Highlights
The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) supports the national implementation of provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to provide successful school outcomes for students with disabilities. NDPC-SD supports states in assisting local education agencies to increase school completion rates and decrease dropout rates among students with disabilities.
Upcoming Event:
Secondary Transition State Planning Institute:
Building for the Future
- National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities
- National Post-School Outcomes Center
- National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center
- National Association of State Directors of Special Education’s IDEA Partnership
May 7 – 9, 2008
in Charlotte, North Carolina
at the Hilton Charlotte University Place
to register click here
Announcement to State Directors of Special Education  (PDF)
Overview
The Institute will provide content around common areas of need identified through analysis of SPP/ APR data, targeting transition-related Indicators 1, 2, 13, & 14. It will address states’ requests for technical assistance from OSEP funded technical assistance and dissemination centers: the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD), the National Post-School Outcomes Center (NPSO), the National Secondary Transition Technical Assistance Center (NSTTAC), as well as the National Association of State Directors of Special Education’s (NASDSE) IDEA Partnership, and needs identified during the NSTTAC Secondary Transition State Planning Institutes in May and October 2007. The Institute will also provide planning time for state teams and opportunities for sharing information with other states.
Purpose
Provide professional development on drop-out prevention strategies (NDPC-SD), other secondary transition education and services (NSTTAC), and post-school outcome data collection and use (NPSO) derived from state capacity building plans, state performance plans(SPP), and annual performance reports (APR)
Intended Outcomes
- Increase knowledge of selected topics
- SPP/APR secondary transition indicator (1, 2, 13, 14) data collection, reporting, and use
- Student-Focused Planning
- Student Development
- Family Involvement
- Interagency Collaboration
- Assess progress on state capacity building activities
- Develop new or revised action plans
- Develop new partnerships via networking with other states
Organization
- Welcome from OSERS and hosting centers
- Keynote by Sarah Vasquez, New Jersey Office of Disability Services
- Breakout sessions/ strands hosted by each center
- drop-out prevention strategies
- secondary transition education and services
- post-school outcome data collection and use
- Facilitated team planning times
- Opportunities to network with other state teams and presenters
Audience
- Participants should be members of their state planning team (state team liaison information may be obtained from [email protected])
- Team members may include:
- state education agency (SEA) special education leadership and secondary transition personnel
- SEA monitoring personnel
- SEA dropout prevention coordinators
- state rehabilitation agency personnel
- state adult disability/ mental health agency representatives
- family members
- secondary/ postsecondary students
- career and technical education personnel
- higher education (both disability service providers and educators and disability personnel preparation providers)
- LEA personnel (e.g. administrators, secondary educators)
Additional Information
- Registration for the Secondary Transition State Planning Institute is FREE
- The Institute will run from 8:30 AM – 5 PM on May 7th & 8th, and until noon on the 9th
- Breakfast & lunch will be provided May 7th & 8th and breakfast on May 9th
- There will be a cash bar reception on the evening of May 7th
Latest New Item:
- New Article Available:
Positive behavior support: A potentially important strategy for dropout prevention (PDF)
Sandra Covington-Smith, NDPC-SD
Robert P. Trussell, UTEP
Original Source:
APBS Newsletter, Volume 5, Number 4 2007
http://www.apbs.org/newsletter/Files/APBSV5N4_webready.pdf
This article focuses on a promising link between positive behavior support (PBS) and dropout prevention. With an adverse number of students dropping out of high school each year in the United States, there is a critical need for schools to evaluate how their systems are not effectively addressing and furthermore, preventing dropout and, in some instances, may inadvertently contribute to students dropping out. Research has shown that dropping out of school is a process of disengagement that begins early, sometimes as early as elementary school. Students at risk of dropping out show signs of disengaging and pulling back from school long before they actually leave. Educators and practitioners must focus on identifying, monitoring, and addressing factors that lead to dropout. These factors can be influenced by educators. Moreover, practitioners and policymakers are in search of empirically supported intervention strategies and current research is showing that a systems approach to addressing factors associated with school dropout, such as reductions of problem behaviors are yielding promising results. A number of state and local education agencies (e.g., New Hampshire, Iowa, and Florida) are addressing the issue of dropout at the elementary, middle school and high school levels through PBS. PBS focuses on developing school systems that encourage pro-social and pro-academic behaviors, thus reducing factors associated with the process of school disengagement and subsequent dropout.
