Hi! For those of you who don't know me, I am Randi Weingarten, and I am your union president. What we are trying to do in this CD is something that we've not done before, which is to get our members, parents, and anyone else who wants it information about the Board of Education's new continuum. This new continuum was approved by the Board of Education on June 22nd, 2000.

The Continuum was intended to create a seamless, unified delivery system for all children. Its underlying intent is that every single child is entitled to be educated in an appropriate environment and get appropriate services. That intent is very laudable. But there is a difference between the intent and whether the Board of Education can actually realize the goal. The easy part is articulating the goal; the hard part is getting it done. We know there have been many, many questions in the field about how this new continuum is going to be implemented. What we are trying to do with this CD and Internet-based operation is to see if we can answer the questions that people have raised. What's our goal? Our goal is to provide you with as much accurate information as we have regarding your roles and responsibilities, regardless of whether you are an ed evaluator, a social worker, a guidance counselor, a general ed teacher, a special ed teacher, a paraprofessional, a principal, or any other job that you have in the school system. Our other goals: we want to ensure that students you serve receive the education services they so need and they so are entitled to. We also want to make sure that you get the support and the assistance that you need. We know that you want to do the best that you can for the kids, but in order to do that you need to know what choices are available, and the range of services available, so you can make an informed and wise choice about those services. So what we are trying to do with this CD and internet-based program is to provide all that information to you. You can then pick and choose which way you want to use the information. You can also ask us follow-up questions in different ways by e-mailing us or writing us letters so that we can get you follow-up information.

Before I close, though, I just want to thank the people who spent a day in December with Carmen Alvarez and myself really wrestling with all of these different and difficult issues. You'll see them later in the CD program, but these are professionals who work with us side by side in the New York City school system, and I want to thank them for giving of their time to help us get you this information. Thank you very much. I hope this is very useful information to you.

Hello, my name is Carmen Alvarez. As Vice President of the United Federation of Teachers, my main area of responsibility is special education. I want to thank you, Randi, for giving us an overview of our presentation. Special education is a component of our school system that is undergoing significant change. Some of these changes are in response to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the federal law that governs the education of students with disabilities, others are the result of recent policy changes initiated by the New York City Board of Education. The policy change that we are going to focus on is the board's adoption of a new continuum of services for students with disabilities. The new continuum is described in a board publication titled Special Education Services as a Part of a Unified Service Delivery System. This presentation is designed to provide you with a better understanding of the changes brought about by the new continuum. I also hope to assist you as you prepare to participate in IEP Team meetings in understanding what services you can ask for and how to justify your recommendations. These are some of the major changes that you will see in the new continuum: We will no longer be using MIS or SIE designations. We will be using staffing ratios that enable students to be grouped according to their similarity of educational needs, including management needs. Resource Room and Consultant Teacher Services will become Special Education Teacher Support Services, which can now include time for teachers to meet outside the classroom to discuss student and instructional issues. There will be collaborative team teaching and special class support part time and full time. These are some of the significant changes that we will discuss. As you can see, they have the potential to impact all school staff, in some ways general education even more than special education. These changes also raise contractual issues that require negotiations between the union and the Board of Education, But, if implemented properly, these changes can help to: break down the barriers between general and special education, create a unified service delivery system for all students, use the expertise of general and special educators to help all students meet learning standards or alternative performance indicators and achieve success on state and local assessments or alternative assessments, and provide more students with disabilities the opportunity to succeed with special supports and services in the general education classroom.

The information in this UFT presentation will be presented in four sections. The first section is an overview of the service options in the continuum of services for students with disabilities. The second section describes how to document student needs through anecdotal records. In the third section, we will examine the IEP Team and the annual review process. And finally, we will look at what's next regarding the implementation of these policy changes.

Before beginning, I would like to say a few words about the scope of this presentation and the format we will be using. We could not possibly cover everything there is to know about the new continuum in this presentation. Instead, we are focusing on those issues you are likely to face in preparing for and participating in annual reviews. The format we are using has three components. The top of your screen is where you will see me and our audience of teachers, related service providers, school-based support team members, paraprofessionals, and a principal grappling with the challenges these changes present. On the bottom of your screen, you will see a verbatim transcription. Key words and concepts will be highlighted. Clicking on the highlighted information will enable you to hyperlink directly to more detailed information. Along the left-hand side of your screen you we will see slides which describe the information being discussed. You can download and print the text, the information in the hyperlinks and the slides for your own reference and to share with your colleagues. You can also e-mail questions to us at spedvp@aol.com. We will post answers to the most frequently asked questions as well as a list of helpful websites on the UFT Web site. You can go directly to any of the four sections of this presentation and move back and forth between sections. You can resize any of the three boxes on your screen by clicking and dragging on the borders. And finally, if you do not have adequate access to this CD, you can go directly to the UFT Web site and be connected to this presentation. We hope you find this format useful. This is the first time the UFT is using this high-tech approach to deliver information to our members. Please let us know what you think of this approach and how we can improve upon it.