evaluate the services they have received. Support service staff persons are evaluated at the end of each
spring semester.

Staff Training -

As have other service programs for the handicapped, this program with large numbers of students and
part-time employees has developed an extremely flexible service delivery system with a high emphasis on
staff training: ongoing training is given to support service staff through individual consultations with the
program coordinator and/or the developmental education instructor; handouts on tutoring techniques are
shared with staff; teacher panel discussions at staff meetings emphasize the instructor perspective and
provide an opportunity for a friendly exchange of viewpoints between instructors and support service
providers; handbooks provide policies and procedures for notetakers, tutors, readers, writers, and sign
language interpreters; training videotapes will soon be available to clarify policies, procedures, techniques;
staff development workshops give staff hands-on training with equipment, presentations to foster
communication skills, and techniques to improve quality of services; and staff attend panel presentations by
key members of various agencies working with disabled persons.

Information Services

Instructors routinely receive fliers that describe the various support service roles, handouts that address
such issues as classroom testing for disabled students and teaching mainstreamed deaf students, and other
descriptions of the services that may be arranged through the Center. Presentations (upon request) are
provided to instructors at regular staff meetings and staff development workshops. These presentations are
tailored to address such specific needs as reading instruction and the use of adaptive equipment.

Instructors are encouraged to contact Handicapped Services with their questions and concerns about
disabled students in their classes, but no specific information about individual disabled students is disclosed
without the student’s written consent. Many instructors report that the information they receive from
Handicapped Services assists them with all students, not only with those who are disabled.

Instructor Responses

Instructors have responded positively to support services personnel; they have supplied texts, visited the
tutoring lab, given suggestions, and communicated with both the developmental education instructor and
the tutor about the progress and academic needs of the disabled students they teach.

This support service model has streamlined the coordination between student service providers and
faculty, and it has resulted in two measurable benefits: a lower attrition rate (a 10% increase in class
retention when comparing the fall 1985 semester to spring 1986) and a higher course completion rate (a 25%
to 11% decrease in class failures as reported by instructors and students for the same time period).

Ann Lemke Joyce Whiteside
Program Coordinator Developmental Educational Instructor

For further information, contact the authors at the Center for Educational Services for the Handicapped, El
Paso Community College, P.O. Box 20500, El Paso, TX 79998.

 

Suanne D. Roueche, Editor
February 12, 1988, Vol. X, No. 4

INNOVATION ABSTRACTS Is a publication of the National Institute for Staff and Organizational Development, EDB 348, The University of
Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas 78712, (512)471-7545. Subscriptions are available to nonconsortium members for $35 per year. Funding In
part by the W. K. Kellogg Foundation and Sid W. Richardson Foundation. Issued weekly when classes are in session during fall and spring
terms and once during the summer.

* The University of Texas at Austin, 1988
Further duplication Is permitted only by MEMBER institutions for their own personnel. ISSN 0199-106X