Education: The Natural Bridge Salutes An Icon: Donnie Simpson

Education and The Community Survey

Please take our Education and The Community Survey. We want to know, which factors influence your decisions to move into or to leave a community. To take part in our survey, simple click the link below:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/forestoftherain-educationandcommunity

An Exclusive Interview With Kathlene Collins Founder and Publisher of Inside Higher Ed

Kathlene Collins founder and publisher of Inside Higher Ed (http://insidehighered.com/) discusses employment in field of higher education on eFocus, a weekly news and information program on The Journey Begins, radio for the engaged parent and dedicated educator.

Inside Higher Ed is the daily news Web site for higher education professionals. Before founding Inside Higher Ed (with her partners Scott Jaschik and Doug Lederman, both former Chronicle editors), Kathlene spent 20 years at The Chronicle of Higher Education, nine as Associate Publisher for Recruitment. She conceived and developed The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Career Network, five time winner of Editor & Publisher Magazine’s EPpy award for best classified site on the Internet. A regular speaker on recruiting issues at higher education and publishing industry conferences, Kathlene is a leading authority on online recruiting in higher education.

An Exclusive Interview on The Journey Begin's eFocus with Dr. Judy Hackett on Special Education

After 40 years as a special education cooperative, NSSEO continues to look at collaborative, creative ways to embrace the changes reflective of educational reform while continuing to keep the focus on meeting the needs of all students. As one of only a handful of special education cooperatives that existed in IL in 1969, NSSEO has evolved over the years to meet the changing needs of families, districts and the community. The field of special education, embedded in a changing field of education, has and will need to expand in a number of dimensions reflective of those important changes.

The success of any educational system is contingent on the collective efforts of its various stakeholders: board members, district superintendents, special education administrators, staff, families and community stakeholders. All of us working together strengthen the focus and the outcomes of our collective goals.

The 2009-2010 board goals were approved at a recent NSSEO board meeting and are posted here on the NSSEO website. These goals were developed within a much broader context of special education but with a set of developed goal areas of focus and data specific objectives articulated for NSSEO. I believe in the importance of establishing data-driven goals and providing ongoing updates, information and data reflective of our progress. Our four NSSEO board goals, highlighted below, intensify our focus on improving outcomes for all students :

*Provide technical expertise in influencing change with member districts and at state and federal levels on special education reform.

*Expand best practice knowledge and expertise through training, coaching, and the coordinated implementation of progressive educational practices.

*Continue to focus on fiscal responsibility by generating expanded sources of revenue and investigating additional areas of cost savings.

*Promote a culture of wellness and safety through coordinated efforts of NSSEO staff, member districts, parents, and community agencies.

Collectively, these goals set the stage for our 41st year of development. While NSSEO has appreciated a rich history of innovative and effective practices over the past 40 years, we must continue to work diligently on moving forward on necessary areas of focus that will continue to improve our supports and services for students across the cooperative.

We know that we can only achieve our goals through sincere, collaborative partnerships with all of our stakeholder groups - our member districts and our staff working together on behalf of students with special needs. I am excited about the many new areas of focus on the horizon for NSSEO and the many opportunities we share for shared success with our educational community. Please continue to visit our website frequently for updates, information, calendar events and resources.

The Journey Begins Internet Radio's--eFocus Exclusive Conversation with James H. Wendorf, Exec. Dir. to the National Center For Learning Disabilities

James H. Wendorf is executive director of the National Center for Learning Disabilities (NCLD), which seeks to ensure that the nation's 15 million children, adolescents and adults with learning disabilities have every opportunity to succeed in school, work and life. He directs NCLD's efforts to provide essential information to parents, professionals and individuals with learning disabilities; to develop and deliver research-based programs that foster effective learning; and to advocate for policies that protect and strengthen educational rights and opportunities. NCLD's new initiative promoting the implementation of Response to Intervention strategies in schools nationwide — the RTI Action Network — is the largest single program in this effort.

