The Mid-Hudson Regional Partnership Center (MHRPC) is expanding the number of districts and educational organizations being offered targeted support by the center in the 2023-2024 school year.
The center provides regional professional development around special education for schools in Dutchess, Ulster, Orange and Sullivan counties; brings together districts with common issues; and offers support by working in the schools.
The center has added three districts and now has six districts that have been designated as Coordinated Intervention District (CID), where someone from the center will be in the district one day per week.
Mid-Hudson has 14 districts from the four counties participating in Targeted Skills Groups. The center has added Least Restrictive Environment and Committee on Special Education with the goal of keeping additional districts and schools from becoming CIDs. The center also will have a Graduation Pathways group in 2023-2024 to assist districts that struggle to meet state graduation rates for students with disabilities.
“It’s our first year with this amount of work, so there is going to be some learning as we go,” said Ruairi Gribbon, director for the center.
Gribbon shared a success story for the center where a district initially was only giving students with disabilities first-grade reading material and students were reading at the first-grade level. After MHRPC met with the union and the district superintendent, this changed, and students were given the opportunity to read at a higher grade level. Data released after the 2022-2023 school year showed many students were now reading at the second- and third-grade levels and only a few at the first-grade level.
“Most decisions are group decisions,” he said. “It’s very rare that I or anyone on the team is really deciding anything by themselves. You make better decisions when you have 10 people providing their thoughts and perspectives as opposed to just one person. I think we’ve done a good job of paying attention to what’s worked and repeating that.”
Joshua Steinfeld, a behavioral specialist, and Monica Baron, a transition specialist, are staff members for the center.
“I found we are all working very collaboratively as specialists to try to support one another and sometimes step out of our roles,” said Barron.
Steinfeld added, “I really like the collaborative nature of our work. I like that I can do a lot of different things. I really want to do things that support positive short- and long-term outcomes for kids.”
The center is entering its fifth year and will complete its five-year state grant in 2024.
“I am hopeful and confident that we’ll get it back,” Gribbon said of receiving another grant. “My understanding in speaking to my colleagues up at the state, the Mid-Hudson group is known as a group that is doing well, accomplishing things and helping districts make changes.”