Board reviews support plan for federally identified schools; district sets targets for students with disabilities
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Summary
Barrow County presented a district plan to support Auburn (ATSI) and Winder (TSI) elementary schools, setting targets to reduce level‑1 ELA scores by 10% and math by 15% for identified students with disabilities and proposing expanded SDI, awareness walks, and professional learning supports.
At the Nov. 18 meeting the Barrow County Board of Education received a detailed presentation on the district plan of support for federally identified elementary schools and related special‑education investments.
Chief Academic Officer Dr. Brown and Amy Wadley, director of special education, described how Winder Elementary (TSI) and Auburn Elementary (ATSI) were identified and reviewed the staged identification process under federal and state rules. Amy Wadley said the district’s central goal is to "decrease the number of students with disabilities who are scoring in level 1 ELA and math" and set measurable targets: a 10% reduction in ELA level‑1 scores and a 15% reduction in math level‑1 scores at both schools.
Staff outlined the main supports: implementation of specially designed instruction (SDI), targeted professional learning for teachers, monthly "awareness walks" using a rubric to monitor classroom SDI, expanded use of a multi‑sensory reading intervention, use of Waggle as a progress‑monitoring tool, IEP feedback, and development of co‑teaching and co‑planning structures. Wadley said many practices are already in place at Auburn and Winder and stressed the need to sustain and scale what is working.
In the action agenda the board also considered a contract increase for Comprehensive Behavior Change (CBC), a vendor that provides behavior‑analytic services. Amy Wadley recommended raising the contract cap from $74,999 to $120,000 to expand behavior analytics and staff development, funded through the federal IDEA grant. When asked why the district contracts instead of hiring, Wadley said CBC offers multiple BCBAs and specialists and flexible capacity across roughly 40 district programs, enabling rapid deployment where needed.
Board members asked for details about monitoring and the logic behind the numeric targets. District staff said the 10% and 15% targets were derived from student‑level analysis of how many students were close to moving from level 1 to level 2; for example, 10% of a cohort of 60 students equates to six students.
Next steps: the board placed related policy revisions on the public‑review schedule and approved consent items that included the behavioral services contract increase; staff said they will continue progress monitoring and report back on measurable changes toward the stated targets.
