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Mia Perry

Mia Perry

Build Back Better Legislation Passes in the House, Bringing Support for People with Disabilities, Communities, Children and Youth, and More

The Build Back Better legislation can improve the lives many different groups and communities, including through support of individuals with disabilities of all ages and their families to complete their education, enter and succeed in postsecondary education, find competitive wage jobs, sustain careers, and receive appropriate levels of healthcare and services. Highlights of the Bill […]

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Family Engagement can Help Increase Vaccine Access and Equity

Keeping our kids safe and healthy, and in turn protecting our communities, should be our priority. As an organization with a platform and a wide network of leaders, we have a responsibility to mobilize our communities to take action and continue to further prevent the spread of COVID-19. With the fresh recommendation by the Centers

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RAMP youth highlighted by Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

IEL’s RAMP project supports youth with disabilities across the country to plan their careers. We are proud to see the work of IEL staff and our RAMP sites being highlighted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP)! In their recent newsletter, the OJJDP wrote a spotlight about James, a youth who has

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The Purchasing Power of People with Disabilities

The Purchasing Power of People with Disabilities When: Thursday, April 22, 2021, 2:00 – 3:30 PM ET Recording: Click here. Description: In the marketplace, people with disabilities—as well as their families, friends, and advocates—wield considerable spending power. People with disabilities have nearly half a trillion dollars in disposable income—the after-tax dollars for basic necessities such

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Raise the Bar for People with Disabilities through Pay Equity

Raise the Bar for People with Disabilities through Pay Equity January 2021 Since the establishment of The Rehabilitation Act of 1973, federal and state policies and practices have led to increased employment for people with disabilities. In the past decade, this work has shifted to a greater focus on youth transitioning to work, increasing labor

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Register now for the 2021 National Family and Community Engagement Conference!

The National Family and Community Engagement Conference is an annual convening where state leaders, school and district leaders, administrators, educators, non-profits, community-based organizations, researchers and families come together to focus on solutions that enhance and expand engagement through family-school-community partnerships. With pre-conference sessions, site visits, plenaries, workshops, deep dive sessions and more, it is an

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Crisis or not, family and community engagement benefits schools

written by Executive Director and President of Attendance Works Hedy Chang and Vice President for Leadership and Engagment at IEL Kwesi Rollins Looking back, we thought the spread of Covid-19 would be under control by the time the new school year began. We thought we would know how to ensure that school buildings provided healthy

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Listen to Us: Youth with Disabilities Speak Up During the Pandemic

What do we know? The prevalence of disability among youth (ages 14-24) is 6.1% nationally, but rates vary from 10.1% in Maine to 4.1% in Hawaii (Cheng & Shaewitz, 2019). In every state, youth with disabilities are less likely to graduate high school, enter and complete postsecondary education, or enter employment (ibid). Youth with disabilities

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IEL Supports Parent Leaders’ call for healthy, equitable, and quality education

On Monday, July 20th, a group of national parent leader organizations released a letter to education leaders and policymakers laying out their clear guidelines for the upcoming 2020-2021 school year. In order to safely and equitably resume schooling in the fall amidst the current global pandemic, health and safety must be a priority – for

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Discussing Systemic Racism and Supporting Youth of Color

On Tuesday, June 30th, IEL’s Y-TAC hosted a “Discussion on Systemic Racism and Supporting Youth of Color” as part of Y-TAC’s Virtual Network series of peer-to-peer conversations for VR professionals. Their special guest Hasan Davis joined the discussion to talk about experiences of systemic racism that youth of color with disabilities regularly encounter and implications

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Rising Up For Equity in the Face of Two Pandemics

Building a New Normal Together: A Virtual Summit on Community Schools and Family Engagement 20 days, 80 sessions, 100 hours, and one giant opportunity for more than 2,000 participants to come together and share their collective knowledge and experience, to inspire each other in these uncertain, challenging times. That’s what our first ever virtual summit

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Addressing Inequities: IEL’s Response to the Pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global issue that we did not expect or anticipate. One key lesson we are learning is that the pandemic is exacerbating existing inequities. Low-income communities and communities of color are disproportionately affected. Fewer are tested. Too many lack access to intensive care. Many have lost their jobs. Others take huge

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Pandemic Further Erodes Rights of People with Disabilities

The coronavirus pandemic has laid bare the inequalities in our country, and this is especially true for people with disabilities.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2019 that people with disabilities make up nearly 26% of our population—1 in 4 Americans. Opportunity youth with disabilities, defined as young people between the ages

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Promoting “Closer Encounters” Between Education and Workforce 

Betty Hale, Senior Fellow, IEL and Sarah McCann, IEL Consultant The need for increased collaboration is a primary theme across nearly all recommendations for resolving the workforce challenges facing rural places and organizations. Increasingly, there is also a call for increased collaboration between the education and workforce systems to address today’s workforce and workplace needs

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IEL Welcomes Presidential Candidates to the Community Schools Movement

Contact:                  Leilah Mooney Joseph202-822-8405 x 131 WASHINGTON, D.C. – Institute for Educational Leadership (IEL) President Johan E. Uvin issued the following statement this week after Elizabeth Warren became the third presidential candidate in recent months to include the Community Schools Strategy in her education platform. Warren’s plan

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Academic Parent Teacher Teams

APTT Interview In this Interview, Dr. Maria Paredes and Kari Pryor discuss Academic Parent-Teacher Teams (APTT), a model of family engagement that is research based and aligns grade-level learning concepts, student performance data, and family-teacher communication and collaboration. Dr. Paredes is a Senior Engagement Manager at WestEd and leads Family Community Engagement and APTT. Pryor

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Engaging, Empowering, and Inspiring Students and Parents in Appalachia

Guest post by Elaine Weiss, former National Coordinator of the Broader, Bolder Approach to Education For those who do not live in the region, the term “Appalachia” conjures up images of hollowed-out towns, ramshackle houses, and long country roads that don’t lead to much. Recently, the region has also become painfully synonymous with overdoses of

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