Consortium Meeting Minutes

January 9, 1998

Welcome: Vicki Ahlstrom welcomed everyone. Bruce read a thank you note from the Women & Children in Crisis Center of Utah County for sock and glove tree we donated to them in December. Bruce showed the training materials on IDEA `97 from the Office of Special Education published by National Information Center for Children and Youth with Disabilities (NICCHY). He told consortium that the USOE had arranged for one set of training materials to be available for each district. Additional copies can be purchased directly from NICCHY for $175 plus shipping (1-800-695-0258). There will be a meeting for the person responsible for this training from each district under direction of Mae Taylor-Sweeten. This meeting will be from 9:30 AM to 1 PM on February 10, 1998 at the Provo Park Hotel. An agenda will be mailed out to all districts with more information.

UPDATES:
ULRC: Randy Schelble introduced the January issue of the Utah Special Educator, Leading Change. Next month's issue will involve general education teachers.
Karen Marberger reminded everyone that next week is the 9th Annual Mentor Conference (Jan 15-16). There are over 300 mentors registered to attend. She said she was pleased with the national and local presenters and thanked everyone for their support.
Jerry Christensen - Preschool conference is March 26-27. Preregistration will come out next week. It will be given to Mentors during their conference. Brenda Broadbent announced invitational presession with the conference on the IDEA reauthorization.

PARENT CENTER:
Helen Post -The staff at the Parent Center is preparing for parent conference on Mar 26-27. There will be limited regisration and it is mainly for parents, with keynote Steve Mikita. The Parent Center is a co-sponsor of intervention conference with state office. Kits for those already trained are now updated.

USOE:
Steve Kukic distributed copies several key articles he has written over the last 15 years. He summarized some of the trends from his tenure as director of At Risk Programs.
Mae Taylor-Sweeten announced that the Law Conference will be Aug 4-5 in Ogden at the Eygptian Center. SARS week has been changed to Apr 27 - May 1 and CEC Spring Convention will be May 2 in St. George.
She also announced the opening for compliance officer at State Office (Mae's former job) will be posted next week.

INSTITUTES OF HIGHER EDUCATION:
Utah State University: Alan Hofmeister talked about the digital satellite program at USU. He said that they will be maintaining four digital channels for the state. He suggested that people look at setting up their own network for personnel development (special education). He offered to work with others in setting up programs. He said to call (435) 797-7019 for copy of video.
Regional Resource Center: Glen Latham gave an update from his 16 year research. He is concerned about the quality of teacher's preparation or perception of their training. He feels that we need to convince our school systems that there are better ways to learn how to teach kids. Science of teaching is available if we will use it. We need to improve. 1) university programs need to change and 2) local education agencies should not assume that teachers know how to teach. He says that those who do know, quickly digress to mediocrity.

FEATURE PRESENTATION:
The consortium put on a program to say farewell to Steve Kukic. This was his last day as State Director of Students-At-Risk. Many were able to express their "thank you"s to Steve. It was both fun and touching. We will all miss Steve at Consortium meetings each month.

Meeting was adjourned at 12:00 noon.