MESSAGE FROM THE DIRECTOR
Ensuring Equity and Excellence in Education
As a former special education teacher, those children remain near and dear to my heart. This year our theme
for Leader U, our annual conference, is Ensuring Equity and Excellence in Education. We will have respected
teacher leaders and presenters from across the state leading professional development classes on important
topics that address issues such as poverty, trauma, special needs and more. We will have breakout sessions for
administrator, teachers and student educators, and we welcome community leaders and parents with special
needs children to attend. You can register to attend at www.leaderutn.com or by calling 615-778-0803.
Why this topic? Simply put, our members continually ask for assistance in this area. Out of the 961,000 students,
nearly 130,000 children across our state are receiving special education services according to the latest data.
That number has likely increased for the 2016-2017 school year. Those children deserve the best education
possible. And our organization is committed to helping those children, by assisting those on the frontlines
educating special needs children.
In 2016, we helped, along with Representative Joe Pitts and Senator Dolores Gresham, to address the growing
issue of dyslexia. These legislators worked hand in hand with us and the Tennessee Department of Education
to develop a long-term strategy, and to establish a permanent council at the Department to advise the
Commissioner and her team. This issue was brought to us by Montgomery County teachers, who continuously
advised us and fought for their children. Legislation was unanimously passed by the Tennessee General
Assembly for dyslexic children. MTSU Professor Dr. Timothy Odegard will outline practices at Leader U to
identify characteristics of dyslexia using various sources of student information. This is followed by a practical
discussion of instructional methods appropriate for students with characteristics of dyslexia. The session ends
by reviewing common accommodations provided to aid students with dyslexia to demonstrate their potential in
the classroom.
We take your voice to the policymakers
In 2016-2017,
we worked behind the scenes with deaf educators across the state on a couple of deaf education issues. The first
was to work with the Tennessee Department of Education and the Tennessee General Assembly to pass a measure
that allows students to take American Sign Language and get credit for their foreign language requirements.
We next need to work with institutions of higher education to accept that for admission. Around 40 states
already recognize ASL as a foreign language requirement. Senator Becky Massey and Representative Roger
Kane championed this issue. Senator Massey was passionate about the issue, saying “Tennessee passed a law
allowing kids to take ASL for credit back in the early ’90s, but lawmakers never made sure it got implemented.
She said the new bill assures that it will.” One of our members, Tracy Duncan, really led the charge for our
involvement in deaf education. She organized, orchestrated and drove the agenda. Her advocacy has forever
changed the education horizon for countless.
We are also hoping that Deaf Education will get more attention by raising awareness of their issues, and
educators will get the tools they need to educate their students. At Leader U we feature a session led by Dr. Lynn
Hayes from Vanderbilt University, which will focus on instructional strategies (e.g., acoustic highlighting) that
teachers and paraprofessionals can use in the classroom to make it more accessible for students with hearing
loss. We will look at the educational environment and how to make our classrooms acoustically appropriate for
all students. In addition, we will discuss how best to work with the educational team including the interpreter,
itinerant teacher, and speech language pathologist.
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