Full Catalog of Upcoming Events

Audience: Administrators, All Secondary Educators, All Staff in General and Special Education

Age Level: Secondary

Level: Universal

Topic: The Flipping the Script on Classroom Meltdowns is a specially developed series on helping all students work on self-regulation and gives staff specific skills to use proactively, during a meltdown, and reflection. There are four possible age levels in this series: Pre-K through Second Grade, Upper Elementary, Secondary, and one that covers all ages.  It is designed for ages 18 months to 18 years. The links that are within the series are ready for download to use in building amygdala recalibration centers within your classroom.

Time: Six Hours

Audience: Administrators, All Staff in General and Special Education, Cafeteria Staff, Family, and Transportation Providers.

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: Based on research conducted since 2014, we interviewed students and asked them this question: “What would mean the world to you? What could someone give you that would let you know you had done a good job; however, it can’t cost any money?”  We wrote down their answers and have since categorized them into age level and overarching themes: Privileges, Attention, Leadership Opportunities, Praise, Assistance, Touch, Escape, and we added school supplies. (No child said they’d like to earn school supplies; however, we work in some very low-income areas where students do not have someone to purchase school supplies for them that they need. We know a hand-out feels bad when you are poor and giving students the opportunity to earn school supplies helps with their self-esteem.

Time: Two hours

Audience: Special Education and Administrators

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: A functional behavior analysis is when the environment is manipulated to determine the function behind the behavior. This works well for determining function when you have a student who is non-verbal. You will see real-world applications of this presentation.

Time: Five Hours

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Functional Behavior Assessment is the main focus of Behavior Doctor Seminars and Teacheropedia. We have developed a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data in order to make data collection easy to understand and use to write a data-based behavior support plan. It is available in a one- or two-day presentation. In the two-day presentation, you will get the opportunity to enter data yourself and make decisions.

Time: 8 hours

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two and Tier Three

Topic: Functional Behavior Assessment is the main focus of Behavior Doctor Seminars and Teacheropedia. We have developed a free tool that graphs antecedent, behavior, and consequence data in order to make data collection easy to understand and use to write a data-based behavior support plan. It is available in a one- or two-day presentation. In the two-day presentation, you will get the opportunity to enter data yourself and make decisions.

Time: Twelve Hours

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: All Three tiers

Topic: This was written specifically for HGRESA using information provided by the Georgia Department of Education on Improving School Climate.

Time: Five hours plus implementation time

Using the information from the STAR School Climate Survey Results, we will address:

• Building Relationships Between Staff, Students, Family, and Community
• Addressing Bullying and Fighting
• Safety
• Academic Growth
• Behavioral Growth

This presentation will share evidence-based strategies from around the US. 

Georgia’s Survey on School Climate looks at the following:

• Survey- a measure of student, teacher, and family member perceptions of the school’s climate

• Student discipline- a measure of student discipline using a weighted suspension rate

• Safe and Substance-Free Learning Environment- school discipline incidents and student survey responses on the use of illegal substances and the prevalence of violence, bullying, and unsafe incidents within a school

• Attendance- the average daily attendance of teachers, administrators, and staff members and the percentage of students absent less than 10% of the enrolled days.

Introduction: Before you begin the introduction, please pull your STAR Climate Survey Results and run copies for all staff. You will look at the results after watching the short introduction.

Audience: All Staff

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two

Topic: One way to motivate students is to use group contingencies and group reinforcers.  This will give you some different ideas to use for all ages (Preschool through High School).

Time: Two Hours

Audience: All Staff and Family Members

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This focus on mental health will help a school develop a Mental Health Fair for a Saturday. It goes through the things to consider prior to implementing a whole day mental health fair for staff and family members.

Time: 36 hours of a guided self-study with ideas of who to contact in your community to assist in creating a wealth of information for your community, staff, and family members.

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Pre-K through Second Grade

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Many teachers ask how to handle the situation when a student is having a meltdown in the classroom. How do you handle the audience and how do you handle the student. This presentation is available in two levels – Pre-K through Second Grade and Pre-Teen through Teenagers.

Time: Two Hours

Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

Age Level: Pre-Teen through Teenagers

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Many teachers ask how to handle the situation when a student is having a meltdown in the classroom. How do you handle the audience and how do you handle the student. This presentation is available in two levels – Pre-K through Second Grade and Pre-Teen through Teenagers.

Time: Two Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

  Age Level: All

  Level: Universal

  Topic: Some schools struggle with integrating family members into their universal behavior support program. This presentation will help you encourage participation from staff, family members, and the community in supporting your efforts in universal behavior support.

