Branching over to poverty

Since a large portion of my job involves staff development and training, I have been fortunate enough to be able to branch into areas that are not necessarily directly related to special education. Today, take poverty for example. I have just finished a day long training for a group of educators. In preparation, I began reviewing my materials which took me on an internet path toward additional information to share with the participants. Some simple exploration on DPI's WINSS (Wisconsin Information Network for Successful Schools) website has yielded some very interesting information around student achievement and poverty....not necessarily surprising, but maybe shocking for some communities. After viewing some data for todays participating schools, many teachers were not aware that this data even exists. what the might find about their school and community.

Take a minute to check your district data! Visit WINSS at http://www.dpi.wi.gov/sig/index.html. Check the Data Analysis portion to find out student demographics as well as academic performance by various subgroups. Are you surprised? Poverty is becoming a serious issue facing many regions of our state and nation. How is your community addressing this? How are your students doing? Students with disabilities living in a poverty situation face even bigger obstacles than many of our other students. Are schools making conscious efforts to increase awareness and services? Resources: http://www.dpi.wi.gov/