DISCLAIMER: Raw, unedited transcript from webinar. No guarantees are made for the accuracy of the content.
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>> Okay. I am showing we are at the top of the hour. This is Robin bowl with NCDB . I want to begin by welcoming everybody. I will go through some housekeeping items before I handed over to Mark who will kickoff today's webinar. All phone lines have been muted to alleviate background noise. Mark would like you to as questions as he goes along Bill feel free to use*and six on your phone to unmute. But when you are not asking questions use*and six to return to mute. You can also type a question in the chat pod if you so choose. We want you to know this webinar will be recorded and archived for future viewing. I will start the recording now. You will hear an announcement momentarily and Mark that will be your cue to start. 
>> All right. Welcome everyone. Good afternoon. Happy Wednesday indeed. Sherry was just telling us they are expecting a blizzard hit tomorrow morning. It seems like that's way too early. It's not even November yet. Anyway, welcome. This is a webinar on the Deaf-Blind child count . We will spend time doing a couple of things. Will talk about a brief tour of the child count group page. Some of you I know our new. Some of you are old hands. I want to make sure everybody knows where they can find stuff. I will provide just a brief tour of the child count webpage. How to get there and what you will find, things like that. I would like to spend some time going over last year's, 2016 childcare report as much as anything I want to show you the new format a new and improved online format from 2015. It is much better navigation functionality additional information you might find helpful. If you find you want to make the PowerPoint a little bit bigger there is some small font I will show you some of the webpages. You can always make it bigger by hitting this little thing here. On top. I cannot see your cursor Mark. 
>> On top of the PowerPoint is a little bar. And the right-hand corner there is for arrows going out. If you hit that it will make the PowerPoint cover the entire page. And again feel free to ask questions and Robin and I will try to stay on top of those. Or feel free to unmute your phone and ask away. I'm going to assume some people may are just joining by phone. So I will certainly read any of the questions that come up in the chat pod. Those that might be joining just by phone. Okay. In the 2016 report I will cherry pick some of the results. Somethings interesting to me. Most of these you will find in the narrative part of the report. I will just highlight some of the stuff in the narrative. I also want to plant the seed right now, we can talk about this today or maybe later. But to start thinking about the kinds of information that might be useful to have as we come to the end of this cycle. And maybe thinking about the next grant cycle. Think about what might be useful. And then I want to spend some time talking about the 2017 child count getting ready for that. This will be the last child count in this grant cycle. Hard to imagine that, it's gone by quickly. So I think I will go ahead and get going with that. Can people hear me okay? I am not using the handset, hopefully you can hear me. If you can't I will pick it up and talking to, it sounds like people are hearing okay. That will make it easier for me. 
>> Okay Brian, I will try to speak loudly. All right, so, how do you find the child count group page and what is on their? I know to some of you, this is old stuff that I apologize. But there's also people on the call today I recognize as newbies. I want to make sure you know where to go and what you can find. Obviously this is a screenshot of the NCDB homepage . I took it last week. You will see in fact there is a notice that the 2016 Deaf-Blind child count has been published.  If you click on that it will go to the report but it will not take you to the home page for child count group. That is not one way to get there. I know everybody navigates around the NCDB site in different ways . Probably have different pages bookmarked, the library bookmarked or the state portal bookmarked or the home page bookmarked. Regardless of where you start, you should be able to find the child count group page in the same way. What I like to do, you may need to expand the screen to see this. I like to click on the national initiative on the brown ribbon. That brown ribbon is on every page of the website. No matter where you are starting. Click on that and from the drop-down menu you can select national childcare the best child count -- national child count. 
>> The state portal is the same way. If you go to the library, you will find the brown ribbon there. You can always find the national initiatives in the national child count homepage in the brown ribbon. 
