Special Education
Welcome to the Special Education Department
The WISD Special Education Department provides services and programs to support the efforts of 9 local school districts, 14 private school academies and 20 private schools. In collaboration with these districts, families and students, WISD provides leadership, professional development, program options, transitional services, early childhood supports and early intervention services through Early On, classroom support services, parent support, assistive technology, and legal requirements to ensure the individual needs of all students are addressed.
The Special Education department directly implements services for approximately 300 students with moderate to severe disabilities, emotional disabilities, visual impairments and the deaf and hard of hearing from birth to 26 years old in addition to the Washtenaw County Court Involved Youth program.
Policy Guidelines for Delivering Personalized Services to Students with Specialized Needs
The Vision
The public school districts in Washtenaw County, working together with Washtenaw ISD, envisions a future whereby all children have equal access and educational opportunity to learn with high expectations, within a meaningful and challenging curriculum, employing a differentiated instructional approach using multiple assessments to gauge student learning. All children are to be recognized for their unique needs, interests, and aspirations and have a sense of belonging in their school and community. This requires a responsive and coordinated educational system that will focus on the diverse needs of all children as well as allocate resources to build the capacity of districts, schools, and teachers to provide the services and programs necessary for success.
Purpose and Need
The purpose and need for this policy is to establish the relationship between this countywide collaborative vision and services for students with specialized needs for support. Ensuring equity and access to the instructional frameworks established in the vision requires that challenging expectations be set for all students. It also requires that instructional and related service staff work in concert and with mutual responsibility to ensure success for all students. A focus on prevention, without labeling students before providing personalized instructional services is a key dimension of this policy statement: we can no longer wait until students fall behind before providing them with personalized instructional intervention.
The public school districts in Washtenaw County, working together with Washtenaw ISD, envisions a future whereby all children have equal access and educational opportunity to learn with high expectations, within a meaningful and challenging curriculum, employing a differentiated instructional approach using multiple assessments to gauge student learning.
