One goal of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) is to "Expand opportunities for students with disabilities (SWDs)... and other traditionally underserved students to attend charter schools and meet challenging State academic standards." Awardees of the U.S. Department of Education’s Charter School Programs (CSP) have a clear responsibility to ensure they are serving SWD. CSP State Entity(SE) grantees must ensure that their charter school subgrantees comply with all laws applicable to serving SWD, as well as provide oversight related to admissions; recruitment, enrollment, and retention; and meeting the needs of all students. This webinar was presented for a subset of SE grantees—Charter Support Organizations (CSO)—to explore how they can best assist charter schools in serving SWDs while maintaining their responsibilities as CSP grantees.
Through this event, attendees gained the following:
- A clear understand of CSP grantee responsibilities for serving SWDs;
- Ideas for addressing challenges CSOs face in supporting charter schools in serving SWDs;
- New strategies for providing support to charter schools in serving SWDs; and
- A tool to help determine next steps in serving SWDs.
For a primer on the responsibilities of charter schools in serving SWDs, please watch this 30-minute video.
Presenters:
- Jennifer Todd, U.S. Department of Education, Charter School Programs
- Megan Ohlssen, The Center for Learner Equity
- Gina Plate, California Charter Schools Association
- Sarah Okun, True Measure Collaborative
- Maura Mall, WestEd
- Robin Chait, National Charter School Resource Center