Itinerant Early Childhood Special Education Service Delivery Model
Community of Learning
Fall 2023

The Itinerant Early Childhood Special Education (IECSE) Service Delivery Model Community of Learning (CoL) will deliver targeted technical assistance and professional development to teachers endorsed in early childhood special education who provide special education services using the itinerant model. In an itinerant model, an ECSE endorsed teacher travels between classrooms or programs to consult with general education teachers and/or to provide direct services to individual children as needed. While the general education teacher serves as the primary teacher, the IECSE teacher designs supplemental and specialized learning opportunities to address each child’s goals, as indicated in the Individualized Education Program (IEP). Together, the general education teacher and the itinerant teacher determine how to embed learning opportunities throughout the day and how to monitor the child’s progress to ensure learning.

The CoL will focus on building the necessary competencies to implement high-quality itinerant services to ensure the active and meaningful participation of young children with disabilities within the general education environment. The online CoL will address:

research behind the itinerant model and rationale for its use in early childhood;
the role of the itinerant ECSE and the general education early childhood teacher;
strategies and tools to develop a collaborative partnership;
the components of the itinerant model;
distributed instruction versus massed instruction;
identifying target skills and IEP goals;
providing intentional and planned instruction, embedded into the daily classroom routines and activities;
improving teacher child interactions as defined by the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS); and
monitoring progress of children with IEPs.

Leadership

The CoL will be led by Jaye Harvey, Ed.D. Jaye is the State Coordinator for PD Essentials and a consultant for the Virginia Department of Education. Her email address is jhwellons@vcu.edu.

Schedule

The Fall 2023 Communities of Learning are being offered to IECSE teachers in two cohorts. Please be sure to login to the correct sessions for your cohort. If, however, you are unable to participate in a specific session but can attend the corresponding session for the other cohort, you are welcome to join the other cohort for that session.

COHORT 1 SCHEDULE

The CoL will be virtual and will be held on Monday afternoons from 3:00 until 4:30 on the following dates:

Note that the CoL will not meet on October 9, 2023

COHORT 2 SCHEDULE

The CoL will be virtual and will be held on Tuesday afternoons from 3:00 until 4:30 on the following dates:

Requirements

CoL members are expected to participate actively in all six sessions. In order to support learning about and implementation of the itinerant service delivery model, IECSE teachers will complete practice and preparation activities between sessions.

CoL members should have access to reliable internet and a computer with a camera and microphone. CoL sessions will be offered through Zoom hosted by the VDOE’s Training and Technical Assistance Center at George Mason University.

Recertification

Points for educators working towards licensure renewal (recertification) may be awarded for participation in the online CoL. A Certificate of Completion providing documentation of the activity and clock/contact hours will be provided for each individual online CoL session. Additionally, documentation will be provided for completion of assignments provided you complete the specified requirements. It is estimated that there will be 9 hours of clock/contact hours for participation in the CoL sessions and 11 hours of clock hours for completion of assignments.

Registration

CoL members must register individually for each CoL session. Certificates of Completion will only be available to those who have registered for the particular session.

To register, IECSE teachers will need an account on the Virginia LEADS (Leadership in Effective and Developmentally- Appropriate Services, ECSE) website. Teachers who do not have an account may create one at https://va-leads-ecse.org/home. Click on Create an Account at the bottom of the home page.

To register for the CoL, IECSE teachers must visit the Communities of Learning page at https://va-leads-ecse.org/communities-of-learning, and go to the Schedule Section. Click on the date to register and login. IECSE teachers will see the CoL event page with the Register Now button in the top right corner. Click on Register Now. The page will refresh and teachers will see a registration confirmation message on the page.

Once registered, IECSE teachers will receive an email confirmation. The morning of the session, a reminder message with the connection information needed to participate in the CoL session will be disseminated.

Remember to print out the handouts for each session as the handouts will be used during the session.

JOINING THE COMMUNITY OF LEARNING SESSIONS

IECSE teachers will join the virtual meeting online using the link provided. This Zoom link will remain the same for all six sessions. CoL participants should plan to login to Zoom at least ten minutes prior to the start of the session to ensure that they are connected and have video and audio working properly.

Cohort 1 Documents

Practice and preparation documents may be uploaded at the document upload section

Cohort 2 Documents