National Award Recognizes Excellence In Teacher Education

Old Dominion was named one of two recipients of the 2005 Christa McAuliffe Award for Excellence in Teacher Education by the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

ODU’s Commonwealth Special Education Endorsement Program (CSEEP) was recognized for its initiative “Meeting the Needs of Virginia’s Children with Disabilities.”

The program provides a path to full licensure and highly qualified status for conditionally licensed special education teachers in Virginia. Through a grant from the State Department of Education, these educators can enroll in ODU’s distance learning program for just $100 per class.

“Teachers stay in place, teaching, while becoming significantly more effective,” said grant director Steve Tonelson.

By providing a network among Virginia public schools, state-operated programs, non-public special education schools, the Virginia Department of Education and ODU, teachers are offered courses designed to meet requirements for endorsement in emotional disturbance, learning disabilities and mental retardation; and integrated content knowledge, technology standards, instructional strategies and Virginia Standards of Learning.

Tonelson, along with colleagues Jane Hager, Robert Gable and Cheryl Baker from the Darden College of Education, initiated this alternative certification program in 1997. It has received almost $7 million in external funding. The CSEEP program has provided tuition support for more than 1,500 conditionally licensed special education teachers and, to date, has helped 774 of them to become fully licensed.