Describes a program designed to help rural school staff meet the educational needs of handicapped students and to give preservice teacher education students the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to work successfully with handicapped students in rural schools. Discusses the project's implications for the shortage of speech-language pathologists in…

Increased requirements for inclusion have created a growing demand for special educators to have content expertise in areas such as math and science. One recommended practice involves integrating the "big ideas" that are the foundation for understanding mathematics and science across the curriculum. Teachers also need to create a…

As the adoption of inclusive practices moves growing numbers of deaf and hard-of-hearing students into the regular classroom, rural schools are challenged by the low incidence of hearing impairments and the need for collaboration between regular and special educators. An innovative solution that incorporates professional and interpersonal…

Oklahoma's Comprehensive System of Personnel Development (CSPD) initiative was developed to meet requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. CSPD compensates for the state's geographic diversity through regionalization, which allows a grassroots approach to determining preservice and inservice training activities for special…

The article reviews the current status of teacher supply and demand, examines needs that have been identified, and draws implications for teacher education. The focus of the needs assessment is on one province: Saskatchewan. (AH)

Special educators from rural and remote school districts in eastern Oregon surveyed local employers and designed a school-to-work site-based work-experience program for students with disabilities in an area with limited employment resources. Components of the six-year program (grades 7-12) and the outcome of enhancing associated work skills are…

A culturally appropriate program with a functional approach was developed to train related services assistants (RSAs) in U.S. Pacific jurisdictions. RSAs support students with severe disabilities to achieve individualized-education-program objectives. Evaluation revealed positive impacts for disabled students served by 19 trainees, but newly…

This paper describes an alternative certification program that was developed to address the shortage of certified special education teachers in West Virginia. The goal of the program is to provide students from a noneducational background with opportunities at the master's degree level to become special education teachers in one of three…

This booklet examines the unique difficulties of delivering education services to at-risk children and youth with exceptionalities who live in rural areas. An introductory chapter considers the extent of the problem and identifies such strategies as providing self-esteem education, appropriate preservice and inservice training,…

Difficulties in recruiting and retaining rural special educators relate directly to deficiencies in teacher preparation programs, which are not providing their budding professionals with appropriate instruction to insure success and survival as rural special educators. In December 1982, a National Consortium of Universities Preparing Rural Special…

Part of the North Slope Borough District, the two schools in the Inupiaq village of Wainwright, Alaska, began to take advantage of communications technology for teaching, administration, and staff training purposes in 1983. At that time, three teachers took a course offered by the University of Alaska via computer and audio-conference on the…

The delivery model of the Birth-through-Three program incorporates interlocking community-based centers with a regional agency (Little Tennessee Valley Educational Cooperative) under the administrative guidance of an advisory council. The program goal is to provide highly qualified professional services to the targeted children/families within…

The four issues of the "Rural Special Education Quarterly" for 1985 contain 17 major articles with the following titles and authors: "The Challenges in Providing Appropriate Educational Services to Rural Visually Impaired Children and Their Families" (K. Huebner); "Rural Orientation and Mobility: A Preview" (J. Tucker); "Organizations Serving the…

Isolated by distance and geographic barriers from population centers, services, current information, and opportunities, 15 of Nevada's 17 school districts are not simply rural, but are remote. Servicing districts that average fewer than 2 people per square mile, 21 elementary schools have only 1 teacher. Sixteen high schools have enrollments of…

Reporting on educational conditions and facilities for children in isolated areas of Australia, this document presents findings and recommendations submitted by the Australian Senate Standing Committee on Education and the Arts as per their two-year investigation. Areas considered in this report are: extent of the problem; schools in isolated…