About

OVEC’s Exceptional Children Services (ECS) focuses on providing purposeful leadership, high-quality professional learning, consulting, and coaching to our districts to promote effective educator practices and improved outcomes for students with disabilities.

Our work consists of three areas: 

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• Special Education (IDEA)

Students with disabilities are everyone’s students, so we support all educators (whether general or special ed) to better understand and address the needs of students with disabilities.  Whether it’s providing deep expertise about the nature of disabilities and highly effective practices and supports, answering technical questions about compliance and regulatory issues, contributing to problem-solving discussions about how to best support students or their teachers, or providing transformative professional learning and ongoing follow-up support, we’re available as a free, go-to resource for educators in our region.  We collaborate closely with the KY Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Early Learning as one of their nine Special Education Regional Technical Assistance Centers to provide a comprehensive array of support services to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

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• Pre-Employment Transition Services

OVEC is funded through the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation (OVR) to provide pre-employment transition  services directly to students with disabilities to improve their transition outcomes.  We engage with students with disabilities to provide a variety of experiences to better prepare them for postsecondary education and/or employment, addressing a variety of topics, including: career exploration; work-based learning experiences; exploration of education and training programs for after high school; workplace readiness training to develop social and independent living skills; and self-advocacy.

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• Section 504

We support our districts with Section 504 through network meetings for 504 coordinators as well as engaging in training and consulting on regulations, requirements, and programming regarding Section 504.

Services

 Some examples of the areas ECS provides training, coaching, and support to our districts include:

• Academic and Behavioral evidence based strategies

• Low Incidence Disabilities (moderate-severe, alternate assessment)

• Individual Education Program (IEP) development and progress monitoring

• Post-Secondary Transition for students with disabilities

• Co-Teaching strategies and inclusive practices