Tuesday, January 13, 2015

Breaking: Our LinkedIn Special Education Law Group Now Has Over 18,000 Members: Tech Update

English: A special education teacher assists o...
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)



















One of our goals in creating this blog was to provide both discussion of special education law topics from an impartial perspective and to provide resources where interested persons can find more information.

The impartial perspective is very important.  I have never represented or advised parents or school personnel on a special ed matter.  I am a hearing officer, mediator and complaint investigator for a number of states.  I also advise states and train their personnel. I frequently present at conferences on special education law from an impartial perspective. That is why when parents or school personnel contact me, I cannot help them.  They generally understand.  The disclaimer on the blog explains this point in more detail.

The breaking news involves one of the resources we created: the Special Education Law Group that we started through this blog over on LinkedIn. The Special Education Law Group now has over 18,000 members.  (That is not a typo!) The number of members has doubled in the last year and a half. You should go to the group's site and take a look. There are always good discussions- sometimes even heated disagreements. If you lose this post, there is always a link to our LinkedIn group on the lefthand side of the blog. It is a part of our effort to use social media to spread good impartial information about special education law.

For those with long memories, we also used to have a Facebook group.  At some point the Facebook overlords went all corporate in our face and "archived" our group because we were not constantly issuing nonsensical posts about what we ate for breakfast, etc. The group still exists, but it is cumbersome.  We also started a Ning group, but they have since disappeared from the internet.

We also offer a lot of resources for parents, teachers (both regular ed and special ed), principals, school psychologists, hearing officers, mediators, complaint investigators, monitors, special ed directors, academics, advocates, SEA personnel, LEA personnel, paraprofessionals, lawyers (both parent and school district) as well as other special ed law junkies of all types.

On the left-hand side of the blog, you can sign up for a free subscription to our blog.  You can choose between receiving posts by email or in a reader by RSS feed.  You can also get a widget to insert this blog directly into your own website or blog. Subscriptions are important because numbers have meaning in the blogosphere.  Please sign up for a subscription.  NOTE: A few subscribers have complained that they have difficulty when they open their email subscription, there is either a long delay or else they are redirected to another website. The problem is mostly, but not exclusively, with people who open their emails with MS Outlook. I have contacted the company that I use as a tool in blogging regarding this issue but have not heard back yet.  I'll keep you posted but in the meantime please let me know if anyblody else is having this problem.

Also on the left hand side are a series of embedded YouTube videos of interviews of me on dispute resolution topics by Marshall Peter, Director of CADRE. (Many other videos and resources pertaining to special ed dispute resolution are available on the CADRE website - there is a link under resources.)

Many readers follow our headlines on twitter.  Check out our twitter activity here. Other readers follow our headlines on our Tumblr mini-blog here.

There are many links to websites and other important blogs on the lefthand side of the blog.  Also the search bar is just for this blog. So if you are interested in one topic, say bullying, just type it into the search bar and you can find all of our posts on that topic.

There are many more valuable resources on the blog.  Please explore it and take advantage of these other sites. Also, we are always looking to improve. If you know of other impartial resources, please suggest them.  

In the meantime, we appreciate your support.

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