In today’s educational environment, administrators face a wide variety of complex challenges, including supporting students with ASD.  Understanding how to best support the needs of students with ASD can be a daunting task!  Further, we know that administrators also face challenges in guiding and supervising many types of staff members in a variety of different roles.  Providing targeted and comprehensive resources for best practices are critical but it can be hard to even know where to start.  Since no two school divisions are alike, VCU-ACE provides administrators with the necessary trainings, tools, and resources to create an individualized approach to professional development.  VCU-ACE provides courses facilitated by staff members, webcasts presentations by local, regional, and national experts in autism spectrum disorder, short seminars, as well as quick 5 to 10 minute How To and Ask the Expert videos!

Our MyACE Dashboard platform organizes training content into different topic based modules such as Overview of ASD, Behavior, Communication, and more.  Once a participant has gone through all the material in each module, they’ll take a quiz and earn a badge!  This individualized dashboard helps your staff access the critical content they need to support students with ASD.  The MyACE Dashboard also tracks professional development activities making it easier for administrators to assess training needs and can be used in conjunction with our administrator-specific tool, the Performance Standards and Evaluation Criteria document and rubric.  This tool is designed to assess 7 different domains, including professional knowledge, instructional planning, instructional delivery, professionalism, and more!  VCU-ACE also provides professional development for paraprofessionals who serve students with ASD through the online PARAPro course.  This course aligns with the Paraprofessional training standards set forth by the Virginia Department of Education and the Virginia General Assembly.  

While guiding and supervising staff can be difficult to manage, the training, tools, and resources at VCU-ACE can help move your division in the right direction!