May 30, 2023

National Awards Deadline

Nominations Due June 12 

If you or someone you know is deserving of national recognition, we want to hear from you. Check out the award categories and the selection criteria on the AESA website.

Nominations are due June 12, 2023.

Summer Leadership Conference

Transform Data into Impact 

for Education, Your ESA, and Your Districts.

The Summer Leadership Conference is a robust learning program with networking, thought leadership, problem-solving, and more. Join us this summer in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Early Bird rate ends Thursday, June 8!

ESA Small Community of Practice

Wednesday, June 7

"Special Education Services: Pricing & Structure in Rural Areas"

Educational Service Unit #13 is located over 5 hours from the major population centers of Nebraska. Because of this, they've had to be creative in how they make sure that all students receive the continuum of special education services that they need, regardless of where they live. ESU #13 has developed a variety of programs and services that utilize state funding and minimize costs to districts for highly-skilled specialists that would often only be available in larger communities. They will share their models for providing services, cost structures, and the lessons learned along the way. 

Presenters: Laura Barrett, Executive Director; Jodi Walker, Business Manager; Jessica Broderick, Special Education Director

Interested in attending, but not a member of the ESA Small Community of Practice? Contact Ann Fiene

2023 Annual Conference

Save the Date: Nov. 29-Dec. 1

Save the dates! The AESA Annual Conference is in Anaheim, California this year. Plan to join us November 29-December 1. We have a lot of great things planned, and we hope you will be our guest!

Conference details coming soon!

On a recent trip to visit the ESDs during their annual conference in Washington, AESA’s Executive Director, Dr. Joan Wade, had the opportunity to listen to a group of students that have been appointed to serve on the Puget Sound ESD Board of Directors. The experience of serving on the PSESD Board had a profound impact on those students. You can read more about how PSESD provides a platform for authentic student voice and engagement to advise the board’s decision making. You can read more about the impact these student representatives are making for their region in PSESD's Annual Report. 

On May 18, Mental Health Awareness Day of Action, the Administration took the following three actions:

• USED proposed a new rule that would streamline Medicaid billing permissions for students with disabilities, of which nearly 300,000 are likely to be eligible for Medicaid and impacted by this rule;
• HHS issued new guidance to make it easier for schools to bill Medicaid;
• HHS also approved requests from New Mexico and Oregon to expand health care services that schools can deliver to Medicaid-enrolled students, joining 12 other states that have already expanded Medicaid payment for school-based health care services under their state plans. 

USED’s Office of Educational Technology (OET) released a new report, “Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Future of Teaching and Learning: Insights and Recommendations” that summarizes the opportunities and risks for AI in teaching, learning, research, and assessment based on public input.

This report is part of the Biden-Harris Administration’s ongoing effort to advance a cohesive and comprehensive approach to AI-related opportunities and risks. 

In the past two days, the child and student privacy landscape has been overwhelmed with an influx of news and announcements. The biggest? The FTC’s new settlement with edtech company Edmodo might break school technology use in a few different ways, including shifts on which education entities edtech vendors can contract with and what rights parents have to modify or delete their children’s education data. 

While that would certainly be enough to hold our attention, we also saw:  

• The FTC also filed a brief stating that COPPA does not preempt state privacy laws that are consistent with COPPA; 
• The Surgeon General brought up the need for “children’s privacy” as part of its recommendations in a new Advisory on Social Media and Youth Mental Health;
• The White House announced that the Department of Education “will promote and enhance the privacy of minor students’ data and address concerns about the monetization of that data by commercial entities, including by planning to commence a rulemaking under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA);” and
• The White House and the Department of Education announced multiple new AI efforts, including guidance for education stakeholders on AI and an AI RFI that education stakeholders may want to respond to.

AESA joined more than 100 organizations in a letter to the Department of Labor expressing concern over proposed changes to the overtime rules and asking the administration to stop the effort.

Earlier in May, the Office of State and Community Energy Programs (SCEP) at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced twenty-five Phase 1 winners of the Energy Champions Leading the Advancement of Sustainable Schools Prize (Energy CLASS Prize).