>> So what do you find when you get there? You will find a few things. First on the top, an explanation of the child count and contact information. If ever you have questions, if ever you cannot find something or find the answer to something, don't hesitate to call me or email me. That's why I am here and I'm more than happy to handle any questions you have. Always feel free to do that. And the technical assistance and support, the first blue-green bar. I guess it's bluish green. It explains what is available on this page, and from me. I want to scroll down further to the second blue green bar. Tools for technical assistance. This is really what I want to talk about today. The reports and data displays, the link to the online report which is also where you can find downloadable PDF reports. I will show you that in a minute. You can also find a link to back to 2004, this will take you straight there. And also the link to the interactive child count data maps. You can look out the  at and it describes a visual description of the data. 
>> Going down further, under tools you can use, I will talk about two of those today. When you click on instructions and forms and the OSE P letter in support of the child count. If you click on instructions and forms you will find the page that has the number of documents you can download. Instructions and a four-page form, available both in English and Spanish. If you need those. I would also like to note there is a couple of things that are here for you to use if you want. You certainly don't have to. That is the four-page form. This is consistent with what would be exported from a file Pro database. Basically the same form, just made available in Word so you can modify it if you want to for whatever purpose. And the other form is the blank child count form. The XL form. It has the headings for all of the variables, the columns in the form. 
>> You don't have to use that. I know some people export their data and enter it into that. You don't have to do that. I will talk about that more later. We will talk about submitting the data. Those are there for you if you want them. But you don't have to use those to. 
>> The letter Joanne provided us a year and half, a little over a year ago, is a dear colleague letter. It outlines oh steps expectations that state and local agencies cooperate with state Deaf-Blind projects . Not only for conducting the child count but other state Deaf-Blind projects as well . This is what it looks like. It is a PDF you can download it, make copies of it, send it out, it is there for you to use. If you haven't used it before, I would really suggest at the end of today or some other time, that you talk to your colleagues in terms of how they have used it. I think most would agree it has been very helpful. This is something definitely to keep in your back pocket with the child count. 
>> All right. Back to the report. Reports and data display. When you click on that 2016 annual NCDB  child count it takes you to this page. This is the homepage for the report. You may recognize this format. This year we published it in the same software we developed the reference guide as well as the sooner the better part C early intervention training materials framework. It has much better functionality for navigating than last year's. It is a real step forward. 
>> Here is also where you can download the PDF version of the report. And we have done a lot of work with that as well. We have really made it much more accessible. That is also something we have done a lot of work on this year. 
>> So when you open for example one of these tabs, like overall population, demographics. What you will get is a narrative that explains what is presented in the table. Then you will have a set of tables that display the data. One thing I would like to point out, this is new this year. You may or may not find it helpful. If you look in the upper right-hand corner that says filter report by state. That is a drop-down menu where you can select your own state. If you select that, tables will be black so only your states data is presented in that table. The default is all states. We don't have the ability built-in this year to select multiple states. Maybe next year. We will talk to Jeff about that. But that is also a new feature this year. Any questions so far? Now I am going to provide kind of a brief summary of some of the interesting things that are popping out in the child count report. Really looking back over time is much is anything. Michelle is typing. I will wait just a second. Michelle says thank you for pointing out the bistate feature. 
>> I didn't even know that was being built in. You have to think Jeff for that bit of functionality. 
>> So I am going to share what I thought was interesting trends, that have emerged over the last seven years. That I always thought were very interesting. Before I do that, it is always really important to remember why we do this child count. This is our 31st year we have done it. It was officially started in 1986 when OSEP requested  a study to be done to figure out why there is such a huge discrepancy between the numbers that were showing up on the NCDB child count  before then, and the December one special education child count. There's always been a huge discrepancy and that discrepancy has not gone away. It will remain as long as the definition of NCDB  used in the December one special education child count remains the same. It only includes kids whose sole disability is deaf blindness. We all know 90% of the kids have additional disabilities. In fact this past year OSEP reported  1400 1443 children and youth -- 1443 children and youth as NCDB . We have reported nearly 9000 ages 3 to 21 as being NCDB . A huge discrepancy and it's incredibly important that we make sure that discrepancy is very public. 
