The Regional Professional Development Academy is entering into its ninth year and has grown from the original fourteen member collaborative focused on providing quality seminars promoting Professional Development. Membership into the academy is open to all public school districts in Monmouth and Ocean Counties. An annual sliding scale fee based on school district size is charged to each district. The participation fee entitles the district to an open registration of all staff and parents to the seminar programs. The academy welcomes new members each year so as to engage as many school districts that wish to participate and to provide greater opportunity for professional development services to the member school districts. The major activities and the goals of the academy continue to be focused on the inclusion of moderately and severely disabled students in the regular classroom. Seminars are identified through an annual needs analysis of the member districts.

The Steering Committee meets regularly each year to provide guidance to the Project Administrator and Project Training Specialist. Additional seminars are arranged based upon both suggestions of the Steering Committee and the availability of funds from the current budget.

In addition the academy provides member districts a well-stocked library of both print and non-print materials for use by professionals, parents and paraprofessionals. These materials are available to member districts on a lending basis.

The following statements represent the academy’s goals and provide impetus for the planned activities:

• To provide opportunities for partners to continue to plan and train for successful inclusive education programs and to share experiences and strengths while refining inclusion strategies.
• To provide local district staff, including administrators, regular education teachers, special education teachers, professional support staff, para educators and parents an opportunity to receive skill enhancement activities in contemporary best practices and research based approaches in addressing children with special needs.
• To increase the number of pupils with moderate to severe disabilities in regular education programs.
• To increase the number of regular educators working with pupils with disabilities.