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Autism Center for Excellence (ACE)

VCU-ACE improves services and supports for individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) by promoting the implementation of research-based practices in schools and the community through training, technical assistance, research, and collaboration.

National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder

Since 2007, the National Professional Development Center on Autism Spectrum Disorder (NPDC) has worked to develop free professional resources for teachers, therapists, and technical assistance providers who work with individuals with ASD. Resources include detailed information on how to plan, implement, and monitor specific evidence-based practices.

Centers for Disease Control & Prevention – Act Early

CDC’s “Learn the Signs. Act Early” program aims to improve early identification of children with autism and other developmental disabilities so children and families can get the services and support they need. The program is made up of three components: health education campaign, Act Early Initiative, and research and evaluation.

This series of webshops showcases the products created by real co-teachers of Virginia, select teams of elementary co-teachers participating in the Virginia Department of Education’s Excellence in Co-Teaching Initiative. These co-teachers established demonstration sites and opened their doors to visitors wishing to observe quality co-teaching; they also developed co-taught lesson plans and videos to share through these webshops. In their videos, teachers model not only co-instructing in the classroom, but co-assessing and co-planning as well.

Real Co-Teachers of Virginia – Middle & High

This series of webshops showcases the products created by real co-teachers of Virginia, select teams of middle and high school co-teachers participating in the Virginia Department of Education’s Excellence in Co-Teaching Initiative. These co-teachers established demonstration sites and opened their doors to visitors wishing to observe quality co-teaching; they also developed co-taught lesson plans and videos to share through these webshops. In their videos, teachers model not only co-instructing in the classroom, but co-assessing and co-planning as well.

Co-Teaching Mathematics Instructional Plans (MIPS)

Co-Teaching Mathematics Instructional Plans utilize the six common co-teaching approaches: teaming, station teaching, parallel teaching, alternative teaching, one teaching/one assisting, and one teaching/one observing.   These plans contain suggestions as to how co-teachers can effectively utilize the expertise of each teacher to enhance lessons and activities in a co-taught classroom. These co-teaching plans were created and modified by a select group of Virginia teachers participating in the Excellence for Co-teaching Initiative.  These plans align instruction with the expectations of the 2016 Mathematics Standards of Learning, and were vetted by VDOE content and special education specialists.

The Co-Teaching Connection,  Marilyn Friend, Ph.D  

The goal of this site is to provide resources for educators who want to know more about co-teaching.

Inclusion & Beyond, Lisa Dieker, Ph.D.

This site provides professional resources, links, and blogs around co-teaching and inclusion.

2Teach, LLC, Wendy Murawski, Ph. D.

This site provides services, products, and resources that improve practices around inclusion, UDL, and Co-teaching.

Virginia Department of Education Early Childhood Professional Development

Division for Early Childhood Recommended Practices

The DEC Recommended Practices provide guidance to practitioners and families about the most effective ways to improve the learning outcomes and promote the development of young children, birth through age 5, who have or are at-risk for developmental delays or disabilities. Developed by the DEC Recommended Practices Commission.

Early Childhood Technical Assistance Center

The ECTA Center supports state Part C and Section 619 programs in developing high-quality early intervention and preschool special education service systems, increasing local implementation of evidence-based practices, and enhancing outcomes for young children with disabilities and their families.

The Infant and Toddler Connection of Virginia

The Infant & Toddler Connection of Virginia provides early intervention supports and services to infants and toddlers from birth through age two who are not developing as expected or who have a medical condition that can delay normal development. Early intervention supports and services focus on increasing the child’s participation in family and community activities that are important to the family. In addition, support and services focus on helping parents and other caregivers know how to find ways to help the child learn during everyday activities. These supports and services are available for all eligible children and their families regardless of the family’s ability to pay.