For the past two decades, Mr. Wendorf has worked in the not-for-profit sector to build national and international partnerships supporting learning and literacy programs. Prior to joining NCLD in 1999, Mr. Wendorf served as vice president and chief operating officer of Reading Is Fundamental, Inc., the nation's largest nonprofit children's literacy organization, based in Washington, D.C.

Mr. Wendorf currently serves on the advisory board of the National Center on Educational Outcomes, National Association for the Education of African American Children with Learning Disabilities, the Education Policy and Leadership Center (Southern Methodist University) and previously, with a variety of civic and education organizations. He is frequently called upon by the news media to comment on policies and programs affecting individuals with learning disabilities. Mr. Wendorf earned a B.A. degree from Yale College, and graduate degrees in English Language and Literature from the University of Cambridge and Cornell University.

http://www.ncld.org/about-us

An Exclusive Interview with Dr. Mavis G. Sanders

Mavis G. Sanders, Ph.D. discusses the importance of school districts to develop parental engagement strategies that impact the academic sucess of students in an interview on the news show Educational Gateway, heard on The Journey Begins, radio for the engaged parent and dedicated educator.

Dr. Sanders, earned her Ph.D. in education from Stanford University. She is a Professor of Education in the Department of Teacher Development and Leadership in the School of Education, Principal Research Scientist in the Center on School, Family, and Community Partnerships, and Senior Advisor to the National Network of Partnership Schools at Johns Hopkins University. She is the author of many publications on how schools and districts develop their partnership programs and effects of partnerships on African-American adolescents’ school success. Her most recent book, Principals Matter: A Guide to School, Family, and Community Partnerships (with Steven Sheldon, Corwin Press, 2009) focuses on principals’ leadership for developing effective partnership programs.

Other books include Building school-community partnerships: Collaboration for student success, (Corwin Press, 2005), and Schooling students placed at risk: Research, policy, and practice in the education of poor and minority adolescents (LEA, 2000). Dr. Sanders’ interests include how schools define and develop meaningful school-community connections and how district leaders guide their schools to develop partnership programs. Dr. Sanders also directs the Graduate Certificate Program in Leadership for School, Family, and Community Collaboration and teaches related leadership courses.

An Exclusive Interview with Brenda High: Founder of Bullying Police USA

Brenda High discusses the issue of bullying and its impact on children and families in an interview with Michael Robinson host of Educational Gateway, which is heard on The Journey Begins, radio for the engaged parent and dedicated educator.

Brenda has now become a passionate crusader, a mom on a mission to stop school bullying and peer abuse. It is not uncommon to see Brenda doing email or on the phone talking about bullying as well as advising parents, students, teachers, state and federal lawmakers, media and community members about the emotional and physical dangers of bullying, which can lead to bullycide, (a suicide attributed to bullying).

Producers from The Oprah Show, FOX News, Good Morning America, CNN, The John Walsh Show, The Larry Elders Show, Video Production Companies, Inside Edition, Jenny Jones Show, Black Entertainment Television, NHK Japan Broadcasting Corporation and News Documentaries, to name a few, have constulted and/or interviewed Brenda concerning bullying, depression, suicide, bullycide and how to heal from life changing traumas.

Jared's story

Jared High was 12 years old when older students bullied him in his middle school. The bullying came to a head when a well known bully assaulted Jared inside his middle school gym. Because of the bullying and the assault, Jared began to show signs of depression, which included lack of sleep and emotional outbursts.

On the morning of September 29, 1998, just six days after his 13th birthday, Jared called his father at work to say good-bye. While on the phone with him, Jared shot himself, dying instantly.

As a healing project, Brenda began to write Jared's story, which is now published as www.jaredstory.com. Since 1999, JaredStory.com has attracted over two million visitors looking for information on bullying, depression, suicide and needing healing from the loss of a loved one.