Recent Teleseminars:
-
Engaging Students with School: The Essential Dimension of Dropout Prevention Programs. Student engagement with school, a multidimensional construct, is considered the primary theoretical model for understanding dropout and is, quite frankly, the bottom line in interventions to promote school completion. Based on the implementation of Check & Connect, a model to promote students' engagement with school, reduce dropout, and increase school completion, as well as a review of the literature since 1990, four subtypes of engagement have emerged: academic, behavioral, cognitive, and psychological (affective). In this Webseminar, Dr. Christenson will describe universal and individualized interventions for students with and without disabilities. Dr. Christenson will explain the ideal heuristic to achieve an assessment-to-intervention link, as well as data-based interventions that maximize the goodness of the person-environment fit.
Online Registration
Information Flyer (PDF)
-
The Impact of Policies and Procedures on Dropout and School Completion. The event took place on October 16th at 12:00 PM Eastern. This teleseminar will be coming to the Web site soon. The presenters are Drs. Loujeania Bost and Matthew Klare of NDPC-SD. The teleseminar will examine selected policies and proposed remedies implemented by several education agencies. It is designed for state and local education agency personnel, policymakers and others concerned with policies that impact school completion.
Information Flyer (PDF)
Related Resources:
New Items:
- New Article Available:
Positive behavior support: A potentially important strategy for dropout prevention (PDF)
Sandra Covington-Smith, NDPC-SD
Robert P. Trussell, UTEP
Original Source:
APBS Newsletter, Volume 5, Number 4 2007
http://www.apbs.org/newsletter/Files/APBSV5N4_webready.pdf
This article focuses on a promising link between positive behavior support (PBS) and dropout prevention. With an adverse number of students dropping out of high school each year in the United States, there is a critical need for schools to evaluate how their systems are not effectively addressing and furthermore, preventing dropout and, in some instances, may inadvertently contribute to students dropping out. Research has shown that dropping out of school is a process of disengagement that begins early, sometimes as early as elementary school. Students at risk of dropping out show signs of disengaging and pulling back from school long before they actually leave. Educators and practitioners must focus on identifying, monitoring, and addressing factors that lead to dropout. These factors can be influenced by educators. Moreover, practitioners and policymakers are in search of empirically supported intervention strategies and current research is showing that a systems approach to addressing factors associated with school dropout, such as reductions of problem behaviors are yielding promising results. A number of state and local education agencies (e.g., New Hampshire, Iowa, and Florida) are addressing the issue of dropout at the elementary, middle school and high school levels through PBS. PBS focuses on developing school systems that encourage pro-social and pro-academic behaviors, thus reducing factors associated with the process of school disengagement and subsequent dropout.
- New Documents Available:
Dropout Prevention for Students with Disabilities: Evidence-based Programs that Work (PDF)
NDPC-SD presented at the Oklahoma Transition Institute in Norman, OK on June 26, 2007. The session, entitled Dropout Prevention for Students with Disabilities: Evidence-based Programs that Work, was attended by approximately 25 teachers and school/district transition coordinators.
Recommendations for Teachers (PDF)
by Dr. Sandra Covington-Smith
Big Ideas: Dropout Prevention Strategies, 2007
Big Idea: Teachers have the opportunity to intervene naturally and frequently within their classrooms each day and can provide support and opportunities for students that buffer "push effects" that lead to dropout.
