Our Mission
The mission of Project EVOLVE Plus is to work collaboratively with school personnel, self-advocates, families, and service providers to increase the probability that the lives of students with disabilities will be better because they were educated in our schools. We seek to accomplish this by: (1) adhering to values embedded in the Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (2004) (e.g., importance of educating all children, individualization, access to supports, least restrictive environment, access to the general education curriculum, access to qualified personnel); (2) pursuing logical practices that help us operationalize those values; and (3) research to help determine if our practices have been effective and assist us in more fully understanding them.
Topics
EVOLVE Plus can provide assistance on a spectrum of topics for schools, including:
- Meaningful Inclusion of Students with Disabilities in General Education
- Alternatives to Overreliance on Paraprofessionals
- Effective Utilization, Training, & Supervision of Paraprofessionals
- Special Education Service Delivery
- Guidelines for Making Decisions about IEP Services (e.g., related services)
- Curriculum Planning for Students with Low Incidence Disabilities (e.g., COACH)
- Multi-Level Curriculum/Instruction and Curriculum Overlapping
EVOLVE Plus provides services based on the needs of schools. Examples of our services include:
- Assisting in determining locally important research questions
- Collecting, analyze and report on school data (e.g., Numbers that Count)
- Providing training, technical assistance, or mentoring on supported topics
- Serving as an external "critical friend" or "coach"
- Facilitating problem-solving and action-planning
- Evaluating outcomes