COVID-19 and Special Education

Overview

These Exceptional Student Services Unit (ESSU) webpages are continuously expanding to support educators who serve, and families of Colorado children with disabilities through the provision of Special Education-specific information and resources during the COVID-19 pandemic.

State & Federal Guidance

This section organizes guidance provided by the U.S. Department of Education, State Of Colorado Agencies including the CDE Exceptional Student Services Unit.

Special Education During
Covid 19

Learning Supports for Students With Disabilities

This section provides resources across a wide multitude of disability topics.

Learning Supports for
Students with Disabilities

Resources for Families of Students with Disabilities During COVID-19

This section provides access to resources for families and caregivers of children with disabilities, as they support their children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

COVID-19 Resources for Families
of Students with Disabilities

Parent/Family
Frequently Asked Questions

Disability & Topic Specific Information

Virtual Office Hours

After the time of remote instruction, the Office of Special Education has been fielding many phone and email questions regarding how best to support the accessibility, behavior, learning, social-emotional, and transition needs of learners with disabilities. In response to requests from the field, the following office hours have resumed:

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) Office Hours
Blind/Visually Impaired (B/VI) Sound Bites
Deaf and Hard of Hearing Listen, Learn, Ask, Answer
Mental Health
Multilingual Learners with Exceptional Disabilities
New or Near-New Special Education Directors - Lunch Connect Meetings
Serious Emotional Disability Webinar Series
Significant Support Needs Power Hour
Special Education Evaluation Webinar Series
Special Education for Youth in Correctional Facilities

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)

The ASD team will be hosting Office Hours2024-2025 ASD Office Hour Sessions. ASD Office Hours will resume be held on Fridays from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm on the following dates:

August 16, 2024 - Meet the ASD Team
September 20, 2024 - Dr. Pat Romani, Children's Hospital & University of Colorado
October 18, 2024 - Dr. Laurie Sperry, Autism Services and Programs and Yale Autism Forensics Team
November 15, 2024 - Emily Daniels, Daniels Counseling
December 20, 2024 - Dr. Jodi LeGray, ASD Communication Specialist
January 17, 2025 - Robin Singer & Ann Symalla, Facility School Specialists-CDE
March 21, 2025 - TBD
April 18, 2025 - CDE Preschool Team
May 16, 2025 - TBD

Join the ASD Zoom Meeting

Blind/Visually Impaired (B/VI) - Sound Bites

Tanni Anthony will be providing Sound Bites for the 2024-2025 school year. Stay tuned for details.

Sound Bites provides opportunities for personnel trained to work with learners with visual impairments, including blindness to gather once a month for professional learning and conversations on improving educational assessment and programmatic practices.

Some sessions will be restricted to teachers of students with visual impairments (TVIs).

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Listen, Learn, Ask, Answer (LLAA)

LLAA sessions have concluded for the 2023-2024 school year.

Mental Health Office Hours

Please join us for the 2024-2025 Mental Health Office Hours Series hosted by Bill Brown and presented by Dr. Tyler Anderson.

One of the requests from the mental health practitioners from across the state of Colorado includes more in-depth clinical mental health knowledge to be able to better address the mental health needs of students in schools. The Mental Health Office Hours series will take a deep dive into the world of clinical mental health diagnosis and clinical mental health services and treatment approaches. The discussion will focus on how the presented clinical mental health information can be adapted and used appropriately within schools to better meet the needs of students with significant mental health needs. Each session will have a 30-minute presentation and a 30-minute question and answer period. Due to logistical requirements, all participants must register no later than two weeks in advance for each office hour.

Dates:

October 1^st, 2024, Anxiety Disorders
November 5^th, 2024, Depression Disorders
December 3^rd, 2024, Trauma and Stressors and Related Disorders
February 4^th, 2025, Somatic Symptoms and Related Disorders
March 4^th, 2025, Disruptive, Impulse-Control and Conduct Disorders

Multilingual Learners with Educational Disabilities Webinar Series

This webinar series has concluded for the 2023-2024 school year.

New or Near-New Special Education Directors - Lunch Connect Meetings

Lunch connect meetings have concluded for the 2023-2024 school year.

Serious Emotional Disability (SED) - Webinar Series

The SED (serious Emotional Disability) Office hours will be replaced with an every-other-month webinar that will be made available. The topics for this school year's webinars will be:

Looking at how mental health and behavioral approaches can work together to better meet the complex needs of students;
Reviewing a basic review of mental health and a basic review of behavior;
We will then look at how to combine a mental health approach and a behavioral approach;
Exploring the intersection of trauma and behavior;
Sharing how Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and behavior interventions can work together including an example of a BIP written from this perspective; and
Looking at Traumatic Brain Injury and behavior.

Check back later for more information.

Significant Support Needs - Power Hour

The SSN Power Hour sessions have concluded for the 2023-2024 school year.

Special Education Evaluation Webinar Series

Join our five-part webinar series on foundational concepts of special education evaluation! This series will cover essential topics to ensure thorough evaluations, foster strong partnerships with families, address cultural diversity, utilize alternative assessment methods, and effectively communicate assessment findings.

This event is open to public educators across Colorado, especially professionals who are new to special education or those needing a refresher on evidence-based foundational strategies in special education evaluation.

Each webinar will be held from 8:00 - 9:30 AM on the following dates & topics:

September 24, 2024 - Comprehensiveness in Special Education Evaluation and Data-Based Decision Making
October 29, 2024 - Best Practices in Non-Discriminatory Assessment for Special Education
December 17, 2024 -Meaningful Family Participation and Collaboration in the Special Education Evaluation Process
January 28, 2025 - Best Practices in Teleassessment: Leveraging Technology for Effective Evaluations
March 5, 2025 - Effective Psychoeducational Reports and Data Communication

Special Education for Youth in Correctional Facilities

Zack Van Sant will host office hours regarding special education for youth in correctional facilities on the second Tuesday of each month at 8:30am-9:30am.

*September Office Hours will be held on September 17, 2024*

Join SpEd in Correctional
Facilities Office Hours

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