NWREL NEWS
Flashback
Using RTI To Help All Students
More than 60 state education agency leaders from Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wyoming attended the NWREL symposium, Response to Intervention (RTI): A Framework for Improving Student Learning. By committing to the concept that “all children can learn,” RTI allows general, remedial, and special education teachers to work together to address a child’s particular needs. “We wanted to help broaden SEA leaders’ concept of RTI from a tool for identifying students with learning disabilities to a way for educators to organize schools to better meet the needs of all students,” explained event organizer Linda Griffin. The summer event was sponsored by the Northwest Regional Comprehensive Center at NWREL in partnership with the Mountain Plains and Western Regional Resource Centers. Zollie Stevenson (pictured at right) from the U.S. Department of Education was one of the event’s facilitators.
Author Provides Inspiration
David Oliver Relin, co-author of the New York Times bestseller Three Cups of Tea delivered the keynote speech at the NWREL Volunteer Leadership Center’s Pacific Rim Conference in June. The conference was one of several continuing education opportunities for administrators and practitioners of AmeriCorps, Senior Corps, and other service-learning organizations. Participants from California, Oregon, Washington, and Alaska discussed such topics as recruiting and engaging volunteers, bringing Baby Boomers into national service, and meeting the needs of disadvantaged youth. Three Cups of Tea is an account of American mountaineer Greg Mortenson, who embarked on a personal crusade to build a schoolhouse in a remote Pakistani village and ended up building 55 schools—mostly for girls—over the next decade in the war-torn Middle East.
NWREL Welcomes New Board Members
Eight educational leaders joined the NWREL Board of Directors this fall. They join 21 other teachers, administrators, chief state school officers, and activists in governing the Laboratory’s work. Pictured (from left to right) are: Mo Sanders, a Solotna (AK) principal; Steve Bradshaw, Sitka (AK) School District Superintendent; Corri Ann Smith, a leader in Indian education in Montana; Elaine Asmus, an Idaho science teacher; Patrick Haggarty, chief administrator of Catholic schools in Montana; and Wendy Horman, president of the Idaho School Boards Association. Not pictured are Barbara Thompson, Interim Commissioner of the Alaska Department of Education & Early Development; and Tom Luna, Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction. 