Professional Development

How will our Professional Developments help your school Division?

• By building staff capacity so teams can confidently implement best practices with consistency. 

• Reducing burnout and turnover by equipping educators with practical sustainable tools.

• Strengthening compliance and instructional quality with targeted training aligned with state and federal expectations. 

• Improving student outcomes by ensuring staff have the knowledge and support they need to meet the diverse needs of their students.

• Creating unified systems across schools and departments through shared language, training, and expectations.

Partnering with PLACE means investing in long-term stability, stronger instructional teams, and better results for students. 

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to see how PLACE can increase your staffs breadth and depth of knowledge

Professional Development Topics Include:

1. Educational Diagnosticians Training : Build foundational skills for transitioning from special education teacher to Educational Diagnostician. This session provides targeted training in academic achievement testing, including selecting appropriate assessments, administering them with fidelity, interpreting results, and translating data into meaningful educational recommendations. Participants leave with practical tools and increased confidence to conduct high-quality evaluations within their school division. 

2. Implementing Diagnostician's Standard Operating Procedures : This session provides a practical overview of implementing Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) for Educational Diagnosticians. Participants will learn how to streamline evaluation workflows, maintain compliance, improve documentation consistency, and strengthen collaboration with school teams. The training equips staff with clear processes that increase efficiency, accuracy, and confidence in delivering high-quality psychoeducational evaluations.

3. Child Centered IEP's : Explore practical strategies for creating child-centered IEP meetings that meaningfully involve students in their own planning. This session highlights why early self-advocacy is essential and offers tools to help students practice sharing their strengths, needs, and goals so they can become confident, active members of their IEP team.

4. Student Accommodations : This training provides a clear, practical overview of designing, selecting, and implementing effective student accommodations. Participants will learn how to align accommodations with assessed needs, ensure classroom feasibility, and monitor impact on student performance. The session emphasizes legal requirements, best-practice decision-making, and strategies for building teacher confidence in delivering accommodations. 

5. Student Modifications : This session equips educators with a clear understanding of curriculum modifications and how to apply them effectively for students with significant learning needs. Participants will learn how to adjust content, expectations, and instructional approaches while maintaining alignment with educational standards. The training focuses on practical classroom strategies, legal considerations, and ensuring that modifications support meaningful access, engagement, and student growth.

6. Using Visual Aids : This session provides special educators with practical strategies for using visual aids to support diverse learners, including students with ADHD, autism, language impairments, and executive-functioning challenges. Participants will learn how to design and implement visual supports—such as visual schedules, task strips, behavior cues, and graphic organizers—to increase clarity, reduce cognitive load, and promote independence. The training emphasizes aligning visual aids with IEP goals and classroom routines to ensure meaningful, consistent support for students.

7. Tracking Student Data : Equip educators with practical, efficient strategies for collecting, organizing, and interpreting classroom data to drive meaningful instruction. This session covers how to record academic and behavioral data consistently, use simple digital tools and AI to streamline tracking, and translate data into actionable next steps for instruction, intervention, and IEP progress monitoring. Participants will leave with clear templates, routines, and best practices to make data collection manageable, reliable, and instructionally powerful. 

8. Identifying Disability in Multilingual Learners : This session equips educators with the knowledge and tools to accurately identify suspected disabilities in multilingual learners. Participants will learn how language acquisition, cultural factors, and true disability indicators interact, and how to distinguish between them using evidence-based practices. The training emphasizes appropriate assessment strategies, collaborative problem-solving, and avoiding misidentification—ensuring multilingual students receive supports that truly match their needs. 

9. Developing a Culturally Relevant IEP : This training guides educators in developing culturally responsive IEPs that honor each student’s background, identity, and lived experiences. Participants will learn how culture influences learning, communication, and family engagement—and how to integrate this understanding into strengths-based goals, accommodations, and services. The session emphasizes respectful collaboration with families and ensures that IEPs reflect both legal requirements and culturally informed best practices.

