Transforming Special Education with Empowerment, Systems Improvement & Measurable Results
Breaking the cycle of mediocrity in Special Education with expert consultants dedicated to improving outcomes for students with disabilities through systematic and evidence-based continuous improvement practices.
Break Free of the Special Education Status Quo
Expert Special Education consultants bringing comprehensive Special Education services to districts, parents, and students. Lower costs, increase consistency and change education outcomes for the kids who need it most.
Our team of experienced professionals can offer the expertise you need to create comprehensive and clear. Special Education processes and systems that will support quality and consistency of practice for teams. Having the right processes documented decreases your legal risk.
This comprehensive approach offers districts:
- Compensatory service process creation, implementation support, and development for COVID-19 and other immediate need responses
- Analysis of current systems and areas of risk
- Creation of Standard Operating Procedures on identified key areas
- District-level professional development and training to support implementation
- Central office team coaching and professional development
Our goal is to empower parents to navigate the beast of the special education system for the benefit of the kids within it. Helping parents get their kids what they need from their education. Think empowerment rather than simply advocacy — it’s a more holistic approach.
Our team can help with specialized services that assist families no matter their need, including guidance on evaluations, IEPs, progress monitoring, and instruction.
- COVID-19 response support. It’s been a hard year, we can help you ensure your child doesn’t get left behind.
- Dyslexia and structured literacy
- IEP analysis with recommendations report
- Parent Education and Training
- Walking with parents, so parents can Lead (an over one-year partnership that allows parents to learn the IEP process with experts every step of the way so that they have all the tools they need for their next 18 years of schooling)
- Pro Bono Support for BIPOC families wronged by the public education system
As a school or network, you understand the need for quality systems and expert support on everything from IEP creation to scheduling. At Project IDEA, we do too. We want to change the current narrative of churn and burn Special Education leaders because we believe there is another way to build success and consistency over time.
Consistency and continuity are the key to moving from status quo to transformational results for students. Project IDEA can help.
- Full-service replacement of Special Education management to ensure quality and compliance
- New Special Education team system development
- Professional Development from Basics to Advanced
- Coaching Special Education teachers and teams on effective practices and Specially Designed Instruction
- IEP Review to ensure a team is prepped for meetings
- Coaching for team members to artfully facilitate an IEP meeting
- Meeting facilitation services
Learn more about this transformational approach to Special Education
Special Education Consultants
A New Approach
Schools and Networks have skill gaps when it comes to Special Education. The truth is that most Special Education leaders have a 2-3 year tenure, making it impossible for a school to build success and consistency over time. Plus, those individuals are rarely a complete package and it is incredibly difficult to excel at every facet of Special Education. It’s a complicated beast of technical knowledge, leadership competencies, and the ability to navigate legal and parent challenges. We understand.
At Project IDEA our innovative approach to Special Education offers expertise across a range of needs including highly experienced specialized consultants in specially designed instruction, Special Education team systems and data, projects, and more.
This is a unique offering as it can be provided across one school or network of schools. This embeds stability in Special Education quality of service for teachers and students, reducing teacher turnover and ensuring strong student outcomes.
Through this new model, Project IDEA completely replaces entire positions or pieces of positions and saves schools money and time by providing expertise on a consultant basis, consistent access, and excellence in all areas of Special Education.
Focus on the science of continuous improvement:
What Districts, parents and kids need now
If you ask traditional district admins what they think when they consider Special Education in their school district, you might be surprised to hear that they aren’t familiar with many of the details– Special Education is a black box of inefficiency and ineffectiveness because of how complicated the system is and because Special Education has long been seen as “too big a problem to solve,” there’s little effort to change the status quo.
This gives a stigma to Special Education and the pressure on teachers and admins often leads to high turnover and burnout.
At Project IDEA, we want to make it easier for districts to invest in Special Education. Our mission is to help districts limit legal risk, inconsistency, and exposure by creating standards and processes that help clarify how to “do” Special Education in a way that benefits the district, the parents of children with special needs, and most importantly, the kids themselves.
Our consultants help districts change expectations with clear processes that support teachers understanding how to do their job in a legally defensible way that will also increase the likelihood of effective plans and equity for students. For Districts, they have solid documentation when the complaints roll in.
What makes our approach different
Parents and Schools are PARTNERS
- Partnership is based in mutual respect and shared goals
- Work is based in both school and parent perspective, with a legal lens, to achieve student-centered compromise
- Support based on a focus and priority on outcomes and hitting goals
- Schools that are struggling to provide quality service get support without shame, judgment, or threat
DSST: Byers Middle & High School
2019 National Blue Ribbon School
Our Values
Equity
We understand the intersection of racism and ableism. We are on our own journeys to confront white supremacy, bias, and white fragility and this is at the center of our work.
Integrity
Nothing we do compromises our commitment to doing right by students with disabilities.
Partnership
Accomplishing our goals comes from the way we do the work together.
Passionate Creativity
We leverage our own strengths, appreciate our own neurodiversity, and seek out-of-the-box solutions.
Evidence Driven
What fuels us is what works.
Scrappy
We do what it takes to tackle education’s most challenging problems.
ABOUT PROJECT IDEA
About Us
Project IDEA is a boutique consulting firm that provides customized solutions to bring excellence in Special Education to schools, districts, and families.
We become part of your organization and culture while also providing excellence and expertise from multiple external partners to address every area of need in Special Education and beyond.
There is a dearth of talent and people in Special Education, a national shortage combined with widespread inexperience. With Project IDEA, you get a leadership team of people that have led networks in strategic planning, change management, and people development combined with years of district Special Education administration experience focusing on legal cases and navigating the functions of being the Local Education Agent (LEA).
Then, in addition, you get expert practitioners in every domain that have deep expertise in their field to support and deeply understand all of the unique facets of any student. This includes psychologists, former principals, general educators, BCBAs, and other disability-specific experts. This level of expertise ensures that we can support any level of student need and turn stagnating progress across individuals or groups of students into meaningful, demonstrable growth.
Together, we have a complete package and the ability to provide customized solutions seamlessly as part of long and short-term strategy.
We are also unapologetic in our commitment to ensuring our daily work is antiracist. We see the intersection of racism and disability playing out in schools and a core part of our mission is to disrupt that system through continued learning and examination of our white privilege, bias, and fragility for our white staff and through amplifying the voices of BIPOC staff.
Our goal as an organization is to build the capacity of our clients. Each year, our success is indicated by our ability to release certain supports — with the ability to flex, increase, and adapt as your network’s needs evolve.
We know the landscape, we know how to get results, and we understand intimately the needs of our partners.
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