WEBVTT 00:00:05.110 --> 00:00:07.110 The focus of our Learning Futures collaborative, Project Oasis, is first 00:00:10.478 --> 00:00:14.835 we, the main question we started with is what is the future of special 00:00:14.868 --> 00:00:18.285 education? And the more we thought about how we wanted to frame this 00:00:18.318 --> 00:00:22.567 question and narrow in a little bit where this question led us to was, 00:00:22.600 --> 00:00:27.366 what is the optimal school system in which labeling students with 00:00:27.399 --> 00:00:32.036 disabilities is not necessary and even a school system in which special 00:00:32.069 --> 00:00:36.625 education is not necessary. And all of this to say we want all students, 00:00:36.658 --> 00:00:40.746 no matter their abilities to be able to achieve their full potential. So 00:00:40.779 --> 00:00:43.945 this question is in no way meant to undo any of the progress that's been 00:00:43.978 --> 00:00:48.065 made over the past 50 years of special education in the United States, but 00:00:48.098 --> 00:00:53.226 really to work with the community members, educators, leaders across 00:00:53.259 --> 00:00:56.987 Arizona to be thinking about the future of special education and And what 00:00:57.020 --> 00:01:02.467 needs to be done to serve all students. So my background is I started as a 00:01:02.500 --> 00:01:05.546 preschool teacher, then I worked as a speech language pathologist in 00:01:05.579 --> 00:01:09.546 Arizona public schools. So I worked in special education, worked with 00:01:09.579 --> 00:01:14.227 students of all abilities um in Arizona public schools, and then I was 00:01:14.260 --> 00:01:18.665 elected to be Arizona State Superintendent in 2018 and served one term the 00:01:18.698 --> 00:01:22.186 past four years, leading Arizona's Department of Education, which was the 00:01:22.219 --> 00:01:25.846 privilege of a lifetime. And through my work as state superintendent, I 00:01:25.879 --> 00:01:30.245 had the privilege to tour schools all across Arizona and really learn 00:01:30.278 --> 00:01:33.967 about the ins and outs of both the challenges and opportunities within our 00:01:34.000 --> 00:01:37.926 school systems. So coming into my new role here at ASU and Mary Lou 00:01:37.959 --> 00:01:42.680 Fulton's Teachers College, I am so excited to be refocused. Focusing on my 00:01:42.713 --> 00:01:46.242 passion around special education and particularly serving students with 00:01:46.275 --> 00:01:50.641 disabilities. This work is critically important, not just here in Arizona 00:01:50.674 --> 00:01:56.721 , but nationally, internationally, from my work, having studied Arizona in 00:01:56.754 --> 00:02:02.316 particular, knowing our strengths and weaknesses. The data is clear, our 00:02:02.349 --> 00:02:06.355 students with disabilities are not achieving what their peers are 00:02:06.388 --> 00:02:11.106 achieving and particularly looking at the staffing challenges for special 00:02:11.139 --> 00:02:14.876 education, special education teachers, specialists like the speech 00:02:14.909 --> 00:02:18.457 language pathologists or the school psychologists, we have staffing 00:02:18.490 --> 00:02:24.555 shortages here locally and nationally that make it very challenging for 00:02:24.588 --> 00:02:28.767 our students with disabilities who are in special ed to to have a high 00:02:28.800 --> 00:02:31.805 quality education, even though the people working in the system are 00:02:31.838 --> 00:02:35.446 working so hard and are so dedicated and passionate about serving their 00:02:35.479 --> 00:02:40.525 students, we know that these shortages and even funding challenges 00:02:40.558 --> 00:02:45.927 contribute to the ultimate outcomes, even the employment of people with 00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:51.286 disabilities when they go on beyond our K-12 education system. So there 00:02:51.319 --> 00:02:55.616 should be urgency around this work, but this is a system. That is very 00:02:55.649 --> 00:03:00.196 slow to change, that there's a lot of compliance involved, a lot of 00:03:00.229 --> 00:03:04.467 policies and laws in place that really make it hard for our school leaders 00:03:04.500 --> 00:03:08.166 to, to change their special education systems, and that's why it's so 00:03:08.199 --> 00:03:11.225 important for us to create this space with the Learning Futures 00:03:11.258 --> 00:03:14.981 collaborative to bring people to the table together from diverse 00:03:15.014 --> 00:03:19.541 perspectives, to be having these really important conversations about 00:03:19.574 --> 00:03:23.501 where should the system be moving to. Truthfully, this is bigger than 00:03:23.534 --> 00:03:28.380 special education, this is a very broad systems approach and we want it to 00:03:28.413 --> 00:03:32.606 be informed by data and research as we go forward. I started in my new 00:03:32.639 --> 00:03:36.606 role here at ASU about 6 months ago, and from the get-go, I knew that I 00:03:36.639 --> 00:03:40.967 wanted to launch a new learning Futures collaborative to inform my work. 00:03:41.000 --> 00:03:45.487 So as I started to talk to staff and faculty and doctoral students here in 00:03:45.520 --> 00:03:49.245 the teacher's college, I knew it needed to be bigger than that and so I 00:03:49.278 --> 00:03:53.207 started reaching out to community members, to nonprofit leaders, business 00:03:53.240 --> 00:03:57.686 leaders, parents, people with disabilities, as students to make sure that 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:02.112 their voices are Also at the table as we think about these really big 00:04:02.145 --> 00:04:08.691 questions. So I'm thrilled that today we have about 90 people who are part 00:04:08.724 --> 00:04:12.511 of our Learning Futures collaborative, um, and that just speaks to the 00:04:12.544 --> 00:04:16.481 importance of this work and it's really affirming to me to know that there 00:04:16.514 --> 00:04:20.572 is such an interest in talking about the future of special ed and people 00:04:20.605 --> 00:04:25.092 realize that the time for change is now and there is urgency around this 00:04:25.125 --> 00:04:30.317 issue. It's very important to me that we're using data and research to 00:04:30.350 --> 00:04:36.276 inform our decisions and partnership with our schools, especially to make 00:04:36.309 --> 00:04:40.676 sure we're collaborating with with teachers and school leaders. So as we 00:04:40.709 --> 00:04:45.317 start our first year of the LFC, I am excited that we're establishing 00:04:45.350 --> 00:04:49.395 partnerships or even building on existing partnerships to be looking at 00:04:49.428 --> 00:04:54.705 both qualitative and quantitative data to be informing. Our work and also 00:04:54.738 --> 00:04:59.507 identifying the highest performing districts and schools around the state 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:05.745 on who, who is showing for their data that they have the highest student 00:05:05.778 --> 00:05:09.305 growth within their population of students with disabilities because we 00:05:09.338 --> 00:05:13.067 also want to be highlighting where is this work already happening and 00:05:13.100 --> 00:05:17.265 already having success and what can we learn from that to then inform what 00:05:17.298 --> 00:05:22.036 the future of special education should look like. I'm Cathy Hoffman, the 00:05:22.069 --> 00:05:26.596 executive director for Innovation and Special Education initiatives, and 00:05:26.629 --> 00:05:30.317 I'm proud to be one of the leaders of Project optimizing access for 00:05:30.350 --> 00:05:32.829 students in schools.