Learn, Participate, and Collaborate in CEC 2027’s Pre- and Post-Convention Workshops
CEC 2027 offers you hundreds of professional development opportunities. Kick off or close out your Convention experience with a Pre- or Post-Convention workshop. These in-depth sessions take place on Wednesday, March 10, and Saturday, March 13, offering deep insights into a variety of topics from the top figures in the field. Check out a sample of the workshops offered and get ready to get all the tools, resources, and information you need to elevate your practice and drive student success.
Please note that you cannot register for workshops that take place simultaneously. Workshops differ from Sessions in that they incur an additional registration cost and must be registered prior to attending Convention.
Wednesday, March 10, 9 AM – 4 PM: Legally Defensible IEPs with Julie Weatherly, Resolutions in Special Education, Inc.
The U.S. Supreme Court has recently referred to the Individualized Education Program (IEP) as the “centerpiece” of the IDEA’s education delivery system for students with disabilities. In accordance with the Court’s updated two-pronged test for determining whether an IEP is appropriate, hearing officers and courts will look to both the procedural and substantive components of the IEP. We will examine common pitfalls that educators must avoid–both procedurally and substantively–to ensure that IEPs are legally defensible.
Wednesday, March 10, 9 AM – 12 PM: Building a culture of attendance: PreK–12 strategies to prevent chronic absenteeism with Jessica Sprick, Safe & Civil Schools
The strategies presented in this session will help educators understand variables that they can manipulate to improve student attendance through universal prevention at the school and classroom level. Participants will leave with a clear understanding of the critical importance of regular attendance for all students and concrete strategies for communicating this message to staff, students, families, and community. This session will provide a range of strategies such as ways to increase student and parent awareness about the critical importance of regular attendance, motivation and reinforcement strategies to encourage regular attendance, and preliminary understanding of ways to assess and intervene with common causes of absenteeism. Session attendees can expect to leave with a variety of examples from real schools and districts who have applied this approach with great success, using practical universal and intervention strategies to improve students' attendance.
Wednesday, March 10, 1 PM – 4 PM: Essentials of Classroom Management (PreK–12) with Jessica Sprick, Safe & Civil Schools
In this session, participants will learn best practice strategies for building a positive and proactive classroom setting that sets the foundation for appropriate student behavior. Whether you are a general or special education teacher with one or more students with severe and chronic misbehavior, or you work in a specialized setting with a focus on behavioral supports, this session will provide practical ways to help students meet behavioral expectations and succeed in the classroom. If you support teachers as an administrator, coach, or other staff member, this session will provide ideas on ways to support your teachers in implementing effective management plans. From increasing the organization and orchestration of classroom routines, to structured approaches to reinforce expected behavior and correct misbehavior, this session will broaden your toolkit of management strategies.
Wednesday, March 10, 1 PM – 4 PM: Simplifying SDI: Practical Strategies for Documenting, Designing, and Delivering with Tessie Bailey, Progress Center, and Sara Evans, Progress Center
Simplify your approach to specially designed instruction (SDI) with this practical, easy-to-apply workshop. Using a clear three-step framework—Document, Design, and Deliver—participants will learn how to write effective SDI in the IEP, create aligned and manageable instructional plans, and implement SDI with consistency and impact. Walk away with ready-to-use tools, templates, and strategies to improve student outcomes while making SDI more efficient and sustainable across your daily practice.
Saturday, March 13, 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Someone is Always Watching: Seven Keys to Crafting and Implementing Educationally Meaningful and Legally Sound IEPs with Mitch Yell, Fred and Francis Lester Palmetto Chair in Teacher Education and Professor in Special Education, University of South Carolina
The essential obligation of special educators is to develop and implement individualized education programs (IEPs) that confer a free appropriate public education (FAPE). It is critical that IEP teams craft internally consistent IEPs and monitor student progress toward their ambitious and measurable annual goals. The purpose of this workshop is to present a format for ensuring that students’ IEP are educationally meaningful and legally sound. We will explore how to craft (a) present levels statements that address all of a student’s needs and serve as baselines for progress monitoring; (b) annual goals that ensure appropriate access to the general curriculum, are ambitious, and allow a student’s progress to be measured; (c) special education service statements that address all student needs and are described with specificity; and (d) teacher friendly progress monitoring systems.
Saturday, March 13, 8:30 AM – 11:30 AM: Plans to Progress: Delivering High-Quality Specially Designed Instruction and Using Progress Monitoring to Improve Outcomes with David Bateman, Special Education Consultant, Michael Faggella-Luby, Texas Christian University, and Lisa Goran, Ph.D., Division for Learning Disabilities (DLD) and the University of Missouri
Add a workshop when you register for Convention. Already registered? Learn how to add a workshop to your registration. We cannot wait to see you in Columbus!