  Time: Two and a Half Hours

• While training at the universal level around the world, one of the common concerns was lack of familial participation in programs that supported Universal Behavior Support (UBS). Through trial and error, we have developed first some sure-fire tips to get family members coming through the door to participate. We will share ideas that work with Pre-K through Secondary.
• Once you have family member involvement the first time, how do you keep them coming to the school and participating in ways that support your UBS program? We will share ways to keep the family members coming and connected.
• The entire state of Pennsylvania is using Dr. Riffel’s family involvement program. Comments from administrators have been they did not realize how many opportunities they were missing and how easy it would be to change the climate at the school to encourage family participation that supported their school-wide behavior program.

Audience: All Staff

Age Level: Staff

Level: Universal

Topic: This is a mental health and behavior management presentation on how to increase your jen ratio which is an ancient Asian philosophy. This presentation will help your staff increase their happiness quotient.

Time: Two hours plus Self-Guided Study

 HGRESA District Members Only.

 

• • We will cover an overview of the causes of targeted behaviors and how they can be remediated through simple changes.
  • Research indicates students with Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD) are educated in an inclusive setting, they have better behaviors. However, little has been done to prepare general education classroom teachers for the types of behaviors that can occur when a child has EBD tendencies.
  • Riffel will share the Three R’s for building a classroom that is conducive to learning for the students with and without EBD. She will share ways to Revise the Environment to set the student up for success. She will share ways to teach Replacement Behaviors that help the student “save face” by not having everyone know what behaviors they are working on in the classroom. Finally, she will share ways to Reframe our Response so we are feeding the replacement behaviors and extinguishing the targeted behaviors.

   

  • Overview: A child is considered for an EBD label in Georgia if they have one or more of the following criteria to the point that it impedes learning:
  • An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers. For preschool-age children, this would include other care providers.
  • An inability to learn which cannot be adequately explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.
  • Consistent or chronic inappropriate type of behavior or feelings under normal conditions.
  • Displayed pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
  • Displayed tendency to develop physical symptoms, pains or unreasonable fears associated with personal or school problems.
  • Long term implications are that if students with EBD are co-taught in the general education classroom rather than a separate setting they fare better in high school and beyond. There are less reports of behavioral issues when this is done well (https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=maed) .
  • Riffel will share a story of a large school district she consulted in that was housing their students with EBD in separate rooms. The students with EBD had more referrals and lower grades than their peers. After a thorough examination of the behaviors and through field observations her recommendations were to disband all the separate EBD classrooms, put the special education teachers in the classrooms as co-teachers and put the students with EBD in the general education classes. They moved from “being babysat” to actually performing as well as their peers when they were challenged by interesting work and had role models that demonstrated how to self-regulate and use their words to make their point understood. The staff received training on how to teach self-regulation and voicing opinions appropriately to all students.  The staff also received training how to change the set-up of the classroom to help students feel connected to each other.
  • Riffel will also share physiological things that are important considerations when working with students with the EBD Label.

   

• Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

  Age Level: All

  Level: Tier Three

  Topic: This presentation focuses on evidence-based interventions you can use with students who are identified with emotional behavior disorders. This is available in the one day or two day version with more interventions and opportunities for implementation in the two-day version

  Time: Seven Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

 

• • We will cover an overview of the causes of targeted behaviors and how they can be remediated through simple changes.
  • Research indicates students with Emotional Behavior Disorders (EBD) are educated in an inclusive setting, they have better behaviors. However, little has been done to prepare general education classroom teachers for the types of behaviors that can occur when a child has EBD tendencies.
  • Riffel will share the Three R’s for building a classroom that is conducive to learning for the students with and without EBD. She will share ways to Revise the Environment to set the student up for success. She will share ways to teach Replacement Behaviors that help the student “save face” by not having everyone know what behaviors they are working on in the classroom. Finally, she will share ways to Reframe our Response so we are feeding the replacement behaviors and extinguishing the targeted behaviors.

   

  • Overview: A child is considered for an EBD label in Georgia if they have one or more of the following criteria to the point that it impedes learning:
  • An inability to build or maintain satisfactory interpersonal relationships with peers and/or teachers. For preschool-age children, this would include other care providers.
  • An inability to learn which cannot be adequately explained by intellectual, sensory or health factors.
  • Consistent or chronic inappropriate type of behavior or feelings under normal conditions.
  • Displayed pervasive mood of unhappiness or depression.
  • Displayed tendency to develop physical symptoms, pains or unreasonable fears associated with personal or school problems.
  • Long term implications are that if students with EBD are co-taught in the general education classroom rather than a separate setting they fare better in high school and beyond. There are less reports of behavioral issues when this is done well (https://sophia.stkate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1061&context=maed) .
  • Riffel will share a story of a large school district she consulted in that was housing their students with EBD in separate rooms. The students with EBD had more referrals and lower grades than their peers. After a thorough examination of the behaviors and through field observations her recommendations were to disband all the separate EBD classrooms, put the special education teachers in the classrooms as co-teachers and put the students with EBD in the general education classes. They moved from “being babysat” to actually performing as well as their peers when they were challenged by interesting work and had role models that demonstrated how to self-regulate and use their words to make their point understood. The staff received training on how to teach self-regulation and voicing opinions appropriately to all students.  The staff also received training how to change the set-up of the classroom to help students feel connected to each other.
  • Riffel will also share physiological things that are important considerations when working with students with the EBD Label.

