The WABE Special Education and ELL Special Interest Group’s mission is to support, expand and advocate for the screening, evaluation and instruction for ELL students of concern.

 We held exploratory meetings on Jan 8 and March 5  36 people from 19 districts plus OSPI have participated so far  We have developed a Mission statement  We have resources on the WABE website  The ELL & SpEd SIG has been officially recognized as one of two WABE SIGs  (The other is Dual Language.)  Identified print resources ▪ Ochoa & Ortiz ▪ Hamayan

 We need officers: chair, asst chair, secretary, treasurer. To widen access to more WABE members, we will elect leaders at WABE conference.  Set activities and dates for next steps

 Deeper discussion on each of the three areas in the Mission  How to help everyone have good resources  Vet articles/documents for WABE website. Dr. Aguilar in UW Tacoma, Catherine Collier, Understanding Language (Dave will contact these), Ann Cuoio (Karen E will contact her).  How people would like to participate (leadership, sounding board, technical assistance, policy statements, session strand at the WABE conference, etc)?  Resources for trainings - materials, support  Resources for information  Liaison between this group and our districts - advocate for our ELLs with latest information & reports from meetings.  How to talk to our communities about special ed, what it really means ▪ bullet list of the difficult questions, and answers ▪ how to help classroom teachers with the conversation