TIES Center

07/31/2026

Inspired and energized! Jennifer Sommerness and Jessica Bowman from the TIES Center attended and presented this week at the Washington MTSS Integrated Conference in Wenatchee, Washington.

We were especially proud to co-present our work on inclusive IEPs with Jaimee Kidder from the Washington Office of Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) and hear from educators taking steps to make their classrooms and schools more inclusive for all. 📣

07/06/2026

We're thrilled to celebrate our former colleague and leader, Dr. Terri Vandercook, who has been awarded the rank of Professor Emerita of Special Education at the University of St. Thomas! 🎉
Before her retirement, Terri led the TIES Center with vision and dedication, and her career reflects a lifelong commitment to inclusive education. This honor recognizes her more than two decades of service at St. Thomas and her role in creating pathways for aspiring teachers to enter the profession.
Congratulations, Terri! This recognition is so well deserved. 💜

Congratulations to Dr. Terri Vandercook on being awarded the rank of Professor Emerita of Special Education! She served at St. Thomas from 1995-2018. Vandercook was instrumental in launching the residency model that today offers non-licensed education professionals an affordable, accelerated program to earn their Minnesota teaching license and master's degree from the University of St. Thomas.

06/23/2026

🌏TIES Center at the 19th Biennial IASE Conference in Bhutan!
We're proud to share that TIES Center's own Dr. Kristi Liu presented "The Inclusive Education Roadmap: Innovation for All" at this year's conference, an adaptation of the IER developed in collaboration with partners in Malaysia, showcasing how this systems-change framework can be tailored to support inclusive education for students with disabilities across different countries and contexts.

Check out the original Inclusive Education Roadmap here: https://tiescenter.org/topics/inclusive-leadership-and-systems-change/inclusive-education-roadmap.

As the post notes: "inclusion is no longer an aspiration—it is a necessity." We couldn't agree more. 👏

06/23/2026

The TIES Center Director, Dr. Kristi Liu, and our colleagues at the Institute on Community Integration are proud to be a part of the 19th Biennial IASE Conference in Bhutan this week, an international conference on inclusive education and schools.

06/02/2026

Summer is close — and so is the end of many school funding cycles.

Before those PD dollars disappear, consider investing in your paraprofessionals. The Empowering Inclusive Schools series is ready to go, self-paced, and designed specifically for paras supporting students with disabilities.

Don't let funds expire unused. Give your team the training they deserve.
https://tiescenter.org/paraprofessional-training

05/06/2026

You may have seen the Empowering Inclusive Schools: A Learning Series for Paraprofessionals Supporting Students with Disabilities training series. But do you know the story behind it?

The latest issue of CEHD Connect Magazine takes you inside how a decades-old evidence-based curriculum got transformed into a credentialed, University-backed online program — and why it matters for paraprofessionals and the students they support.

📖: Read the full article: https://connect.cehd.umn.edu/empowering-inclusive-schools

For a student with a disability, the right support doesn’t just help them get through the school day - it unlocks the door to a truly inclusive education. Recognizing this, CEHD has developed a new comprehensive training series designed to turn that vision into reality. By equipping paraprofession...

05/05/2026