For State Education Agencies & TA Centers Outside Pennsylvania

Your Federal Obligations Haven't Changed. Your Federal Support Has.

Federal special education oversight has been dramatically reduced — but your obligations to 8.5 million students with disabilities haven't changed. States need customized professional development and technical assistance systems that don't depend on federal hand-holding. I've spent nearly 30 years building exactly that kind of system inside one of the nation's most comprehensive state TA networks. Let me help you build yours.

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The Current Landscape

States Are More on Their Own Than at Any Point Since IDEA Was Enacted

In June 2026, the U.S. Department of Education transferred day-to-day administration of OSEP to the Department of Health and Human Services. Federal monitoring visits have been scaled back so dramatically that, at the current pace, each state would be reviewed only once every 25 years. The staff who investigated complaints, monitored compliance, and provided technical assistance have been significantly reduced.

Meanwhile, more than half of all states failed to meet their annual IDEA implementation targets in 2026. The number of states categorized as "needs assistance" continues to grow — and those states face mandatory enforcement actions including designation as high-risk grantees and directed use of set-aside funds. Special education enrollment keeps climbing, teacher shortages are acute, and evaluation timelines are being missed across the country.

The law hasn't changed. Your obligations are the same. But the question every state agency leader is asking has shifted from "How do we satisfy federal monitors?" to something harder and more important: "How do we build internal systems strong enough to maintain compliance, improve outcomes, and sustain quality — on our own?"

That's what I do. And I've been doing it for 29 years.

Customized Professional Development & Technical Assistance

Built for Your State. Designed to Last.

Every state's context is different — your funding structure, your TA infrastructure, your compliance gaps, your workforce challenges. I don't deliver off-the-shelf solutions. I learn your state and build customized professional development and technical assistance systems that align your federal, state, and local priorities into a coherent, sustainable whole.

Core Expertise

Statewide TA System Design & Implementation

Build or transform your state's technical assistance infrastructure from the ground up — tiered delivery models (systemic, critical, and emergent supports), needs assessment protocols, regional deployment strategies, train-the-trainer systems, content development pipelines, and outcomes measurement. This is what I do every day managing one of the largest state TA systems in the country.

Core Expertise

Customized Professional Development

Design and deliver professional development grounded in how humans actually learn — integrating behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist frameworks into practical, scalable training for special educators, related service providers, paraprofessionals, and the general educators who support students with disabilities. From week-long institutes to ongoing coaching series to on-site embedded support.

Systems Alignment

Federal-State-Local System Alignment

Map your IDEA Part B, Title I, Title II-A, and ESSA funding streams into a coherent system where federal requirements reinforce — rather than compete with — your state priorities and local implementation. I help states stop treating compliance and improvement as separate workstreams.

Compliance & Accountability

IDEA Compliance & General Supervision

Strengthen your state's general supervision system — LEA determination frameworks, compliance monitoring protocols, corrective action timelines, risk assessment tools, and differentiated accountability. Move from "needs assistance" to "meets requirements" and build the infrastructure to stay there.

Performance Reporting

SPP/APR & SSIP Strategy

Develop rigorous targets, design your State Systemic Improvement Plan, and build the data and narrative infrastructure to tell your improvement story to OSEP. I help states connect their SPP/APR indicators to the instructional practices that actually move the numbers.

Federal Funding

Federal Funding Strategy & Fiscal Compliance

Navigate maintenance of effort, excess cost calculations, CEIS, proportionate share, supplement-not-supplant, and audit-ready documentation across IDEA, Title I, and ESSA funding streams. I manage a $35M+ federal budget — I know where the fiscal landmines are.

How I Work

Inside Knowledge, Outsider Perspective

I bring the pattern recognition of someone who's managed these systems from the inside for decades — combined with the fresh perspective of looking at your state's challenges without institutional blinders.

Deep-Dive Assessment

I start by understanding your state's full picture — your current TA infrastructure, compliance data, SPP/APR performance, funding architecture, workforce challenges, and the political and organizational dynamics that shape what's possible.

Gap Analysis & Alignment Mapping

I identify where your federal, state, and local systems are misaligned — where compliance processes aren't connected to instructional improvement, where funding streams are underleveraged, where TA isn't reaching the educators who need it most.

Customized System Design

I co-create solutions tailored to your resources, timeline, and political context. No off-the-shelf frameworks — every recommendation is designed to work within your state's specific constraints and build on your existing strengths.

Sustained Capacity Building

I don't build systems that require my continued presence. My goal is to develop your team's ability to maintain compliance, deliver high-quality TA, and make adaptive instructional decisions long after our engagement ends.

About Angela

29 Years Designing Customized PD & TA Systems That Work

I'm Dr. Angela Kirby, Director of PaTTAN Central — Pennsylvania's Training and Technical Assistance Network — where I supervise over 100 staff and manage a federal budget exceeding $35 million. PaTTAN delivers customized professional development and technical assistance at a statewide scale: week-long summer institutes, ongoing PD series, webinars, on-site embedded coaching, and individualized student and teacher supports — all in partnership with the Bureau of Special Education and aligned to IDEA Part B and ESSA requirements. It's one of the most comprehensive state TA systems in the country, and I've been at the center of it for nearly two decades.

Before PaTTAN, I served as Special Assistant to the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education and Interim Acting Bureau Director, where I helped build Pennsylvania's Standards Aligned Systems. I've been a coordinator of special education, a learning support and reading teacher, an inclusion specialist, and an adjunct professor at Temple and Eastern University. I've lived every layer of this system.

I believe the best educators — and the best TA systems — draw from behavioral, cognitive, and constructivist perspectives. Human learning is not one-dimensional, and the systems that support educators shouldn't be either. I bring that multi-lens philosophy to everything I do.

I consult exclusively with states, TA centers, and school districts outside Pennsylvania.

Ed.D., Educational Leadership

M.Ed., Curriculum & Instruction (Special Ed & Reading) — Pitt

Applied Behavior Analysis Certificate — Penn State

Superintendent's Letter of Eligibility

PA Reading Specialist K-12

PA Special Education N-12

PA Principal Certification K-12

PA Supervisory Certificate, Special Ed K-12