Who We Are:

Established by Virginia Superintendents' Region 1 (Central Virginia), the Autism Education Consortium was initially developed to regionally address the need for equitable, ongoing professional development opportunities for all staff working with students with autism spectrum disorder.

Teacher working with two children In 2016, VCU's Autism Center for Education partnered the 15 school divisions within Superintendents' Region 1 to enhance the existing professional development model and establish an innovative regional program that focused on keeping students with ASD in public schools and collaboratively supporting the return of students placed out-of-division into their home schools and communities.

In 2019, the VDOE facilitated the replication of the regional autism consortium model in Superintendents' Region 6, or southwest Virginia. The approach is simple. It is instilling the competent practice of applied behavior analysis into the public school professionals that support students with autism who require extensive educational and behavioral interventions.

Mission:

  • Improve outcomes for children and youth with autism.
  • Enhance the skill set of the public school professionals.
  • Demonstrate clinical utilization of applied behavior analysis in the classroom.
  • Facilitate regional and division level systems change.
  • Innovate custom solutions with our collaborative local, state, and national partners.