Overton Schools Special Ed Program Earns Highest Designation In Annual Performance Review

Overton County Schools District’s Special Education program celebrating new achievement with its annual performance review.

Supervisor Mechelle Nivens said that for the first time in six years, they have achieved “meeting requirements” for the federal government. She said the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) grades individual school districts across the country on 17 indicators, such as graduation and dropout rates.

“We set out to make sure that we educated our staff about these APR requirements,” Nivens said. “So we had POC meetings, we created manuals and policies to follow so that we would all have a common understanding of what was required of us.”

Nivens said one major indicator she is proudest of is the LRE, or least restrictive environment. She said the federal IDEA law says students would disabilities should be educated in their least restrictive environments, which is based on individual student’s skills, strengths, and needs at that time.

Nivens said the LRE indicator holds the most weight because it is so important and because it is no easy to achieve. She said in Overton County Schools, it has been all hands on deck to improve this indicator.

“The principals, vice principals, special education teachers, general education teachers, and all of our educational assistants,” Nivens said. “Once we had that common understanding we just made some changes and we worked through all the challenges that came along. I’m just happy and I appreciate that our dedicated staff has worked together across the district. That they have been open to doing things a little different and doing what’s best for students.”

Nivens said the work continues to keep the momentum going. However, she said there is still room for improvement. Nviens said they are always striving to do their best and get to the very top of their potential.