10. Holding Meetings with Limited English Proficiency Families : This session equips educators with effective strategies for conducting meetings with parents who have limited English proficiency. Participants will learn best practices for using interpreters, ensuring clear communication, building trust, and creating an inclusive environment where families feel respected and informed. The training emphasizes cultural sensitivity, collaborative decision-making, and techniques that support meaningful family participation in the special education process.

11. Supporting Dually Identified Multilingual Learners : This session equips educators with strategies to effectively support students who are both multilingual learners and identified with a disability. Participants will learn how to distinguish language acquisition needs from disability-related needs, design appropriate interventions, and collaborate with IEP and ESL teams to create aligned, culturally responsive supports. The training emphasizes practical tools, data-based decision-making, and instructional approaches that foster meaningful access, progress, and confidence for dually identified students.

12. Data-Driven Goal & Behavior Tracking : This training provides educators with practical, efficient strategies for monitoring both academic goals and student behavior. Participants will learn how to collect meaningful data, track progress over time, and use that information to adjust instruction, supports, and interventions. The session emphasizes simple systems, consistent routines, and tools that help teams make informed decisions and clearly document student growth. Perfect for special education teachers, interventionists, and support staff looking to strengthen their progress-monitoring practices.

13. RTI & MTSS: What Quality Data Looks Like : This professional development session clarifies the key differences between Response to Intervention (RTI) and Multi-Tiered System of Supports (MTSS) to help educators implement each framework with confidence and consistency. Participants will learn how RTI focuses on targeted academic interventions, while MTSS provides a more comprehensive, whole-child approach that integrates academic, behavioral, and social-emotional supports. Through practical examples and real-world applications, this session will equip staff with the tools needed to collect meaningful data, select appropriate interventions, and strengthen tiered systems that improve outcomes for all students.

14. Crafting Individualized, Standards-Based IEP Goals : This training provides educators with practical strategies for drafting IEP goals that are both truly individualized and aligned with state standards. Participants will learn how to analyze assessment data, identify priority skills, and write goals that are measurable, meaningful, and connected to grade-level expectations. Through examples and guided practice, educators will leave with a clear framework for creating high-quality goals that support student growth and ensure compliance.

15. Supporting SPED Students on WIDA ACCESS : This session equips educators with the knowledge and strategies needed to appropriately support multilingual learners with disabilities during WIDA ACCESS testing. Participants will learn how to identify allowable accommodations, interpret score reports through a special education lens, and collaborate with IEP teams to ensure language proficiency data is accurate and meaningful. The training emphasizes compliance, equity, and practical approaches to ensuring students’ language needs and disability-related needs are both honored throughout the assessment process.

16. Teaching Using Culturally Relevant Texts : This session explores how to select and integrate culturally relevant texts that reflect students’ identities, lived experiences, and linguistic backgrounds. Educators will learn practical strategies for fostering engagement, deepening comprehension, and building inclusive classroom environments through purposeful text selection. Participants will leave with tools to evaluate materials for cultural responsiveness and incorporate them meaningfully into instruction to support all learners.

17. Vocabulary Instruction for Multilingual Students : This session provides educators with effective, research-based strategies for building vocabulary with multilingual learners. Participants will explore methods for teaching academic language, supporting word-learning routines, and connecting new vocabulary to students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds. Educators will leave with practical tools to boost comprehension, strengthen language development, and promote meaningful vocabulary use across content areas.

18. Building Executive Skills for Student Success : This professional development session focuses on the core executive functioning skills that directly impact student success—planning, organization, task initiation, and task completion. Participants will learn how to recognize breakdowns in these areas and gain practical, classroom-ready strategies to explicitly teach and support these skills. Educators will leave with tools to help students manage their work more effectively, stay organized, and follow tasks through to completion with greater independence.

If you don’t see a topic that aligns with your organization’s needs, we would welcome the opportunity to discuss your goals and develop Professional Development tailored specifically for your staff.