Office of Exceptional Children Employs
Effective Strategies Supporting No Child Left Behind

Virginia Beach City Public Schools will continue its commitment to provide training opportunities for teachers and teacher assistants assigned to special education programs. To better prepare our teacher assistants and in compliance with NCLB , a flexible series of training activities (offered in the summer, during school, after school, and weekends) will be provided to enhance their ability to work more effectively within programs serving students with disabilities. The goals of the training are to achieve the following:

• Increase the level of phonological awareness and reading comprehension strategies among teacher assistants serving students with mild disabilities.
• Increase collaboration between teacher/teacher assistant teams assigned to self-contained classrooms in implementing specific writing strategies. These strategies will systematically incorporate key aspects of the writing process, using color and mnemonics to increase students' writing skills across all curriculum areas. If this pilot program is successful, steps will be taken towards program expansion.
• Increase the use of data collection strategies among teacher assistants in order to provide special education teachers with a data-driven, decision-making process to benefit the instructional and behavioral management of students with disabilities.

For additional information contact the Office of Exceptional Children at 757.263.2400 or e-mail rmitchel@vbschools.com.