>> A total of 9365 children and youth are identified for the December one snapshot. That is up about 61 from last year, a slight increase. There were 1203 kids that dropped off between 2015 and 2016. And 1265 newly identified children and youth. 
>> What's interesting is the newly identified kids span the age range. About half or 3 to 5. But we go up to age 20, first time identified. I guess that is to be expected but not necessarily a good thing. 
>> As you probably know, there is about twice as many boys as girls identified as in special education in this country. On the December one special education child count. It's much closer for of course Deaf-Blind . And that ratio doesn't hold in all states. There are states where there's more girls than boys. By and large, slightly more boys than girls. The racial and ethnic distribution continues to evolve and reflects pretty closely the overall distribution in the country. So I think that's a good thing. We are not under identifying or over identifying. So that is good. And in terms of vision and hearing loss and with kids on the child count, it's been identified as having low vision, being legally blind, or having documented functional vision loss. About 30% are identified as having CDI. 
>> While the number has grown slightly for CVI, the other ones have stayed pretty constant over the past seven years or or so. In terms of hearing loss, the single business -- biggest group our kids that are profoundly deaf. That's about 20%. We have seen and continue to see an increase in the number of kids identified as having a cochlear implant. It's up to nearly 11% of the population. Well over 1000. And we are seeing kids across the ages with cochlear implants, very young through 21. 
>> What's kind of interesting, at least I thought it was interesting, not necessarily in a good way. Less than half of the kids on the Deaf-Blind  child count are identified as making use of corrective lenses, assistive listening devices, or additional assistive technologies. There is quite frankly a lot of unknowns in the data. 
>> The past year there were 75 specific etiologies that showed up. We now have 13, with over 100 cases across the country. Goldmark syndrome showed up this last year the first time. Complications for prematurity and charge syndrome continue to be the two biggest, most common etiologies. 
>> What I found really interesting is over the past seven years we have seen a pretty big decline in the number of kids with prenatal, congenital or postnatal, non-congenital etiologies. Those are declining. We are seeing an increase in the hereditary syndromes and disorders. 
>> We continue to see nearly 90% of the children and youth with additional disabilities. The most common are orthopedic or physical. About 60% of the children and youth are identified as having orthopedic or physical disabilities. Close to 70% identified as has in -- having intellectual or cognitive disadvantages. And others with complex health care needs. 
>> Over one third of the kids in part B, age 3 to 21, identified as having multiple disabilities. That's about twice as many who are identified as being Deaf-Blind . 
>> That has remained pretty constant over the years. The past year we had 668 children and youth being reported as receiving in her ear services. That is a good thing. It keeps going up. It looks like Michelle or several is typing. I will see if she has a question or comment. 
>> Yes, they are on the deaf blind child count because they want to confirm vision and hearing loss. But the school district has identified them as having multiple disabilities, rather than Deaf-Blind . And that has been consistent over time. A goodly number end up there. 
>> As we know, the vast majority of kids live at home with their parents or extended family. Over 90%. We are seeing, that has gone up a bit over the past seven years. We are seeing a decline of kids living in foster care, or private residential facilities, group homes or apartments. 
>> This year I did a further analysis, frankly I'm not sure if it's in the report are not. It should have been. But to see which kids who are on the count at age 2, in part C, who do not show up the next year is three-year-olds part B. We lose about 10% of the two-year-olds, they don't show up the next year in part B. It could be for whatever reason, they may not have qualified. Or other reasons, they may just not have been fully identified yet, in part B. That is a continuing issue. We are doing some stuff to address that in both the family engagement and early intervention and retention referral initiatives. So be on the lookout for that. Okay, we will move on now to the next year, 2017. 
