Dicapta Gets Together with Teachers and Members of the Region One Education Service Center in Texas
We spent 2 fabulous days during our visit to the Region One Education Service Center (ESC) in Edinburgh, Texas. Thanks to Margaret Barrera’s invitation we had the privilege of meeting with members of her team on February 16th and 17th. Margaret is the Director of Special Education at Region One ESC.
The Region One ESC is part of a state-wide system of 20 regional education service centers. The service centers assist the state school districts in improving students performance; enabling school districts to operate more efficiently and economically; and implementing initiatives assigned by the legislature or the Texas Commissioner of Education. Region One ESC is located in the south of Texas, on the Mexico-US border, and serves 37 school districts and 10 charter school systems.
On Thursday, the 16th, we met with about 40 members of the Region One ESC team, most of them are Special Education Programs Supervisors. Margaret Barrera led this meeting. On Friday, the 17th, thanks to the coordination done by Twinkle Morgan, we got together with Teachers of Students with Visual Impairments, Early Childhood Teachers and Librarians. This meeting was attended by 15 people in person and 8 more participated virtually from Brownsville (1 hour away) and Laredo (3 hours away). Twinkle is an Education Specialist with emphasis on Visual Impairments and Deafblindness.
In both meetings, Maria Victoria Diaz and Carol Colmenares, from Dicapta; and Maria Teresa Velasco, from Discovery en la Escuela, presented the workshops “Let’s got to the Movies” and “Discovery en la Escuela.”
Fro some time now we had been wanting to bring our workshops to Texas since, according to statistics published by the National Federation of the Blind, 8.6% of people with visual impairment in the US live in Texas. The collaboration with Region One ESC serves as a great multiplier of our activities in support of better accessibility for people with sensory limitations.
Our big thanks to Margaret for her invitation and help, as well as to Twinkle for assisting us in the coordination of this meeting. We also want to thank the Region One ESC team for their warm reception. We were delighted to be there!