In order to meet the federal requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and No Child Left Behind (NCLB), GLRS provides ongoing professional learning (training) to teachers and administrators to assist them in implementing effective instructional strategies. GLRS provides training to educators so that:

• Children who are at risk of failure can learn to read.

• Children exhibit responsible behavior.

• Students with disabilities stay in school and transition to employment or college after they graduate from high school.

• Students with disabilities can participate in general education classes with their non-disabled peers.

• New special education teachers learn effective instructional strategies from mentor teachers.

By providing ongoing professional learning and training activities for teachers and administrators, GLRS impacts the educational performance of students. Because of these training activities, which are designed to provide students with disabilities appropriate accommodations and supports, students have been impacted in the following ways.

• Students in first and second grade who were struggling to learn to read were able “close the achievement gap” with their reading skills. Therefore, these students were able to catch up, and in many cases, pass their classmates in reading achievement.

• Children who have traditionally shown negative behavior at school have improved their behavior. On average, those individual students increased their active participation in class by 11.5%.

• Schools have shown a significant reduction in the number of office referrals due to discipline problems. On average, participating schools have reduced their discipline referrals by 24.3%.

• Fewer students with disabilities are dropping out of school and more students are becoming employed or attending college after high school graduation. Across participating school systems, 87.5% of the systems had a decrease in the number of students with disabilities who dropped out of school. The same school systems reported an increase from 54.34% to 60.30% in the number of students with disabilities who were employed or attending post secondary education.

• More students with disabilities are participating in general education classes with their non-disabled peers. That means students with disabilities can learn the same skills and curriculum that is being taught to other children, enabling more children to meet the academic requirements of NCLB.