Making sure students with disabilities get included: Parent-driven hope | OregonLive.com

Making sure students with disabilities get included: Parent-driven hope | OregonLive.com

Making sure students with disabilities get included: Parent-driven hope

By Betsy Hammond, The Oregonian

April 17, 2010, 4:13PM

I got the chance to swing by the fifth annual parent-led conference Saturday for Portland-area parents and educators who want to drive constructive change in the way special education students are treated and taught in local schools.

The energy and intensity were inspiring. About 140 parents and 70 special education teachers, principals and other education professionals were there, spending their whole Saturday learning about "universal design for learning," "co-teaching" and other hot topics in the field.

The conference, called All Born In, is designed to address the common concerns that so many families who have a child with disabilities face on their own, says Angela Jarvis Holland, executive director of the Northwest Down Syndrome Association and a driving force behind the yearly confab. Portland State University also plays a big role in providing support and expertise.

"The topics grow out of all the phone calls we get all year, that it's crazy to try to answer one by one by one," she says.

Topics also are chosen to be positive and forward-looking, to try to instill new expertise in local parents and teachers, who often feel beaten down