INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Last month, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) asked for the professional development and consultation support of Virtuoso Education Consulting, LLC, to improve practices in its internal Enforcement Inclusion Guiding Team (EIGT). As part of the contract, the internal team asked Virtuoso to help identify current levels of cultural proficiency and create awareness of culturally responsive practices. Virtuoso plans to analyze the current Intercultural Developmental Inventory staff within the NCAA and provide advisement and training sessions for the NCAA’s Enforcement Leadership Team and Inclusion Advisory Group.

A renowned education consulting firm, Virtuoso works closely with corporations and educators to improve cultural competency in the workplace and K-12 schools. Virtuoso CEO Renae Azziz Ed.S., NCSP, believes her team’s approach stretches beyond average training toward understanding. 

“Most diversity trainings (a.k.a. sensitivity trainings), focus primarily on acknowledging differences and advocate respect for them,” Azziz says. 

“While all of that is essential and positive, our cultural competency trainings are designed to build awareness, knowledge, and skills related to cultural difference through a variety of teaching methods including direct instruction, role playing, case studies, facilitated group discussions, and technology/media.” According to Azziz, these methods allow education and corporate employees to learn the skills needed to actually relate to diversity and inclusion, which translates to understanding. 

Virtuoso implements a 5-step process approach with the goal of helping clients develop proficiency in:

• Understanding their personal levels of cultural proficiency,
• Understanding cultural variations in communication patterns that lead to misunderstanding
• Understanding cultural differences in patterns of behaviors across cultures that impact intercultural relationships,
• Gaining skills necessary to manage the dynamics of cultural differences, and
• Developing a data-based action plan design to support the organizations goals for cultural competency.

The Virtuoso team believes its assessment and additional training will be vital to the NCAA’s Enforcement Inclusion Guiding Team and is impressed by their goals. “It is highly proactive on the part of the NCAA to already have a team in place whose job is to engage inclusion of diversity and cultures in all areas,” says Azziz.

About Virtuoso:

Renae Azziz EdD, NCSP is CEO at Virtuoso Education Consulting LLC, a professional development firm that empowers educators on best practices in the K-12 market. Her team helps educators meet school improvement goals, address disproportionality, and close achievement gaps.  She is the author of many best-selling professional development products. Visit www.virtuosoed.com or contact us at ed@virtuosoed.com or razziz@virtuosoed.com.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Virtuoso Education Consulting, LLC, recently announced its new project in conjunction with The Equity Project at Indiana University to study disproportionality in special education identification and placement and in school discipline for students with disabilities in Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) within Indiana. As The Equity Project’s official website explains, “In Indiana (and across the nation), there are a number of sources of racial/ethnic disparity in school services and school outcomes.” Russell J. Skiba, PhD, director of The Equity Project and Renae Azizz, EdD, founder and CEO of Virtuoso Education Consulting will work together with their respective teams to identify and reduce these sources of disparity and discipline issues among students with disabilities.

According to the agreement, the project was awarded by the Indiana Department of Education (IDOE) Office of Special Education to study existing disproportionality data provided by the IDOE and The Equity Project and Dr. Skiba, identify and monitor non-compliance, and provide strategies and resources to help educators in all LEAs eradicate and avoid disproportionality across all racial/ethnic groups.  The teams will identify non-compliance and significant disproportionality citations among schools and school districts. Initial consults will begin almost immediately with non-compliant educators.  Similar to his colleague, Dr. Renae Azziz, Dr. Skiba has worked with schools across the country and published extensively in the areas of school violence, school discipline and classroom management, and equity in education. Virtuoso, Dr. Azziz’s renowned education consulting firm, will also provide support through webinars, onsite observations, professional development, and training. Support will continue long after the project is completed as the firm will establish a technical assistance resource center for the Local Educational Agencies.

“We will look at data on disproportionality and school discipline regarding students from each racial/ethnic group who receive special education services,” Azziz says.  “Then we examine the proportional relationship between those groups and the history of expulsion and suspension in the Indiana public schools. This will be the springboard to identify non-compliance, needs, gaps, and solutions and then establish goals and expectations for LEAs for the 2017-18 school year.” 

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Virtuoso Education Consulting, LLC, has recently been tapped to develop a specialized work plan with Indiana University’s Center on Community Living and Careers (CCLC). According to the agreement, Virtuoso will review online modules and educational materials, identifying improvements to reflect effective cultural responsiveness. The renowned consulting firm will also help the center develop basic awareness level training for Vocational Rehabilitative Services (VRS) supervisors on positive cultural responsiveness.

In this age of accountability in education, Virtuoso Education Consulting works frequently with clients on collecting, analyzing, and making decisions with data in efforts to improve student outcomes. The company provides expertise in training educators in various roles and follow-up coaching and implementation assistance. It is well-known for training educators on the ways in which culture impacts behavior and learning.

Such onsite training, instruction, and evaluations are meant to help students involved with the CCLC have access to the most effective and accurately implemented instructional and behavioral practices possible, but within a culturally sensitive framework. Founder and CEO of Virtuoso Renae Azziz looks forward to sharing these methods with the center.

“We are honored to be involved with the university for this evaluation and training project and hope this helps the CCLC enrich the relationship it has with the community,” explains Azziz.