Special Education Today Newsletter 3(18)
Special Education Today Newsletter 3(18)
You mean there was something happening this past week?
As we arrive at Halloween, here’s the regular newsletter for Special Education Today for the beginning of another week. In this issue of SET’s newsletter, we’ll take a look back over the week of 23 October 2023, the week when SET passed the milestone of publishing its 750th post. It’s humbling to me to think that subscribers like Angelique W., Bob P., Clay K., Dan H., Ed M., Ed P., Jane B., Jim K., Joel M., Julie B., Linda L., Mary Anne L., Michael K., Mike N., Nancy C-W., Tim L., Tina C., Vicki W., and others have had their mail boxes assaulted so many times. Y’all are the backbone of SET (and, given the season, I suppose you’re the entire skeleton!). Thank you.
Some local history
To the east of our house there is a creek that is up to 20 m wide. A local trail runs along it for quite some distance (a couple of miles?) and outside of tick season I sometimes exercise on it. Where it passes behind our house, the trail occupies a narrow buffer between the creek and our property as well as the property lines of many of our neighbors.
Recently, the local government sent a crew with large machines to open up the trail. The crew also cleared probably a quarter of an acre of our back yard, too. Here is a photo from about two weeks after the clearing. You can see the trail; to the right (out of view) is the creek and to the left of the trail is our “yard.” The second photo is from a little farther east along the trail with the creek still to the right and our and a neighbor’s yards
This second photo is from a bit farther west along the trail, essentially a ways behind my back from the previous shot.
And this third one is from even farther back up stream from the second photo. In this shot, though, I’m oriented toward the west, looking up stream, and looking down onto the creek, which is largely covered with leaves.
Losing all that vegetation from our backyard is concerning. However, the city plans to replant the area with native vegetation over the next couple of years. It will become more park like. Sadly, some of the wildlife—lots of birds and larger mammals such as skunks, raccoons, foxes, deer, and even bears—will have a less protected place to eat, rest, and do other things they would do in the brushy woods.
Table of contents
During the past week, there were only three new posts on the site. I sent email notices to everyone about all three of these, so people who open and read the mailings from me will find nothing new.
Special Education Today Newsletter 3(17): Here’s this week’s news and info for 23 October 2023
Halloween '23 #4: Not so scary?: How about finishing this year's series with something a little different?
Parents as pals: Why are parents terrifically important for special education?
Comments
This week I’ll provide a little behind-the-scenes notes, thinly disguised as commentary. Observant readers may have noted that I have posted longer pieces recently. To be sure, there have been some longer ones over the past almost 30 months, but the posts about eligibility and about parents, for examples, not only will take readers longer to consume than many of the posts I’ve posted…but they also take much longer to generate.
Each of those I mentioned here required at least a day’s worth of work. Here’s what I hope you’ll find to be good news: I’m preparing more of those longer-form posts. Part 3 of the series on special education processes is forth-coming. Look for it in the next few days. Two additional longer pieces in the TEDE series will be published soon.
So, thanks for sticking with me, all y’all. You may see fewer posts in the future and when you see longer ones, I hope you’ll understand that the increased length gives me greater opportunity to err. When I do make mistakes, I hope you’ll let me know.
In the mean while, please take care of each other; eat, exercise, and sleep well; and please be sure that you teach your children well.
JohnL
SET editor guy
Charlottesville