TSAGW Annual Meeting - Build your Educational Advocacy Skills

Cracking the Code: Building Your Educational Advocacy Skills!

Plan to attend our February Annual Meeting and raise your Advocacy IQ! Get insider tips from an expert and learn new strategies for working more effectively with teachers and school staff to ensure your child or teen gets the accommodations and services they need to succeed. Guest speaker is Mark Etzel, educator, elementary school vice-principal and parent of a child with TS. Among the issues Mark will address are:

- How to decide whether a 504 plan or IEP (special education support) is appropriate

- Private testing vs. school system testing – how to make the choice

- Insider tips that will enhance your process outcomes

- How to effectively engage school staff members as your partners in the process

- Writing goals that make sense, are measurable, and get action

- Accommodations that can really make a difference

- How to "pick your battles"

Mark has a unique perspective on the special education process having been a parent, a teacher and an administrator participating in the process. He has valuable information to share, and will also participate in a Q&A session with other home-grown advocacy experts after his main presentation. As the final component of our meeting, one of our Youth Ambassadors will demonstrate a peer presentation to raise awareness of this valuable service that can be provided at schools around our chapter area upon request.

Mark Etzel has a BS in Elementary Education from Salisbury State University and a M.Ed. in Elementary Administration and Supervision from Towson University. Mark started his teaching career in 1995 as a second grade teacher, and then taught fifth grade before moving into administration in 2002. He is also a Adjunct Professor in the Division of Educational and Transitional Studies at Harford Community College.Mark is currently Assistant Principal at Homestead-Wakefield Elementary School in Bel Air, MD. Mark joined the Board of TSAGW in 2012.

MarMarkand aMarkThe meeting will be held at Inova Fairfax Hospital in Fairfax, VA in the Physicians Conference Center auditorium. Click here to view the campus map and get directions. Park in the blue parking garage. There is a $5 parking fee. The meeting will begin at 2pm and will include a brief business meeting to elect board members and adopt a budget. Refreshments will be served. Join us!