The Easterseals Arkansas Outreach Program and Technology Services (esOPTS),  in partnership with the Arkansas Department of Education - Division of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Special Education Unit is committed to improving educational results for students with disabilities. esOPTS consultants represent a multidisciplinary team of leaders in their respective fields and include:

●      Masters level special educators
●      Curriculum and Instruction Specialists
●      Licensed special education administrators
●      Board Certified Behavior Analyst
●      Nationally Board Certified Teacher
●      Licensed psychological examiner
●      RESNA certified Assistive Technology Professional
●      State licensed and nationally board-certified occupational therapists
●      State licensed and nationally certified speech-language pathologists

What We Do

Through capacity-building efforts, the esOPTS consultants work with teams statewide providing professional learning opportunities, mentoring, onsite or remote consultation, and coaching.  In addition to addressing student-specific needs through the CIRCUIT referral process, they also provide targeted assistance to districts interested in developing sustainable programs for all students. This targeted assistance focuses on installing evidence-based and High Leverage Practices in districts using continuous cycles of improvement. The esOPTS website offers a statewide short-term loan program that enables districts to trial a variety of assistive technologies, evaluations, and curricula.

Services We Provide

General Supports

www.eastersealsopts.org

Through a variety of general supports, esOPTS provides resources to all districts and educational cooperatives in the state of Arkansas.  These supports include:

Online Supports

• Online supports provide easily accessible, readily available resources that help build the capacity of school-based personnel in a variety of topics.
• Available resources include guidance documents, tip sheets, useful forms and tutorials, and video modules on various relevant topics.

Short Term Loan Program

• The loan program supports Arkansas school districts to meet the needs of all students by providing assistive technology tools, devices, and other educationally relevant resources for trial.

Professional Learning

• A range of professional learning opportunities is available to school-based personnel designed to help build their capacity to implement evidence-based and High Leverage Practices.

Targeted Supports

esOPTS coaches alongside school district teams in Arkansas as they build capacity and sustainability of best practices in special education. This support is accessible through participation in targeted projects including:

Project Prepare

• Project Prepare guides, district-level implementation teams, through a data-driven process modeling the use of a continuous cycle of improvement. Districts will build systems that support and sustain inclusive and High Leverage Practices.
• Project Prepare also partners with administrators to create building-level teams prioritize and action plan around increasing the use of evidence-based and High Leverage Practices in their self-contained programs.

Arkansas Assistive Technology Team Building Project

• Arkansas Assistive Technology Team Building Project promotes student learning and independence in the least restrictive environment through the use of assistive and instructional technologies by guiding teams through a continuous cycle of improvement as they implement sustainable district policies and procedures for assistive technology.
  
• Arkansas Assistive Technology Team Building Project also provides statewide professional learning opportunities around quality indicators for assistive technology in schools.

Related Service Project

• Related Service Project increases collaboration among school districts and school-based practitioners in Arkansas by building capacity through professional development and increasing networking opportunities.

Intensive Supports

CIRCUIT Referrals

• CIRCUIT provides intensive student-specific support through consultations to address effective educational programming recommendations.

Specialized Evaluation Services

• esOPTS provides specialized evaluation services for students with low incidence disabilities and/or autism identification requested through CIRCUIT

Specific and intentional measures are woven throughout these three tiers of support to ensure statewide collaboration with the Arkansas Department of Education- Division of Elementary and Secondary Education’s Special Education Unit, the Arkansas Collaborative Consultants, various stakeholders and other state and national leaders who support our mission to improve educational results for students with disabilities.


For more information, please contact:

Nancy Dunn, Director
Phone:  501-227-3770
Email:  Outreachprogram@eastersealsar.com