>> And again I want to really reiterate if you have questions, if you are not clear about things or cannot find something, please contact me. I actually look forward to the questions. I will say that a number of the questions I do get usually can be answered in the instruction. About how to code specific kids. There's quite a bit of guidance. So do read the instructions, they are helpful. Again there will be situations where it's just really not clear what you should do. Give me a call. We will work it out. 
>> So dates. When is the child count do? We have always pulled May 1 out of the air as a day to submit. I think that has been a nice compromise in terms of providing you time to collect the information, and providing us time to create the report and get it out by the end of September, which we are required to do. We have tried to strike that balance. This year as we know, it will be crazy. We have some it, the beginning of April. -- The summit. And then APR the first week in May. We could have an RFP out on the street. We will wait and see. But we expect the APR, no APR's this year? We haven't heard that. Michelle said I thought there were no APR's this year. I have not heard that. File year, only file report, Linda said she will ask Joanne tomorrow morning. Okay. Sherry Nelson, final APR due in December. That takes some of that complication out. I guess there's also the possibility you could be selected for the OSEP  TND evaluation. We will stick with May 11, because there it is. In the instructions. 
>> Again you can always submit early. Typically we have 15 to 20 states that do submit before 1 May. No pressure. Some folks do try to get it out of the way before they attempt the APR. 
>> There are a number of comments in the chat pod. Around the APR. We will clarify that tomorrow with JoAnn, and probably get out a message. Okay. 
>> So extensions. There are always extenuating circumstances that come up that make it just impossible to submit in early May. That is fine. Please do call me or email me though. We can negotiate an extension that gives you the time to get the information, data you want to submit, and gets us enough time to be able to complete the report. We are very flexible, just ask. 
>> Hold on. Sorry. I'm having trouble. Okay. When you submit the data, we like it in Excel or some something similar. XL is the preferred, a PDF does not work. A PDF of the XL file, that doesn't work. That said, you should be able, most of many of you use the FileMaker Pro database or some other form of database that will export the data. Into an Excel file. That is fine. What is really key is that you look at the column headings. Make sure I can tell what it is that is in that column. So if you need to add a word that would be great. Don't worry about what order they come out in. They do come out in all kinds of orders. Having experience that over the years. Don't spend a lot of time making it fit the XL form that we make available to use if you want to. Just make sure that I can tell what is in that column of data. I can move the columns around easily and that is fine. 
>> Often blank cells will be in the file. When I see a blank cell I am assuming that the data is missing or unknown. Know that if you have a blank cell that's what we assume. You can put 999, to make sure we know that it is missing. Just know when you export the data from the database, it is a blank sale -- sell, that's how I interpreted it 
>> Okay, critical fields. What we really need? Obviously we would like to have all of it because it's all important information. But there are certain things that are really critical at this juncture. With OSEP. Obviously  vision and hearing loss. That is a given. OSEP is very interested in what is happening to kids when they leave  part B. And part C. So the part C in the part B and your own project exiting status, is really important information. I know it's not necessarily easy date it's get -- data to get. But do your best. It is really very important right now. From Washington, had two other states collect the exiting data? Great question. I think if people would like to respond to her in the chat pod, or just by commuting your phone, I think this would be a great opportunity for the old hands to share their expertise. 
>> Go ahead and take yourself off mute and share what you do to collect that information. Or go ahead and type it into the chat pod. We have multiple people typing. 
>> I will wait for just a minute. 
>> Beth, yes. The question on the census form. What was there exiting status, did they age out, did they graduate, did they drop out, things like that. Jana from Arkansas, Arkansas receives the data from the L EA. It's up to them to provide that information. Brian from California, I ask the districts to note on the form if the student left the area or graduated, etc. area or graduated, etc. Beth from Michigan again, we just include it on the form. If people leave the answer blank, we follow up with the parent or the L EA. 
>> From Texas, it's a question on our online form. That from Cyrel . 
>> Linda McDowell, Beth summed it up well. 
>> Jen from Oregon, new this month. As a newbie this is good info, thanks y'all. 
