PAUSD – Review of Special Education Conducted by Thomas Hehir and Associates LCC

Information on the Proposals for the 2015 Review of Special Education of Palo Alto Unified School District to be conducted by Thomas Hehir and Associates LLC:  Phase 1 and Phase 2.
Phase 1 took place in October 2015 when Dr .and his review team came to Palo Alto where they met with parents in two open sessions,visited various schools and talked with staff and students. At that time, all parents were invited via the CAC Discuss email list to attend the sessions to give input, to submit input to the CAC to compile, or to do so directly to Dr. Hehir’s team. Members of the CAC executive board met with Dr. Hehir and presented him with a detailed letter of our concerns which were based on parent input and fact gathering within our community.
This is CAC’s  understanding of what Phase 2 will entail (as of end January 2016):
(1) the Board of Education approved the proposal and funds for the review in December 2015.
(2) a detailed survey is being developed by the review team and will be sent to parents and staff
(3) once all the data has been collected, the Dr. Hehir’s review team will determine if it is necessary to conduct interviews with individual staff or parents.
(4) analysis of the data collected will take place in late spring and possibly through the summer of 2016.  The final report from Dr. Hehir will most likely be sent to the district office by the beginning of the next school year, fall of 2016.
If you would like to send a personal letter documenting your experience, you can send it to Monica Ng, who is working with Dr. Hehir on this process: man848@mail.harvard.edu
Universal Design for Learning
UDL s a set of principles for curriculum development that give all individuals equal opportunities to learn and  provides a blueprint for creating instructional goals, methods, materials, and assessments that work for everyone–not a single, one-size-fits-all solution but rather flexible approaches that can be customized and adjusted for individual needs. Presentation on UDL principles and practices.

Profile of Thomas Hehir Ed.D,  Professor of Practice in Learning Differences at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. A conversation with Thomas Hehir.

The book: ” How did you get here?” by Thomas Hehir.

Examples of reports by Thomas Hehir and Associates LCC:    2012-2014 , 2005