Tuesday Headlines: Ancient Special Needs, California Laws, First Dose of Stimulus

• Ancient man cared for "special needs" children, new study finds.
  
• California considers measures that "close the service gap for children with special needs."
• Schools start receiving their first stimulus funds.

Friday Highlights: Avoiding Long IEP Meetings, Epilepsy, Blindness

• We talk a lot about the importance of transportation engaging in IEP meetings. In this post, a parent shares tips for "avoiding a butt-long IEP meeting."
• Have students on board with epilepsy? The Epilepsy Foundation of Northern California has some great resources, including seizure action plans, reporting forms and guides for parents.
• In STN we've discussed issues of transporting blond students from legal and best practices stand points, but we rarely get to hear about the school experience from the blind students themselves. In Washington, one college student who was the only blind student in her school is hoping by leading a course on stereotypes of blindness, she can improve future generations of blind studens' experiences. The Western Front explains
  

  ... some teachers would limit her activities based off the individual perception of what they felt a blind child could handle. She said other teachers did not comprehend her constant frustration with her disability. Instead of being empathetic, teachers would tell her not to be negative and not to pity herself, she said.

Stimulus Chest or Pandora's Box?

Federal stimulus monies should start getting released to schools this week. But some are crying saying loopholes in the bill will let schools spend the money on playground equipment and wallpaper instead of teacher jobs, the AP reports.

The law was written so broadly that most of the stabilization dollars can be spent on just about anything - carpet, wallpaper, playground equipment, even new school construction - which might bother Senate moderates who insisted on dropping a school construction program before they would vote for the bill. That's because school districts can spend the money as federal impact aid, a relatively small program for poorly funded districts. By contrast, most federal education dollars are supposed to be spent on teacher salaries or academics.

Inclusion, Resources and Canine Help

• In an essay, Quality Service for the Autism Community Looks at mainstreaming autistic students.
• McGraw-Hill, a company better known for school textbooks, has published special education and intervention materials for Tier 2 and Tier 3 at InterventionResouces.com, the company announced in a press release.
  
• A two-year old Labrador Retriever is helping some Virginia special needs students.
• $44 Billion in Stimulus, including $11 billion for Title I and IDEA programs, will drive educational reform and create jobs, the U.S. Department of Education explains in this press release.

Special Needs Ridership May Rise

ADA changes lead to the U.S. Department of Education updating the Section 504 FAQ concerning determination of a student's physical or mental impairment, a change which could increase the number of special needs students who require transport. More on STNOnline.com

Stimulus and Autism Awareness Month

• Tomorrow the U.S. Department of Educaiton is scheduled to release guidelines on how states can spend millions in education stimulus. As they wait, Georgia public schools ponder how they'll use their funds. State Superintendent Kathy Cox says: "We’re going after every dollar out there and we’re going to spend wisely everything that comes our way.”
• As National Autism Awareness Month starts this week, some schools are saying they're having trouble meeting the needs of a growing populations of autism-diagnosed students.
• Not only are there more special needs students, it's gotten to be more expensive to educate them over the last decade, a report to Pennsylvania school board found.

Web Highlights: Stimulus Transparency, Controversial Restraint Technique, et

• The stimulus package bolsters special needs education, but it also requires increased transparency for spending. The Journal, looks at one method of tracking IDEA program progress in Maryland.
  
• In a disaster, what will your special needs riders and their families do? In Navajo County, Ariz., police and human services officials are helping to come up with plans for evacuation and shelter.
• A California judge dropped a case against a school district alleging a teacher's use of the "prone restraint" -- where the student is held face down -- left an autistic boy with a broken nose, bruises and scratches.
• A school in Canada gives children with special needs a classroom designed to engage their senses.