Leadership in Effective and Developmentally-Appropriate Services in Virginia ECSE (LEADS)

The primary purpose of the website is to provide resources and tools to enhance Local Education Agencies’ collection, reporting, and analysis of Early Childhood Special Education Indicator data (Indicator 6, Early Childhood Educational Environment; Indicator 7, Child Outcomes; and Indicator 12, Transition from Part C to Part B). Further, the resources support use of state- and division-level data to make program changes which lead to improved child outcomes. Resources on the website focus on enhancing the quantity and quality of inclusion of children with disabilities, improving outcomes through a curriculum framework, enhancing the transition from Early Intervention to Early Childhood Special Education, and increasing knowledge of the State and Federal regulations that govern Early Childhood Special Education.

Head Start – Early Childhood Learning and Knowledge Center (ECLKC)

Virginia Cross-sector Professional Development (VCPD)

The VCPD Team collaborates to provide leadership promoting high quality, coordinated, cross-sector professional development. Their members prepare early childhood personnel to support all children (prenatal to age five) and their families in home, school, and community settings. This includes infants, toddlers, and preschoolers with disabilities and special health needs; and children who experience risk factors for school readiness, economic disadvantages, and/or cultural and linguistic diversity. They encourage cross-sector collaboration in early childhood professional development; enhance the knowledge, skills, and abilities of early childhood professional development providers; and promote high quality professional development.

Children with Disabilities

Young children vary in their skills, knowledge, backgrounds, and abilities. Effective teaching requires individualized teaching and chances to learn for all children to access, participate, and thrive in early learning settings. Individualizing for children who need more support helps ensure effective teaching for children with disabilities and other special needs across all the Head Start Early Learning Outcomes Framework domains. Using children’s Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) and Individualized Education Program (IEP) goals is part of effective teaching, individualizing, and creating inclusive environments to support children’s positive outcomes.

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) reviews the existing research on different programs, products, practices, and policies in education. Our goal is to provide educators with the information they need to make evidence-based decisions. We focus on the results from high-quality research to answer the question “What works in education?” 

Intervention Central

Intervention Central provides teachers, schools, and districts with free resources to help struggling learners and implement Response to Intervention. Resources include academic and behavior interventions.

IRIS Center

Supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs and located at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, the IRIS Center develops and disseminates free, engaging online resources about evidence-based instructional and behavioral practices to support the education of all students, particularly struggling learners and those with disabilities.

National Center on Intensive Interventions

The Mission of the NCII is to build the capacity of state and local education agencies, universities, practitioners, and other stakeholders to support the implementation of intensive intervention in reading, mathematics, and behavior for students with severe and persistent learning and/or behavioral needs. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and is part of OSEP’s Technical Assistance and Dissemination Network (TA&D).

In partnership with the Collaboration for Effective Educator Development, Accountability and Reform (CEEDAR), the Council for Exceptional Children has developed and published a set of high-leverage practices (HLPs) for special educators and teacher candidates. The HLPs are organized around four aspects of practice: Collaboration, Assessment, Social/emotional/behavioral, and Instruction.

High Leverage Practices for General Education

TeacherWorks tries to ensure that all teachers have the training necessary for responsible teaching. We focus on a core set of fundamental capabilities that we call “high-leverage practices” for general educators. These practices are used constantly and are critical to student learning and support of student social and emotional development.

High-Leverage Practices Crosswalk

This document shows points of alignment between the following three important documents: High-Leverage Practices, High-Leverage Practices in Special Education, and Promoting Principal Leadership for the Success of Students with Disabilities.

PEATC is about building positive futures for Virginia’s children by working collaboratively with families, schools, and communities in order to improve opportunities for excellence in education and success in school and community life. Our special focus is on children with disabilities. We accomplish this by offering: services and support for families and professionals, easy-to-understand, research-based information and training, and opportunities for strategic partnerships and advocacy for systemic improvement.

Virginia Family Special Education Connection

This website provides a one-stop-shop for parents, families, and caregivers of children with special needs. Parents and families can and do make a difference in their child’s education.  

