ANSWER:

The Office of Special Education and Student Services administers the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Local Priority Flexibility Grant, which is federal pass-through grant from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE).  The amount of the grant is $58,491 and the funds are used to implement the Middle School Special Education Institute (MSSEI).

All middle schools are served through the MSSEI grant.  The goal of the MSSEI is to provide middle school coteaching teams, paraeducators, and speech pathologists access to professional development through observing exemplary practices related to differentiated instruction, coteaching, and Universal Design for Learning (UDL).  Selected middle schools were identified to provide staff members with the opportunity to observe exemplary instructional practices, debrief the observations, and plan for implementation at their school.

Since the 2010–2011 school year, Montgomery County Public Schools has used the grant funds to provided professional development for middle school coteaching teams beginning with Grade 6 and followed by Grade 7 in the 2011–2012 school year.

This year, quad-clusters are observing each of the identified exemplary middle schools during the school year. For example, all of the Grade 8 U.S. History coteaching teams within the Northeast Consortium, Sherwood High School cluster, and the Downcounty Consortium are provided with substitute coverage to observe the implementation of UDL practices at Rosa M. Parks Middle School on a designated morning. Grade 8 U.S. History coteaching teams participating in the observations are provided additional substitute time to support their continued planning and completion of a UDL lesson template at their school during the remainder of the instructional day.