Approve Agreement for Technical Services with Nancy Toelle for Ongoing Professional Development, Visually Impaired Grant - $6,579 (Curriculum and Instruction Division, Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired FIMC-VI))

We request approval of the Agreement for Technical Services with Nancy Toelle for professional development and program consultation for the Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired(FIMC-VI).

Funded by Florida Department of Education (FDOE), FIMC-VI is charged with providing disability-specific statewide services and professional development to Florida’s School Districts. The consultant will:

• Coordinate the creation of training materials and the delivery of content for the two and one-half day workshop “Building Local Capacity! Supporting North Florida’s District Programs for Students who are Visually Impaired.” This effort will assist small, rural, and targeted districts, to develop their program capabilities to better meet the needs of their students who are blind, visually impaired, and deaf-blind. This workshop, approved by FDOE, will be September 21-23, 2008, in Gainesville Florida.
• Create training materials, coordinate and deliver content for a two-day facilitator workshop to prepare trainers to implement the first phase of Quality Programs for the Visually Impaired (QPVI) in their local districts. Pinellas, Palm Beach, and Broward school districts are implementing QPVI for the 2008/2009 school year. This facilitators’ training will be September 24-25, 2008, in Tampa, Florida.
• Continue to collaborate with existing QPVI Programs in Hillsborough, Orange, and Leon school districts as they complete the second phase of QPVI.
• Provide consultation in the development of online training and other alternate delivery methods for follow-up and ongoing collaboration related to QPVI.

Executive Summary continued on next page.

Goal 1 – The percentage of students scoring at Level 3 or higher on FCAT reading will increase a minimum of 5 percentage points.

Funds of $6,579 are included in district special revenue/federal programs budget (project 1517) for the Florida Instructional Materials Center for the Visually Impaired.