Oakwood Schools is continuing to actively review the District’s Special Education programs.  Special Education Supervisor Suzanne Batten shared an update on the multi-year Special Education Audit with our staff and families last week.  

Based on feedback from the community and employing a common practice of reviewing and updating curriculum, Oakwood Schools began the three-year, internal audit of its Special Education program to gather information regarding the structures, processes and services the District provides.

The Special Education audit is focused on gathering feedback in the form of guiding questions to identify the optimal program design and service delivery, in order to focus on improving outcomes for students with disabilities.

In order to provide transparency and gather open feedback, the District partnered with Montgomery County Educational Service Center to hold five listening sessions with staff and parents. An online parent survey was also available for families not able to attend a listening session.  

The guiding questions focused on learning with an open mind and attempting to gather actionable feedback.  The question stems for these guiding questions included:

• How do we support…?
• Can we implement…?
• What is the best way to…?
• What if we do….?
• What services are available for…?
• How can training…?
• How do we create…?
• How are similar districts…?
• What resources are available…?
• How can technology…?
• When is it best to…?
• How can we optimize…?

Based on all of the information collected, a “sifting phase” was conducted to identify the following six common themes:

• Special education service delivery, program design and processes
• Professional learning
• Communication
• Resources
• Parent supports
• Student outcomes

The information was recently shared with the Board of Education at the October 9, 2023 Board Work Session along with the goals for this school year:

• Communicate summary of work
• Identify/verify tasks and activities for 2023 - 2024 and 2024 - 2025

We will continue to not only work during the next two years to address and respond to areas within the six themes, we will also communicate progress on our Special Education Webpage.   

I encourage you to check back periodically to see information added to the sections as we continue investigating promising practices and benchmarking with other districts to best serve our students and families.