§ 318.11 - What priorities may the Secretary establish?

(a) The Secretary may, through a notice published in the Federal Register, select annually one or more of the following priority areas for funding:

(1) Preparation of personnel for careers in special education. This priority supports preservice preparation of personnel for careers in special education. Preservice training includes additional training for currently employed teachers seeking additional degrees, certifications, or endorsements. Training at the baccalaureate, masters, or specialist level is appropriate. Under this priority, “personnel” includes special education teachers, speech-language pathologists, audiologists, adapted physical education teachers, vocational educators, and instructive and assistive technology specialists.

(2) Preparation of related services personnel. This priority supports preservice preparation of individuals to provide developmental, corrective, and other supportive services that assist children and youth with disabilities to benefit from special education. These include paraprofessional personnel, therapeutic recreation specialists, school social workers, health service providers, physical therapists, occupational therapists, school psychologists, counselors (including rehabilitation counselors), interpreters, orientation and mobility specialists, respite care providers, art therapists, volunteers, physicians, and other related services personnel.

(i) Projects to train personnel identified as special education personnel in the regulations in this part are not appropriate, even if those personnel may be considered related services personnel in other settings.

(ii) This priority is not designed for general training. Projects must include inducements and preparation to increase the probability that graduates will direct their efforts toward supportive services to special education. For example, a project in occupational therapy (OT) might support a special component on pediatric or juvenile psychiatric OT, support those students whose career goal is OT in the schools, or provide for practica and internships in school settings.

(3) Training early intervention and preschool personnel. This priority supports projects that are designed to provide preservice preparation of personnel who serve infants, toddlers, and preschool children with disabilities, and their families. Personnel may be prepared to provide short-term services or long-term services that extend into a child's school program. The proposed training program must have a clear and limited focus on the special needs of children within the age range from birth through five, and must include consideration of family involvement in early intervention and preschool services. Training programs under this priority must have a significant interdisciplinary focus.

(4) Preparation of leadership personnel. This priority supports projects that are designed to provide preservice professional preparation of leadership personnel in special education, related services, and early intervention. Leadership training is considered to be preparation in—

(i) Supervision and administration at the advanced graduate, doctoral, and post-doctoral levels;

(ii) Research; and

(iii) Personnel preparation at the doctoral and post-doctoral levels.

(5) Special projects. This priority supports projects that include development, evaluation, and distribution of innovative approaches to personnel preparation; development of curriculum materials to prepare personnel to educate or provide early intervention services; and other projects of national significance related to the preparation of personnel needed to serve infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.

(i) Appropriate areas of interest include—

(A) Preservice training programs to prepare regular educators to work with children and youth with disabilities and their families;

(B) Training teachers to work in community and school settings with children and youth with disabilities and their families;

(C) Inservice and preservice training of personnel to work with infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities and their families;

(D) Inservice and preservice training of personnel to work with minority infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities, and their families;

(E) Preservice and inservice training of special education and related services personnel in instructive and assistive technology to benefit infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities; and

(F) Recruitment and retention of special education, related services, and early intervention personnel.

(ii) Both inservice and preservice training must include a component that addresses the coordination among all service providers, including regular educators.

(6) Professional development partnerships. This priority, listed in § 318.10(a)(4), supports the formation of consortia or partnerships of public and private entities for the purpose of providing opportunities for career advancement or competency-based training, including but not limited to certificate- or degree-granting programs in special education, related services, and early intervention for current workers at public and private agencies that provide services to infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities. Activities authorized under this priority include, but are not limited to, the following:

(i) Establishing a program with colleges and universities to develop creative new programs and coursework options or to expand existing programs in the field of special education, related services, or early intervention. Funds may be used to provide release time for faculty and staff for curriculum development, instructional costs, and modest start-up and other program development costs.

(ii) Establishing a career development mentoring program using faculty and professional staff members of participating agencies as role models, career sponsors, and academic advisors for experienced State, city, county, and voluntary sector workers who have demonstrated a commitment to working in these fields and who are enrolled in higher education institution programs relating to these fields.

(iii) Supporting a wide range of programmatic and research activities aimed at increasing opportunities for career advancement and competency-based training in these fields.

(iv) Identifying existing public agency, private agency, and labor union personnel policies and benefit programs that may facilitate the ability of workers to take advantage of higher education opportunities such as leave time and tuition reimbursement.

(7) Technical assistance to professional development partnerships. This priority, listed in § 318.10(a)(5), supports technical assistance to States or entities receiving awards under professional development partnership projects. Activities must include, but are not limited to, the following:

(i) Identifying the specific technical assistance needs of individual projects.

(ii) Conducting annual meetings at the national level.

(iii) Identifying other projects under the Act related to professional development for the purpose of coordinating professional development projects. Coordination activities may include conferences, publications, and maintenance of documents and data relevant to the activities of the professional development projects.

(iv) Cooperating with other projects and organizations on common goals.

