Special Education Today Newsletter 3(13)

What's in this newsletter about the week ending 24 September 2023?

Welcome to current installment of the newsletter for Special Education Today. Most readers recognize the structure of this issue. It’s sorta-kinda like this: After a listing of the current contents, an update about the status of the SET community, and (mayhap) some miscellaneous notes, you’ll find a brief personal reflection.

As some readers may have guessed, I spent more time watching for migrating hawks this past week of 18 September 2023. It was often quite pleasant on Afton Mountain, though it was quite chilly Friday morning. Monday the total count was 4188 (of which I saw maybe 2000—I left too early). Tuesday: 1665 (me: about 300). Wednesday: 2615 (about 650). Thursday: 8559 (about 2000—departed too early again). Friday: 3135 (about 800). Saturday: No count because of the tropical storm passing east of the site.

This is the view to the northwest from the parking lot adjacent to the spot where the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch routinely occurs these days (N 38.02958, W -78.85872). The flat expanse is the central part of the Shenandoah valley (AKA, “the valley of Virginia”) and the distant mountains are the eastern edge of the Appalachian Mtns., of which the Blue Ridge are foothills. Photo by John Wills Lloyd, Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)

I find it quite rewarding to watch as a dark spec in the distant sky turns into a larger and larger spot and ultimately resolves into a bird soaring along air currents on part of a journey that may take it 2000 miles, Canada to the Caribbean. The most frequently seen migrants are broad-winged hawks, which are relatively small buteos that usually weigh less than a pound (about 400-500 grams) but have wingspans of about three feet (almost a meter). Mixed into the broad-wings are other kinds of birds of prey. There are sharp-shinned, red-shouldered, Coopers, red-tailed, and other hawks. There are also falcons (kestrels, merlins, and harriers) and big birds such as bald eagles and osprey.

Table of contents for the past week

Folks who only read this newsletter miss receiving email about some of the posts mentioned in it. This newsletter appears once a week. I post messages to the Web site multiple times during the week. Only some of them are published to the mailing list.

In addition to the newsletter for last week, there were five other posts. Here is a list of the posts that appeared last week, including the newsletter about the previous week.

• Special Education Today Newsletter 3(12): Last week’s news and info for 18 September 2023

• Finding earlier posts on SET: Are you looking for something you read previously? Is there a topic you'd like to explore?

• Reid Lyon talks about reading and science in 2023: What has he got to say in the contemporary environment?

• US gov audit of billing for ABA services: What's the current status of the investigation into concerns about Medicaid billing?

• Nancy M.'s farewell to CEC: What does one do when one outgrows an organization...or the organization outgrows one?

• The protagonist of Stephen King's 2023 novel might have autism: Does anyone know Holly?

Please remember that you can go directly to site to see the latest posts https://www.specialeducationtoday.com. As is apparent from this week’s contents, I only e-mail about some posts, not all of them.

Status update

SET has has grown. We are a community of > 580 members with dozens of those subscribers choosing to support SET by paying for their subscriptions, including two who added paying subs in recent week (thanks!).

The community is international, including people from Africa, Asia, Europe, North and South America, OZ, and some Pacific Islands. Readers—including parents and teachers, administrators, professors, journalists…even psychologists—are obviously concerned about kids with disabilities, and I hope that SET can provide connections to helpful resources for them.

Thanks to everyone who spreads the word (“shares”). Please continue to do so! Forward. Tweet (X?). Give gift subscriptions. Tell friends! Share posts (including this one) with your connections, both local and worldwide! Laura McK. over at The Great Leap has told lots of folks and many of them have subscribed.

Commentary

Dear fellow sped-folx, I’m interested in how I can make SET more appropriate for the community. For more than two years, I’ve been publishing posts about a diverse array of topics. I’ve been simply guessing about what might interest readers; to be sure, I look at the stats about visitors, comments, likes, and such, but I’d like to get more specific feedback.

So here I’m seeking your help. I have two polls on which I seek your responses¹. Of course, the results will not be scientifically sound, but they’ll give me a little better idea about your views, so please vote. Note that you can only vote for one item in each poll, and that you can add other opinions in the comments.

Here’re the polls. Readers can only enter one vote in each poll (that’s because of the script, not because I designed the questions in that way). And, note bene, the polls are only open for three days; that means readers must vote on Monday, Tuesday, or Wednesday (on this side of the International Date Line).

Please respond. Because the polls will close in a couple of days, don’t delay in dropping your votes.

In the meantime, as usual, I encourage readers to take care of each other. Wear your seatbelts. Don’t text and drive. And teach our children well.

JohnL

SET Editor guy

Charlottesville

SET should not be confused with a product with the same name that is published by the Council for Exceptional Children. SET predated CEC’s publication by decades. Despite my appreciation for CEC, this product is not designed to promote that organization.

1. I’ve only used polls once before (as some may recall). I hope I haven’t hosed the scripts in this use. They seemed to work the previous time, though fewer than two dozen readers voted.