   

• Audience: All Staff and Administrators in General and Special Education

  Age Level: All

  Level: Tier Three

  Topic: This presentation focuses on evidence-based interventions you can use with students who are identified with emotional behavior disorders. This is available in the one day or two day version with more interventions and opportunities for implementation in the two-day version

  Time: Ten Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: School climate is a huge concern among educators and the pandemic brought about some changes to the climate. This presentation explores the “whys” and how to intervene to bring your school climate back up.

Time: Nine Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: Administrators

Age Level: all

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation is for administrators to help with behavioral health training in supporting your staff, community, and family members to increase school climate.

Time: Six hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

• Audience: Support Staff and Specifically Physical Education, Health Educators, and Sports Coaches

  Age Level: All

  Level: Universal

  Topic: This presentation was written to assist physical education, health teachers, and sports coaches in improving school climate and increase mental health strategies.

  Time: Six hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All Staff

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Two

Topic: Behavior management for the most difficult behaviors in the classroom. This is based on interviewing teachers on the most disruptive behaviors they are seeing in the classroom and field testing evidence-based interventions.

Time: Six hours

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All staff members and administrators in general and special education

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: This presentation is a proactive focus on strategies and interventions for students with ADHD that can be implemented in the classroom. This presentation also focuses on Anxiety. ADHD and Anxiety are distinct disorders; however, they are often comorbid. Approximately 50% of adults with ADHD may have an anxiety disorder (Kessler et al., 2006).

Time: Four Hours

 HGRESA District Members Only.

Audience: All

Age Level: All

Level: Tier Three

Topic: Many times educators write to us and ask how to get kids on ADHD medication and we also have family members who contact us and tell us their child’s teacher suggested they put their child on ADHD medication. To medicate or not medicate is up to a family member and that decision should be done in conjunction with a consult with a medical professional who specializes in ADHD. So, this presentation focuses on the things that classroom teachers can implement in the classroom with or without medication to help our students with ADHD to be successful.

Time: Six hours

Audience: Everyone

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: This presentation series is available as a four day presentation including one day for universal mental health, two days for tier two mental health, and one day for tier three mental health.  This version is all three levels in one link.  You may also find each link separately. It will focus on proactive strategies you can use in your school to increase mental health awareness.

Participants will learn the functions behind behavior and ways to incorporate Positive Behavioral Interventions and Supports on the bus. We will also cover disabilities and how those disabilities might affect behavior on the bus.

Audience: Transportation Providers (Drivers and Assistants) and all Administrators

Age Level: All

Level: Universal

Topic: In order to support transportation personnel, we have developed a training that helps transportation providers interact with schools on universal behavior support. The bus is part of the school day and as such it should be part of the expectations of the school.

Time: Four hours

This class is restricted to Heart of Georgia RESA systems' members.

This is for Pre-K through First Grade Educators.

This course will cover the following:

1. Ten Rules that Govern Behavior as they relate to 4-7 year old children.
2. Blurting Behavior (also covers ADHD)
3. Staying in Area
4. Sharing
5. Learning to Wait
6. Transitioning Quickly
7. Telling the Truth
8. Tattling

Finally, we will cover anxiety. While this in and of itself is not a behavior, it is the underlying cause of many behaviors.

Audience: All Classroom and Support Personnel in General and Special Education

Age Level: Pre-K through First Grade

Topic: This is a presentation for classroom management specifically for Pre-K through First grade staff members.

Time: Seven Hours

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

There will be an out of the HGRESA area fee of $50.

Audience: Admin, Elementary Educators, Ancillary, Bus, Cafeteria, Counselor, Psychologist

Age Level: Second through Fifth Grade

Topic: Classroom Management for Disruptive Behaviors. This presentation goes through many of the disruptive behaviors that can derail learning in the classroom and shares evidence-based interventions you can use.

Level: Tier Two

Time: Six Hours

This class is limited to participants from Heart of Georgia RESA member systems.