Activity Report September - December 2009

NSTTAC Communication:

Number of States and Territories:

• Via Website: 53 (ranging from 1 – 776 visits/ state or territory in September), 55 (ranging from 1 – 761 visits in October), 53 (ranging from 2 - 660 visits in November), 53 (ranging from 1 – 508 visits in December)
• International Website visitors: including Canada, Philippines, United Kingdom, Australia, India
• Via mass email: 60 (in September, October, and December)
• Direct E-mail/Phone: 30 (September), 21 (October), 16 (November), 10 (December)
• Face to Face (conferences, on-site technical assistance, meetings): 2 (September), 27 (October), 22 (November), 4 (December)

Partners and/or TA&D Centers:

• Center on Instruction, Data Accountability Center
• Center on Postsecondary Education and Disability
• Council of State Administrators of Vocational Rehabilitation, CSAVR
• Division on Career Development and Transition (DCDT)
• Easter Seals
• Exceptional Children's Assistance Center (ECAC)
• IDEA Partnership at NASDSE
• Mid South RRC, Mountain Plains RRC
• National Autism Center
• National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD)
• National High School Center
• North Central RRC
• Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)
• PACER Center
• PEPNet
• South East RRC
• Technical Assistance Coordinating Center (TACC)
• TATRA Project at PACER
• TransCen, Inc.
• Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative
• Western RRC

NSTTAC Activities:

Knowledge Generation: Generate knowledge that assists states in evaluating best practices in transition services that will improve performance on Indicator 13 of the Annual Performance Plans

• Article published in December, 2009 in Career Development for Exceptional Individuals reviewing the current correlational research in NSTTAC's literature review
• Participated on the advisory board of the The Arc Walmart Foundation School to Community Transition Project, which will provide 25 to 50 grants ($3,000,000.00) to improve outcomes for individuals with intellectual disabilities. The Request for Proposals relies, in part, on the NSTTAC identified predictors of positive post-school outcomes
• Posted updated resources regarding in-school predictors of post-school success at http://www.nsttac.org/ebp/PredictorResources.aspx
• Posted Annotated Bibliographies on Interagency Collaboration and Sexuality and Disability at http://www.nsttac.org/products_and_resources/AnnotatedBibliographies.aspx
• Posted tools to assist schools and districts with Predictor Implementation Self-Assessment, and to assist practitioners and administrators with a Guide for Determining the Level of Evidence for Practices and Curricula: http://www.nsttac.org/ebp/ebp_main.aspx
• Updated practice descriptions and research to practice lesson plan starters and posted these new resources on NSTTAC's website, as well
• Continued to develop products and update resources from ongoing reviews of research in secondary transition

Indicator 13: Assist states with collecting, reporting, and using Indicator 13 data to improve transition services

• The measurement language for Indicator 13 was updated in March, 2009 to "Percent of youth with IEPs aged 16 and above with an IEP that includes appropriate measurable postsecondary goals that are annually updated and based upon an age appropriate transition assessment, transition services, including courses of study, that will reasonably enable the student to meet those postsecondary goals, and annual IEP goals related to the student's transition services needs. There also must be evidence that the student was invited to the IEP Team meeting where transition services are to be discussed and evidence that, if appropriate, a representative of any participating agency was invited to the IEP Team meeting with the prior consent of the parent or student who has reached the age of majority." (20 U.S.C. 1416(a)(3)(B))
• Posted drafts of the Indicator 13 training materials: http://www.nsttac.org/indicator13/examples_i13_checklist.aspx
• Posted a resource regarding Indicator 13 data submission: http://www.nsttac.org/indicator13/I13APRSubmissionFAQ.aspx
• Continued discussions regarding an updated FAQ document for collecting data for Indicator 13 based on the new measurement table and guidance
• Participated in meetings with the Secondary Transition Priority Team to create and organize resources for states at www.rrfcnetwork.org at the SPP/APR Calendar
• Presented on resources and data collections issues regarding Indicator 13 in intensive state and local meetings, as well as national meetings

Capacity Building: Build capacity of states to implement best practices in transition services that improve performance on Indicator 13 of the State Performance Plan

