.3 million to help meet educational needs in school districts and non- profit agencies in Wisconsin and beyond.

Next Generation Schools symposiumPersonalized and project-based learning were featured, providing educators with the opportunity to collaborate, share and engi-neer the future of public education.

Professional development opportunitiesCESA 6 provides more than 100 differ-ent high-quality professional development opportunities annually to meet the needs of all levels of school district professionals.

Career PathwaysThe 2014 National Career Pathways Net-work conference highlighted the Youth Apprenticeship Program and CESA 6 efforts.

Diverse network meetings offeredFrom early childhood specialists to tech-nology coordinators, educators share best practices to solve challenging issues.

Information Technology servicesOur partnerships with member districts saved them more than $369,000 in contract-ed IT network administration and support.

Valued Partners CESA 6 is proud to partner with UW-Oshkosh and Oshkosh Area

School District to offer high school students with disabilities a chance

to explore their options after graduation, either college or career.

To learn more about the Youth Transitions Conference, contact

Sherry Gundlach at (920) 236-0538 or email sgundlach@cesa6.org.

…Continued on page 4

For more and more school districts struggling to find candidates for hard-to-fill teaching positions, CESA 6 is the RITE place.

“Districts are starting to know that they can come to us to help fill positions,” said Nancy Jaeger, coordinator, CESA 6 Residency in Teacher Edu-cation (RITE) program. Candi-dates must have at least a bachelor’s degree and many have master’s degrees. A few have just completed college but most are turning to teaching as a second career after working in some other area such as business or human resources. Some are already teachers seeking additional certification.

During the approximately one-year training, candidates work full-time in a district either under an emergency teaching license, intern

or student teacher. They do not have to be hired by a district before participating in the program. While they are working, they attend

monthly classes through CESA 6 on topics such as classroom management, educational technology, lit- eracy and teaching method-ology. At the end of the pro-gram, they can receive their teaching license in the specific subject area where they are working. Although most of the candidates prepare to become

special education teachers, a growing number are working toward being licensed to teach ESL.

This year, the program has 35 candidates, up from 11 only five years ago. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the candidates will become special education teachers.

New next fall, RITE staff will be available to provide in-district, two-year training for teachers who want to receive an additional licensure in ESL. Jaeger said they anticipate being able to work with one to three districts and have already received inquiries from interested districts.

RITE: An alternative path to licensure for hard-to-fill positions

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Two new professional evaluation systems were launched this year as part of the Effectiveness Project. The systems, known as the Central Office Administrators Performance Evaluation System (COPES) and the District Administrator/Superintendent Performance Evaluation Sys-

tem (DAPES) are the final pieces in a five-tiered professional evaluation system for school dis-trict employees. The other three components are professional evaluation systems for class-room teachers, educational specialists and school administrators.

The new systems are designed to support teacher effectiveness by creating formal meth-ods of evaluation at the central office and dis-trict administrator/superintendent levels to help ensure that the overall goal of improving stu-dent achievement is met. According to an analysis of research studies in more than 2,700 school districts by Robert Marzano, PhD, and Tim Waters, EdD, leaders in education researcher and authors of District Leadership that Works: Striking the Right Balance, effec-tive school leadership raised average students achievement scores by 10 percent.

The new systems also help school boards com-ply with state law that requires them to eval-uate, in writing, all certified school personnel – not just teachers – in their first year of employ-ment and at least every three years thereafter.

COPES and DAPES can be used by any school district, regardless of whether it is currently us-ing the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness sys-tem or CESA 6 Effectiveness Project (EP).

COPES is designed to measure the perfor-mance of district central office administrators who oversee and direct district operations in six areas: business, curriculum and instruction,

facilities and mainte-nance, human resourc-es, pupil services, and instructional technolo-gy. DAPES is a critical part of the five-tiered performance evaluation system. Yet it also can be used independently for district administrators/

superintendents. Both systems have unique indicator options can be customized to assess areas or skills that leaders in a school district believe are important.

The DAPES system was designed to reflect the core belief that an effective district relies on a partnership between the district administrator and the elected members of a school board. In order to assess that partnership, the DAPES system was aligned with the National Associ-ation of School Boards’ publication, The Key Work of School Boards.

New leader evaluation systems added to Effectiveness Project©

Expertise CESA 6 has created this five-tiered

system to ensure consistency and quality for all schools. Every student can achieve educational

success if an effective teacher leads every classroom, and an effective

leader leads every school.

For more information about the Effectiveness Project, please contact Cheryl Simonson at (920) 236-0520

or email csimonson@cesa6.org.

Responsive Through the RITE Program, CESA 6 is helping districts with traditionally

hard-to-fill areas such as special education, English as a Second

Language (ESL) and science, by providing an alternative path

to licensure for teachers.

To learn more about the RITE Program, contact

Nancy Jaeger at (920) 236-0508 or email njaeger@cesa6.org.

Students on the autism spectrum are receiving enhanced services in dozens of Wisconsin school districts thanks to an innovative CESA 6 coaching and training program that hit a mile-stone in April.

Through Allies in Autism Education (AAE), school districts may send teams of educators to engage in three years of professional devel-opment with personalized coaching, collabo-rative learning and plan implementation. The goal is to increase district capacity and teacher effectiveness to best serve the needs of stu-dents with autism spectrum disorders. “You’re really sitting down – ideally having adminis-trators, general educators, special educators and hopefully families – all learning together and working together to improve outcomes for students with autism,” said Daniel Parker, an

autism consultant at the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.

