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School Profile of Assistive Technology Services
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AT Services |
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The School District Profile of Assistive Technology Services was developed by Reed (1997) as a tool for school districts to use to develop or improve their assistive technology (AT) services. It is intended that a large percentage of the special education staff in a school district would complete the Profile and then review their answers, discussing any differences of opinion to arrive at a consensus about the best descriptors for AT services in their district. Those descriptors then provide a profile or "snapshot" of the district at the time it was completed. That data is then intended to provide a basis for school district staff to improve their AT services. In the spring of 1998 the School District Profile was distributed to every school district in Wisconsin. It was presented at regional meetings of special education directors where Dr. Penny Reed or other WATI staff provided an overview of the tool and asked the directors to complete it in their school district. They were then asked to share the data so that we could obtain a compiled profile, a snapshot of AT services across Wisconsin public schools at that time. The data shared here is that compilation. We received 707 individual responses representing 153 of Wisconsin's 426 school districts. A review of the data helped us identify specific areas to address. For example many districts lacked procedure manuals that provide direction for their staff in requesting and providing assistive technology. Based on that, we have shared examples of handbooks and procedure manuals from several districts, by placing them in loan libraries at each of our 12 Cooperative Education Service Agencies. We have also taken many other steps to help Wisconsin school districts improve their AT services. Since the time this data was collected, we know that additional districts have completed the School Profile. We also know, from feedback, that many districts have used this information to begin improving and/or expanding their AT services. We provide it here so that others can review it, with the hope that it will encourage them to complete a self-assessment of services in their district and use that information to then plan for meaningful change. The School Profile of Assistive Technology Services can be purchased from WATI. Click Here to see the profile with
Wisconsin Data. |
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