A Toolkit of Emerging Best Practices and Opportunities for Charter Support Organizations Approximately 6.4 million students--roughly 13 percent of the student population between ages 6-21--receive special education and related services in public schools every year. While students identified as eligible for special education require supports and…

How can States address the continual and extraordinary challenge of sustaining and adapting the reforms they have implemented to improve student outcomes? What steps can States take to do so in the face of inevitably evolving conditions--such as a change in resources (for example, the end of a grant), leadership (a transition in personnel or…

A guide intended to clarify some concerns relating to collective bargaining in Massachusetts libraries considers both public institutions within the jurisdiction of the Massachusetts Public Employee Collective Bargaining Law and private institutions under the National Labor Relations Act. Provisions of both pieces of legislation as to bargaining…

The paper presents a model for the integrating classroom in accordance with Chapter 71A (which deals with bilingual education) and Chapter 766 (which mandates the provision of educational programs tailored to each student's special needs) of Massachusetts Legislation. Listed among goals for the model classroom are the following: to provide an…

The Charter School Office has created the Opening Procedures Handbook as a tool to assist charter school founding groups prepare for the exciting, yet challenging, task of opening a Massachusetts public charter school. The Handbook summarizes the opening procedures process, identifies the action items that must be completed prior to the school's…

Presented in this document are a description of Chapter 766, Massachusetts legislation governing education for youth with special needs, and a compilation of guidelines and procedures affecting the core evaluation of student turned over to the Department of Youth Services (DYS) by the courts. Requirements of the Core Evaluation Team (CET) and core…

The handbook details legal options in providing for decisionmaking regarding mentally retarded persons. Defined are trusts and representative payee situations. Considered in detail are aspects of guardianship and conservatorship, including legal standards, effects on daily livinq, financial issues, and liability. A final section provides technical…

The Core Evaluation Team (CET), as required by Massachusetts' special education law Chapter 766, is staffed to perform all the assessments necessary to develop a comprehensive individualized educational plan for the child with special needs. To assist in the assessment procedure, the Massachusetts Department of Education provides a guide which…

The handbook provides guidelines for implementing the Massachusetts right to education law (Chapter 766) through the development of regional collaboratives to deliver educational services to low incidence handicapped and severely handicapped children. Chapter 1 includes instructions on the use of the handbook, reasons for considering…

Massachusetts's Chapter 622 and U.S. Title IX regulations both prohibit discrimination by educational institutions. This guide is designed to assist administrators, particularly in Massachusetts, in complying fully with the spirit and letter of these regulations. The guide is divided into thirteen chapters, seven of which use parallel format to…

This manual is said to be intended to bring together under one cover the fundamental documents relating to the landmark legislation, the Transitional Bilingual Education Act. A general synopsis of Chapter 71A of the Act includes what a program in transitional bilingual education consists of, who has the right to it, and what the obligations of the…