Collecting Post-School Outcome Data: Strategies for Increasing Response Rates (PDF)
The National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) is pleased to announce the following OSEP approved document "Collecting Post-School Outcome Data: Strategies for Increasing Response Rates" prepared in partnership with the National Post-School Outcomes Center (NPSO) at the University of Oregon. In this document, Drs. Sandra Covington Smith and Loujeania Williams Bost from NDPC-SD provides an overview of the IDEA requirements to collect post-school outcome data, challenges faced by states in collecting these data, and recommended strategies from survey literature and state and local practice to secure sufficient response rates, especially from youth who are drop out of school. Links to the document and other related documents about post-school outcomes are below.
Related documents:
Teleconference Notes
November 28, 2025
Topic: "Collecting Post-School Outcome Data: Increasing Response Rates and Locating Hard-to-Find Youth" Presenter: Loujeania Williams Bost, Director, National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities.
- Recent Journal Publication:
Effective Instruction: An Inconspicuous Strategy for Dropout Prevention (PDF)
by Dr. Loujeania W. Bost and Dr. Paul Riccomini
Remedial and Special Education Journal, Volume 27, Number 5
(September/October 2006)
Although researchers have clearly connected dropping out of school
to prolonged low achievement, to date, effective teaching practices are
largely absent from the milieu of interventions and programs that are
employed by schools to address dropout prevention. As such, effective
instructional design and delivery as a focus for keeping students with
disabilities in school appears to be an inconspicuous strategy for dropout
prevention. We provide an overview of dropout prevention efforts by
researchers and federal, state, and local educators; a rationale for
connecting effective teaching principles to the challenge of graduating
students with disabilities; and a brief overview of 10 effective teaching
principles and how they relate to academic success that leads to school
completion. Practical strategies that teachers can use to make their
instruction more effective are also included.
-
New Product from NDPC-SD:
Building Effective Dropout Preventions Programs
(PDF)
by Dr. Loujeania W. Bost
Since 2004, the National Dropout Prevention Center for Students with Disabilities (NDPC-SD) has synthesized available research and practice in the area of dropout prevention for students with
disabilities. Our efforts have yielded insights into why youth with
disabilities drop out, the consequences faced by these youth, and effective
prevention strategies. In this article, we share with you some of the key
strategies and recommendations gleaned from research and practice. These
strategies and recommendations can be used by state or local administrators
as well as educators to guide the development of dropout prevention programs
for students with disabilities.
-
New Media Files Available:
Audio recordings and transcripts are now available from the following
recent NDPC-SD-sponsored seminars:
-
A Few Steps to Better Data
(PDF)
discusses strategies states can use to improve the quality of their
dropout-related data and get the greatest utility from those data. The content is designed for state
education agency personnel, including special education directors, data managers, and program developers.
This is the NDPC-SD's first offering in our State Performance Plan Toolkit Series. The SPP Toolkit Series
will contain this and other practical guides to assist state education agencies in their development and
implementation of improvement activities associated with school completion.
-
NDPC-SD analyzed the information that states provided about their performance and activities
related to Indicators 1 and 2 (Graduation and Dropout, respectively) in the 2005 State Performance
Plans (SPPs). These reports may be viewed using the links below:
These reports may be viewed using the links below:
-
New Document:
Key Points of
"Translating National Data into State and Local Practice,"
a Teleseminar presented by Dr. José Blackorby on February 6. A complete
transcript of the Teleseminar
is also available. Both documents are in Adobe PDF format.
If you have any questions about our work or how you can access information and resources from us, please feel free to contact us at [email protected]
QUICK LINKS:
George Washington University HEATH
Resource Center
Communities of Practice
IDEA Partnership Project
National Center on Secondary Education
and Transition (NCSET)
National Dissemination Center
for Children with Disabilities (NICHCY)
National Post-School Outcomes Center
National Secondary Transition Technical
Assistance Center (NSTTAC)
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Updated: November 5, 2025 |
