This fact sheet answers several questions about enrollment in Maryland public schools, including: (1) how to enroll a child in school for the first time; (2) what to do if a child is transferring from one school to another; and (3) why proof of custody/guardianship, proof of residency, proof of age, proof of income, and immunization records are…

This pilot study examined (a) the perceived barriers to creating high-quality social and emotional learning (SEL) IEP goals for autistic students without intellectual disabilities, and (b) the impact of using a data-driven SEL IEP goal builder--a key component of the Ivymount Social Cognition Instructional Package (IvySCIP)--on the quality of SEL…

Confusion among stakeholders regarding some aspects of the special education process--chiefly the triennial reevaluation--leads to misapplication of rules across districts and states based on interpretations of informal lore-based reasoning. Local education agencies (LEA) can determine that no additional data are needed and advise parents to…

Literacy is an essential life skill, and adolescents need strong literacy skills to succeed in secondary schools and beyond. Low literacy achievement in the middle grades puts students, particularly students with disabilities (SWD), at a disadvantage heading into high school and can lead to negative outcomes such as dropping out. The intention of…

Ivymount Social Cognition Instructional Project (IvySCIP) supports teachers and related service providers to implement data-driven social and emotional learning (SEL) instruction for their kindergarten through 5th grade students with social cognition challenges, especially those with high functioning autism spectrum disorders (HF-ASD). Based on…

Roughly one in five American adults, or approximately 53 million people, live with some type of disability, and their unemployment and poverty rates are nearly double the rates of people without disabilities. Labor force participation for people with disabilities is just 20.2 percent--less than a third of the rate of participation among people…

Dyslexia is a neurologically-based, lifelong condition that affects a person's ability to process language, which in turn can make reading and writing more difficult. Between 10 and 20 percent of all people are dyslexic. Providing appropriate reading instruction and intervention for young children by second grade could reduce the percentage of…

The purpose of this qualitative case study was to understand how the transition services received in high school influence the transition experiences of SWSLD in two community colleges in Maryland. Schlossberg's Transition Theory (1981, 1984) of "Moving In," "Moving Through" and "Moving Out" was the framework for this…

The Office of Shared Accountability (OSA) joined with the Office of Special Education and Student Services (OSESS) to gather feedback from parents of students who receive special education services. The goal was to use the information to improve services and implement staff development. This brief concerns a pilot study for gathering parent…

The purpose of this study was to determine how an urban school district's code of conduct aligned with actual school/class behaviors, and how stakeholders perceived the ability of this document to achieve its number one goal: safe and productive learning environments. Twenty participants including students, teachers, parents, and administrators…

This report presents parent feedback from a study that focused on experiences at Individualized Education Program (IEP) team meetings and also explored parent satisfaction with delivery of special education services. The study included all parents of Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools (MCPS) students who had educational disabilities, were…

Associations among children's writing and alphabetic skills were examined in a sample of 502 prekindergarten children who were at risk of academic failure because they came from poor families, spoke a language other than English at home, or had an identified disability. In this sample of children at risk of school failure, 16% had an identified…

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of the Maryland Online Individualized Education Program Goal Wizard on writing standards based annual goals. Specifically, 100 novice special education teachers form a large urban school system in Maryland were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The experimental group received one…

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) "Special Education at a Glance," which includes a copy of the "Guide to Planning and Assessing School-Based Special Education Programs," provides in a single document, information about the special education population at each Montgomery County public school, including enrollment,…

Although schools have made great strides educating students with disabilities in mainstreamed academic classrooms, some advocates and physical educators say sports programs and physical education classes are the final frontier for full inclusion in public schools. In the past few years, advocates for such students have been demanding greater…