ICI's TIES Center Marks First Anniversary With New Resources

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Mon Dec 17 2018
TIES Center director Sheryl Lazarus (right) with assistant director Terri Vandercook and a research poster they co-authored.

Marking its recent first anniversary, ICI's TIES Center has released an array of information and resources for use by educators across the country to improve the quality of education for K-8 students with the most significant cognitive disabilities in inclusive environments. The center helps create sustainable changes in school and district educational systems so that students with the most significant cognitive disabilities can fully engage in the same instructional and non-instructional activities as their general education peers while being instructed in a way that meets individual learning needs.



"The work of TIES Center has the potential to impact important adult outcomes," says center director Sheryl Lazarus (pictured at right with assistant director Terri Vandercook). Vandercook agrees, adding, "Students who experience membership, active participation, and learning in inclusive educational settings will be better prepared and more likely to live in inclusive communities of their choice as adults. This increased likelihood comes from the experience and expectation of both individuals with disabilities and their typical classmates." 



The new resources and activities include:

  • Two publication series: TIES Center Brief and TIES Center Report. The titles of the first issues are 10 Reasons to Support Inclusive School Communities for ALL Students (TIES Center Brief #1) and How States Interpret the LRE Clause of IDEA: A Policy Analysis (TIES Center Report 101).
  • The launch of its Facebook page.
  • Introducing the TIES Center to a nationwide audience of educators at the TASH conference in late November. Lazarus and Vandercook, along with Diane Ryndak from the University of North Carolina, Greensboro (a TIES Center partner organization) presented a conference session entitled, "Implementation Science and Facilitating Inclusive Education: The TIES Center's Perspective." Lazarus and Vandercook also presented a poster session titled, "TIES Center: Supporting Inclusive Practices and Policies for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities."
  • Guest-editing ICI's upcoming publication, Impact: Feature Issue on Inclusive Education for K-8 Students with the Most Significant Cognitive Disabilities (to receive a free copy of this issue subscribe here).

The TIES Center — Increasing Time, Instructional Effectiveness, Engagement, and State Support for Inclusive Practices for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities — began in October 2017 with a five-year, $10 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.