Quick Links:

• Local Disability Services (All VA counties)
• Local Special Education Contacts (All VA counties)
• Events (Online, State, National)
• Online Trainings (self-paced online sessions designed by professionals from VA or other educational specialists)

Center for Family Involvement (CFI)

The Center for Family Involvement at the Partnership for People with Disabilities at Virginia Commonwealth University partners with the Virginia Departments of Education and Health, the federal Maternal and Child Health Bureau, the Administration on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, and others in supporting a variety of activities to strengthen family involvement.

A standards-based Individualized Education Program (IEP) describes a process in which the IEP team has incorporated state content standards in its development. The IEP is directly linked to and framed by Virginia’s course content Standards of Learning (SOL) for the grade in which the student is enrolled or will be enrolled. The components are the same as the traditional IEP. It should be noted that in a standards-based IEP, the PLOP and some or all of the annual goals are connected to the specific grade-level SOL. This creates a program that is aimed at getting the student to a proficient level on state standards in addition to addressing the functional and/or behavioral needs of the student, as needed.

Virginia Department of Education Guidance Document

This standards-based IEP guide intends to provide technical assistance for educators, parents, and others who participate in the development of Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) for students with disabilities. The content of this guide is based on the regulatory requirements for an IEP as outlined in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) and Regulations Governing Special Education Programs in Virginia. It does not address the eligibility process, procedural safeguards or implementation of the IEP.  Also, it utilizes the sample forms developed by the VDOE. However, this does not imply that the sample forms must be used by the divisions. 

SIM Content Enhancement Routines are dynamic teaching tools that use powerful teaching devices to organize and present curriculum content in an understandable and easy-to-learn manner. Teachers use Content Enhancement Routines to plan for and impart content to academically diverse classes in ways that all students can understand and remember key information. All of the routines promote direct, explicit instruction to facilitate problem-solving and critical thinking skills for students.

SIM Learning Strategies are teaching tools that gradually release control from teacher to student to help students understand information and solve problems effectively and efficiently. SIM Learning Strategies have the necessary breadth and depth to provide a well-designed scope and sequence of strategy instruction. Strategies are divided into strands, or categories of skills: acquisition of information, storage and retrieval of information, and demonstration of competence.

The Virginia Tiered Systems of Supports aligns academics, behavior, and social-emotional wellness into a single decision-making framework to establish the supports needed for schools to be effective learning environments for all students. We partner with school divisions throughout the Commonwealth to support the successful implementation of the framework

National Center for Pyramid Models Innovations

The goals of the National Center for Pyramid Model Innovations (NCPMI) are to assist states and programs in their implementation of sustainable systems for the implementation of the Pyramid Model for Supporting Social Emotional Competence in Infants and Young Children (Pyramid Model) within early intervention and early education programs with a focus on promoting the social, emotional, and behavioral outcomes of young children birth to five, reducing the use of inappropriate discipline practices, promoting family engagement, using data for decision-making, integrating early childhood and infant mental health consultation and fostering inclusion.

At the Attachment & Trauma Network, it is their mission to promote the healing of traumatized children and their families through support, education, and advocacy.

National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environment

The National Center on Safe Supportive Learning Environments is funded by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Safe and Supportive Schools. The Center offers information and technical assistance to states, districts, schools, institutions of higher learning, and communities focused on improving student supports and academic enrichment.

Download Training Package: 

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network

The National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) was created by Congress in 2000 as part of the Children’s Health Act to raise the standard of care and increase access to services for children and families who experience or witness traumatic events. They provide clinical services, develop and disseminate new interventions and resource materials, offer education and training programs, collaborate with established systems of care, engage in data collection and evaluation, and inform public policy and awareness efforts.

Voices for Virginia’s Children

Voices focus its analysis and advocacy on developing and championing policies and practices that positively impact the health and well-being of Virginia’s children and families. Their approach is data-driven and evidence-based and targets issues that cross multiple domains and tend to have the greatest impact on child and family success.  They cover several core policy topics and also work broadly to address the multi-faceted and severe effects of child poverty: foster care & adoption, health and wellness, mental health, family economic security, campaign for a trauma-informed Virginia, and early care and education.