• Hosted the Mid-Year Secondary Transition Capacity Building Check and Connect meeting with 27 States on October 28, 2020 in Savannah, Georgia
• Assisted in the continued and final states of OSERS State Capacity Building Grant work of Alabama, Delaware, Florida, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, Oklahoma as well as assist in implementing or coordinating the funded work in New Hampshire, Kentucky, Missouri, New Mexico, and Vermont
• Initiated planning with the NDPC-SD, NPSO, the IDEA Partnership, and the Regional Resource Centers regarding the 4th Annual Secondary Transition State Planning Institute in Charlotte, NC, May 18 – 21, 2010
• Posted finalized versions of the Evaluation Toolkit and Transition Institute Toolkit at www.nsttac.org
• Presented at American Evaluation Association (AEA)'s annual meeting and had research proposals accepted for American Education Research Association (AERA)'s annual meeting regarding NSTTAC's capacity building model and evaluation approaches
• Continue conducting analyses of state and local capacity building plans to identify primary needs in the field and determine progress in addressing needs
• Assisted in implementing "Transition Institutes" in Oklahoma and Arkansas by preparing facilitators, making content presentations, and conducting evaluations
• Communicated with CO, NM, AR, and OK state teams via email and teleconferences to plan, implement, and evaluate upcoming capacity building activities, such as state cadre meetings
• At the local level, the WMU NSTTAC team continues to collaborate (face to face and via teleconferences) with local teams in Gallup and Grants New Mexico, the Kiamichi region of Oklahoma, West Memphis High School in Arkansas, and Windsor in Colorado. This work includes implementation and use of transition assessments, providing transition services for students 18 – 22 years old, implementation and evaluation of self-determination curricula, implementation of transition classes that include career development and transition assessments, and implementation of student-driven IEP development.

Dissemination and Outreach: Disseminate information to state personnel, practitioners, researchers, parents, and students on best practices in transition services that improve performance on Indicator 13 of Annual Performance Plans

• Posted various resources and tools for the website, including two toolkits – Evaluation Toolkit and Transition Institute Toolkit, updates to the National Map, the previously mentioned knowledge-generation, Indicator 13, and capacity building resources, and new transition-related websites
• Presented at bi-annual conference of the Division on Career Development and Transition in Savannah, GA on determining and using evidence-based practices
• Presented on implementing evidence-based practices to improve transition services and school completion in an effort to improve student outcomes with the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities and the National Post-School Outcomes Center at meetings of the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative and NDPC-SD
• Presented on the use of evidence-based practices and predictors, Indicator 13 data collection and use, writing quality transition-focused IEPs, providing transition-focused education, conducting and using transition assessment information at state-level meetings throughout the fall
• Recruited additional facilitators for OSEP's Exiting Community of Practice and hosted a webinar for this community
• Hosted a webinar on Transition Planning in Rural Areas, led by professionals from Colorado

Website Visitors:

• Center's website www.nsttac.org had 10,956 (September), 11,118 (October) 10,055 (November), 6,585 (December) unique visitors. New visitors ranged from 61% to 65% of the visitors to the website.
• Website visitors viewed the Transition Assessment Guide, Indicator 13 Checklist Form-B, Evaluation Toolkit, the Research to Practice Lesson Plan Library, resources on Postsecondary Education, Evidence-Based Practices, the National Map of resources from States, the Postsecondary Goal Writing Video, additional Indicator 13 resources, and resources on the Summary of Performance requirements.
• Between 55% and 59% of visitors accessed the website using search engines in June, July, and August. Additionally, approximately 27% accessed the website directly and 16% connected to nsttac.org from referring websites, including those of state education agencies, institutes of higher education, professional organizations, and members of the TA&D Network during these three months.

Notes' Newsletter Subscribers:

• During June, July, and August 2009, the number of subscribers to the NSTTAC newsletter, NSTTAC Notes, increased from 2218 to 2567 subscribers.

This document was produced under U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs Grant No. H326J050004. Marlene Simon-Burroughs served as the project officer. The views expressed herein do not necessarily represent the positions or polices of the Department of Education. No official endorsement by the U.S. Department of Education of any product, commodity, service or enterprise mentioned in this publication is intended or should be inferred. This product is public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this publication is not necessary, the citation should be: National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (May 2009). Monthly Report, Charlotte, NC, NSTTAC.