>> Jen, you know where to find me. [laughter] 
>> Khanh says thank you, great help , many times they are left blank on the form. And Suanne from Pennsylvania. It's on our online format, we also approve the exit before the child actually exits so we don't lose present the best children. -- We don't lose children. Good plan. And yes Jen I know where to find you, she is about three doors down from me . and Linda says I'm impressed you spelled y'all correctly. [laughter] Thank you all for sharing. A great opportunity to share collectively in this kind of format. 
>> Birthdate is important for all kinds of reasons. And of course intervenor services remain important. That is a major initiative. We want to continue to do better at identifying who is and who is not receiving intervenor services as we go forward. 
>> So that is kind of all I had to share. It is time to open it up for additional questions or comments. Either questions to me or to your colleagues. Also a link to an evaluation of the webinar here. We appreciate if you fill that out, it would be great. 
>> Some folks are typing. We will see what they have to say. 
>> Ira, I have a question about exiting status. Last year we had a few instances where the parent pulled the child out of school and chose to homeschool. With the exiting status be dropped out? Yes, that would be the best code to use and that situation. A couple of things that it depends on. There is a good description of what dropped out includes. It does include a whole bunch of stuff in the definition of dropped out. You might want to look at that, it is in the instructions. You might want to look at that and make sure it does truly describe the situation. There are some things that go along with that. 
>> Will homeschooled be added to the census? Actually I think it already is. To the census? I think it is included, let me look it up. I should have had the instructions open. 
>> Give me one minute. Okay, I believe yes. Unter parentally placed and private schools, one of the educational settings, it does include children whose parents choose to homeschool them. But who received special education related services. That may or may not, fitted perfectly. 
>> So we have not considered adding homeschooled. I think that next summer we would like to convene a group to really look closely at the entire child count. So yes, I am not sure, I am not sure Sherry where that best fits. We will need to do a little bit more. I don't think it fits under dropped out. 
>> It could be. We will need to look at that case a little more clearly. Maurice from California. I think a lot of Eliezer's confuse homeschooling, I guess that typically means parents are providing instruction, and receiving services in the home for students who typically for medical reasons can't go to a school site. Do we have any students who are homeschooled? 
>> Well, we can look in the report. We do have some, actually I think, I should have all of this stuff open. Let's see the educational settings. We do have a number. Although I don't think we can tease out specifically the question you have Maurice. There are about 560 that are homebound or hospital bound, and receiving, that's considered their educational placement. That may best reflect your question or comment. 
>> Cyral , yes, we treat homeschool as private school. That is consistent with the federal definition. 
>> And Sherry yes, I would use homebound for those kids with medical reasons. And Linda says I think Cyral  nailed it, homeschooling by parents could fit under private school. 
>> Cyral says agree Sherry, they get homebound services from the district . 
>> Well, more questions or comments? Something to think about, think about what might be really useful in terms of reports, or analysis of data. For the future. And Maurice says the national data is a huge help in so many ways. Use it all the time, so thanks. 
>> Anyway, so, think about data, what would be helpful in the future. And also think about a really thorough review of what we are collecting in the child count, as we move forward to starting with the next grant cycle. 
>> Being very positive and hopeful. 
>> Again, you know where to get a hold of me if you have questions, anytime. If I am not around, Robbin Bull will pick up the phone and respond to you  and make sure I get it. 
>> Thank you all for being here today. I appreciate it. Great. 
>> Well if nothing else, I think we can say goodbye. Enjoy the rest of your Wednesday. And we will hear from you and maybe see you soon. 
>>[Event concluded] again we will be archiving this and sending it out along with the captioning, in the next week or so. 
>> This is Robin. Thank you Mark. A lot of good information. 
>> I would like to thank everybody here sharing ideas with their colleagues. It makes it a richer experience for everybody. Thank you very much. 
>> Have a great day everybody. 
>> Take