Write the History of Special Education Administration in Minnesota

The targets were achieved as outlined in the proposal. The timelines were exceeded as the consultant was able to focus full-time on writing up the collected information. This was accomplished because she had the experience with Word software, without extra training, to organize the information into sections of a book, e.g. Preface, Table of Contents, formatting, End Notes, Bibliography, and Index as she wrote the document. This greatly saved time.

Also her career long experience in special education helped to quickly identify those facts that impacted this history, though time was taken to verify and source each one. And the previous oral histories helped to provide stories of personal interest pertinent to a period of time/change during the history.

She did struggle with charts and tables because the information was so complex and interrelated. Taking the complex historic information and visualizing it succinctly into one page graphics continues to be a challenge. She subcontracted with Dr. Sharpe at the UM to assist as he has expertise in this area which was helpful. The charts still need further design - perhaps a professional layout designer can address this challenge in a future phase.

Searching for appropriate early administrator/educator photos took extra time, though the end results exceeded her expectation. She found most photographs at the History Center by searching online, through numerous boxes by hand, and the newspaper archives. Others were obtained through Institution libraries and associations, e.g. the State Academy for the Blind and the Minnesota Administrators of Special Education.