Special Education Majors, Faculty presented at NC-CEC Conference

Elon faculty members Carolyn Stuart and Mary Knight-McKenna, along with Elon special education majors Jordan McNeill and Kristen Marcickiewicz, made a presentation on Feb. 3 at the North Carolina Council for Exceptional Children (NC-CEC) conference.

Their presentation was entitled “Building Effective Family-Teacher Partnerships: A Strengths-Based Model,” reporting the outcomes of curriculum changes in the special education program on students’ competency in working effectively with culturally and linguistically different families.

Assistant professor Stephen Byrd and Sarah Kesler, M.Ed. student and special education teacher at Sylvan Elementary School, also presented at the conference on Thursday.  Their presentation was entitled “Parent Involvement and RTI: One School’s Approach.”  This presentation focused on how Sylvan’s leadership team is encouraging family involvement as it begins a new initiative – response to intervention (RTI).  RTI is a new approach to supporting struggling learners in schools and in some cases to identify students with learning disabilities.

The North Carolina Council for Exceptional Children is the state division for the Council for Exceptional Children.