(v) Disseminating information through media, newsletters, computers, and written documentation.

(vi) Evaluating center activities, including impact determination, and evaluation assistance to centers.

(8) Utilizing innovative recruitment and retention strategies. This priority supports projects to develop emerging and creative sources of supply of personnel with degrees and certification in appropriate disciplines, and innovative strategies related to recruitment and retention of personnel.

(9) Promoting full qualifications for personnel serving infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities. This priority supports projects designed specifically to train personnel who are working with less than full certification or outside their field of specialization, to assist them in becoming fully qualified. The following are appropriate under this priority: student incentives; extension, summer, and evening programs; internships; alternative certification plans; and other innovative practices.

(10) Training personnel to serve low incidence disabilities. This priority supports projects to train teachers of children with visual impairments including blindness, hearing impairments including deafness, orthopedic impairments, other health impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, and severe and multiple disabilities.

(11) Training personnel to work in rural areas. This priority supports projects to train personnel to serve infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities in rural areas. Projects, including curricula, procedures, practica, and innovative use of technology, must be designed to provide training to assist personnel to work with parents, teachers, and administrators in these special environments. Special strategies must be designed to recruit personnel from rural areas who will most likely return to those areas.

(12) Training personnel to provide transition assistance from school to adult roles. This priority supports projects for preparation of personnel who assist youth with disabilities in their transition from school to adult roles. Personnel may be prepared to provide short-term transition services, long-term structured employment services, or instruction in community and school settings with secondary school students. It is especially important that preparation of transition personnel include training in instructional and assistive technology.

(13) Preparation of paraprofessionals. This priority supports projects for the preparation of paraprofessionals. This includes programs to train teacher aids, job coaches, interpreters, therapy assistants, and other personnel who provide support to professional staff in delivery of services to infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities.

(14) Improving services for minorities. This priority supports projects to prepare personnel to serve infants, toddlers, children, and youth with disabilities who, because of minority status, require that personnel obtain professional competencies in addition to those needed to teach other children with similar disabilities. Projects funded under this priority must focus on specific minority populations, determine the additional competencies that are needed by professionals serving those populations, and develop those competencies.

(15) Training minorities and individuals with disabilities. This priority supports projects to recruit and prepare minority individuals and individuals with disabilities for careers in special education, related services, and early intervention.

(16) Minority institutions. This priority supports awards to Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other institutions of higher education whose minority student enrollment is at least 25 percent. Awards may provide training of personnel in all areas noted in § 318.10(a) (1) and (2), and must be designed to increase the capabilities of the institution in appropriate training areas.

(17) Preparing personnel to meet the National Education Goals. This priority supports projects that develop or expand innovative preservice and inservice training programs that are designed to provide personnel serving children with disabilities with skills that are needed to help schools meet the National Education Goals. These programs must promote the following:

(i) Increased collaboration among providers of special education, regular education, bilingual education, migrant education, and vocational education, and among public and private agencies and institutions.

(ii) Improved coordination of services among health and social services agencies and within communities regarding services for children with disabilities and their families.

(iii) Increased systematic parental involvement in the education of their children with disabilities.

(iv) Inclusion of children with disabilities in all aspects of education and society.

(v) Training that is designed to enable special education teachers to teach, as appropriate, to world class standards (such as those developed by the National Council on Teachers of Mathematics) as those standards are developed.

(18) Training educational interpreters. This priority supports projects for the establishment or continuation of educational interpreter training programs to train personnel to effectively meet the various communication needs of elementary and secondary students who are deaf or deaf-blind. These programs may also provide for the training or retraining (including short-term and inservice training) of regular education teachers who are involved in providing instruction to individuals who are deaf, but who are not certified as teachers of such individuals, and other personnel who work with such individuals, on the role of educational interpreters.

(19) Attention deficit disorders. This priority supports projects to devise new inservice and preservice training strategies for special education and regular classroom teachers and administrators to address the needs of children with attention deficit disorders (ADD). The purpose is not to develop distinct categorical programs for training personnel to teach children with ADD, but rather to enhance the skills of general and special education teachers and administrators to better serve this population of students. These strategies must be infused into personnel preparation programs of national organizations serving regular and special education personnel.

(20) Regional model demonstration training programs on deafness and secondary disabilities. This priority supports regional model demonstration training programs on deafness and secondary disabilities. These programs shall provide preservice and inservice training to teachers, school administrators, leadership personnel, and related services personnel in the education of students with deafness.

(21) Training regular educators who serve students with deafness. This priority supports projects to provide for the training or retraining of regular education teachers who are involved in providing instruction to individuals who are deaf, but who are not certified as teachers of such individuals, to meet the communication needs of such individuals.

(b) Under paragraph (a) of this section, the Secretary may identify an amount of funds to be set aside for projects to address the needs of children with particular disabilities and in particular States or geographic areas. Decisions to implement this paragraph would be based on review of each State's comprehensive systems of personnel development, special studies, and other information.