AAE started in 2012 with its first cohort of teams sent by more than 12 districts, including Shiocton, Hortonville, Little Chute, Lomira, Mayville, Menasha, New London, Omro and Winneconne. Two other cohorts started in 2013 and 2014, and a fourth is being formed. The first cohort finished a three-year journey in April. Members shared their experiences and wisdom with peer cohorts at a poster fair in Appleton that high-lighted their work.

Stepheni Curran, a speech and lan-guage pathologist in Omro Schools, said the three years went by quickly but the lessons learned are long-lasting. “(Allies in Autism Education) is not like anything else we’ve ever done before,” Curran said. “We’re all more aware now of evidence-based practices, and we’ve implementing them with more confidence.” Omro’s AAE team consisted of four special education members and two regular edu-cation teachers. They focused on improving the district’s transitional program for students with autism, “by building better bridges” as students move from elementary school to

middle and high school, and on to post-sec-ondary college and career paths, according to fellow Omro speech and language pathologist Meaghan Reddy.

AAE combines foundational online learning with face-to-face, three-day summer acade-mies, monthly on-site coaching, parent and administrative outreach, and other cohort meetings. “What makes AAE unique from

previous autism pro-fessional develop-ment is the ongoing coaching and follow through to implement lasting changes,” said Ellen Franzone, AAE Coordinator.

Daniel Parker, part of the DPI Special Education Team, said the broad scale of AAE – working over three years with more than 300 educators from

over 45 districts statewide – was the ideal model to spread consistent language and evi-dence-based checklists of best practices.

Franzone worked with those checklists at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Waisman Center as part of a multi-university project called the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorders. “I think other states would be really, really interested in how that’s being done,” Parker said.

Supporting educators to improve outcomes for students with ASD

A poster fair highlighted the work and wisdom learned by more than a dozen school districts in the first AAE cohort.

The first cohort of district teams gathered in April to complete their three-year Allies in Autism Education journey.

Innovative Allies in Autism Education, a CESA 6 coaching and training program, is a ground-breaking, systems-changing

effort that will improve outcomes for students with autism in Wisconsin.

For more information about AAE, contact Ellen Franzone at (920) 236-0556 or email

efranzone@cesa6.org.

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When students arrive at a CESA 6 alternative school, the primary goal is to help them find their way back home.

“The majority of the students have behaviors that interfere with their learning in the tradi-tional setting,” explained Al Pepper, alterna-tive schools operational coordinator, CESA 6 Alternative EBD Program. “The goal is to address those behaviors, and transi-tion the students back into their schools with the newly acquired skills, which will help ensure success.”

The agency opened its latest school, one of five in the state, in Hartford this past February. The school, a partnership with the Hartford Joint #1 School District, serves kin-dergarten through eighth-grade students.

Students are enrolled in the program through their home districts, and the districts pay for transportation. For Hartford-area students, the closest alternative program previously meant a 45-minute bus trip each way for students. Combined with the cost of transportation, district leaders looked for other options and chose to open the new school in Hartford.

Student-teacher ratios in alternative schools average six to eight students per teacher. The primary emphasis is on identifying triggers for disruptive behaviors and methods for handling them. Teachers also work with students on developing better social skills, including class-es in anger management. Academic instruction includes core classes like English and math.

Academics are addressed according to stu-dent needs, but because behaviors interfere so much with the learning process, behaviors are a priority. Teachers experiment with differ-ent types of instruction such as online courses and project-based learning where appropriate. Some of the high school programs also help students who are credit deficient make up

classes so they can work toward gradu-ation.

Some school dis-tricts may lack the experts to help kids with emotional or behavioral issues, or may not have the resources to work with students who have challenging behavior problems.

Sometimes Pepper will visit schools and observe students, then make recommenda-tions for support that will assist the students, sometimes all within the home school setting.

One of the programs’ most rewarding aspects is the opportunity they offer students to mentor their peers. New students coming into a pro-gram can identify with others who have similar issues. Older students often work with younger students to provide support and guidance.

“There’s an opportunity to lead in our setting that these students don’t always get,” Pepper said.

Alternative schools offer support for students with emotional, behavioral issues

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CESA 62935 Universal Court Oshkosh, WI 54904

920-233-2372 www.cesa6.org

Valued Partners CESA 6 has long been partnering with school districts to address

the needs of students with emotional or behavioral issues.

To learn more about the

Alternative EBD Program, contact Al Pepper at (920) 651-3507 or email apepper@cesa6.org.

partnerships, University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh and Jill Williams, special educa-tion teacher, Oshkosh North High School. Attendance was up significantly over last year, with 340 high school students and staff from 17 different school districts registered, compared to a total of 201 attending in 2014.

After the keynote address, students attended a series of breakout sessions on topics ranging from the skills needed to maintain a job, to self advocacy and self determination.

Students help lead each of the ses-sions, giving conference attendees real life examples of how to successfully nego-tiate the challenges of life after high school. The conference also gave stu-dents an opportunity to polish their pub-lic speaking and leadership skills.

Emily Klinter, an early childhood stu-dent at Northeast Wisconsin Technical College in Green Bay, helped lead a class entitled, “Skills To Maintain a Job – It Actually Takes Work to Be at Work?”. Emily, who works at a daycare and a preschool besides taking classes, talked about her job responsibilities as well as the importance of punctuality, teamwork and dressing appropriately for work.

“What’s really unique about our con-ference is that it is for youth, given by youth,” Gundlach said. “These are kids who have never spoken in public before. It’s a great experience for them.”

Youth Transitions Conference offers inspiration for students with “difference abilities”

…from page 1

Architectural designer Katey Fortun was the keynote speaker at the Transitions Conference. She shared the story of her successes in school and career while dealing with her “difference ability” of dyslexia.