From: Dr. Eugene R. Thompson
Director of Educational Leadership
Dear Colleagues,
We have been privileged and honored by serve as CSPD contractor to the BIE-funded and operated schools across the Navajo Nation over the past four years. We thank you for sharing your time, your learning and your many, many skills with us, but especially sharing your gifts with the students and families you serve every day. Educating children is a complex task and critical to the success of the next generation.
Over the past four years, we have worked with all five agencies (Chinle, Eastern Navajo, Ft. Defiance, Shiprock, Western Navajo) on the Navajo Nation, all BIE-Navajo schools in corrective action, and many BIE school communities across the country. For the past few years we have co-sponsored the Navajo Nation Parent Conference for Special Education with the Department of Diné Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitation Services. It has been a pleasure to get to know our partners working on behalf of Diné Education and the parents who are so invested in their children’s success through your efforts. This year we had 300 participants at the conference.
At your suggestion, we created a curriculum for training residential staff to work with students in their care, initiated training for this staff, and negotiated college credit through our partners at UNM-Gallup. We have had over 442 individuals take advantage of the training and receive college credit. We know that a well-trained, highly qualified work force gets better results in educating children. Other CSPD university contractors serving other tribes in other states have adopted this curriculum and have replicated the successful training in other parts of the country.
A wide range of training and technical assistance support has been delivered to classroom teachers and educational administrators thorough conferences, agency-wide training, school activities and individual classroom support. You had asked us to customize our service to you and we have worked hard to make that happen. We have sought out highly qualified professional trainers with knowledge of Navajo communities, culture and language.
On September 30, 2006 (tomorrow), this project will come to an end. While the Center for Development and Disability at the University of New Mexico and the Institute for Human Development at Northern Arizona University will continue to be regional resources to you, direct support, training, and technical assistance through this project will no longer be available without specific funded requests from you and your school communities. It has been our pleasure to be part of the educational journey you have taken to achieve better things for children and families through improved instructional strategies and with higher qualifications of staff.
Our very best wishes to each and every one of you. Our website http://cdd.unm.edu/cspd/ will continue to be available for information developed as part of this project. Do not hesitate to contact us should we be able to help identify other resources that help you improve your community of practice on the Navajo Nation.
Finally, I wish to personally thank each of the project staff from UNM and NAU for the huge success of this CSPD project: Mette Pederson, Early Childhood Division Director/CDD/UNM; Daisy Thompson, who has joined the Albuquerque Public Schools as its new Director of Indian Education and will continue her doctoral journey at UNM; Alison Noble, for her administrative support at CDD/UNM; Brenda Oas, Training and Development Consultant at CDD/UNM; Dawn Giegerich, Administrative Assistant at CDD/UNM for her data base management expertise; Genevieve Begay, ICOP Project Coordinator at IHP/NAU and who will continue full time doctoral studies at NAU; and Peggy Garito, Administrative Secretary, IHP/NAU for her loyal support of the project. Their professional expertise is gratefully appreciated. Thank you and Ahéhe’.
Sincerely,
Eugene R. Thompson, Ed.D.
Director of Educational Leadership
Some Facts and Figures About the Past Four Years of the ICOP Project
Number of individuals trained: 6,948
Number of technical assistance request responded to: 14,785
Number of participants receiving college credit: 463
Number of individuals attending sponsored conferences: 575
Number of children impacted by the training provided: 43,000
Number of residential staff participating and completing Residential training: 442
Number of schools in corrective action reached during span of program: 28
Number of classroom staff participating in training: 1,549
Other universities/colleges collaborating with UNM: NAU, NMSU, UNM-Gallup,
Salish-Kootenai College, WNMU
Resources, Resources, Resources!
While this is the last Friday Fax we will be sending you, for on-going information about serving students with special needs, check out our website at: http://cdd.unm.edu/cspd/
And for professional resources, books, videos and other information, check out the LINC at the Center for Development and Disability at UNM at http://cdd.unm.edu/linc/. You will find:
For information from our partnering university and sister program in the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) network, check out the resources at the Institute for Human Development at NAU at: http://www.nau.edu/ihd/. You will find:
You may consult the CSPD Activity Calendar on the Navajo Nation on the CDD
website at: http://cdd.unm.edu/cspd/
for further information. Have a great week.
