The Georgia Learning Resources System

The Georgia Learning Resources System (GLRS) was established in 1971 as a component of the new statewide initiative to serve exceptional students. The chief objective of the project was to provide necessary support services to teachers assigned to work with special needs children. GLRS began initially as an affiliate, multi-state Southeast regional... consortium, funded by the U.S. Office of Education, Bureau of Education for the Handicapped. The project was coordinated regionally by the Southern States Cooperative Learning Resources System (SSCLRS) which encompassed the southeastern state region including Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, and South Carolina. The initial scope of operation for the GLRS project included provision of inservice and pre-service training at the local level to upgrade the professional status of special education teachers. Inservice efforts were modeled after Iowa Plan which called for training "Master Teachers" and providing them with skills resources to return to their local school systems to conduct training for other teachers. Other inservice efforts provided intensified workshops in the areas of behavior modification, media use and diagnostic/prescriptive processes. Operation Plans for pre-service training were coordinated with the states's college/university training programs. A major thrust of the GLRS project was to determine what equipment and instructional materials were available locally and the level of knowledge about these resources. Appropriate training was then made available, where necessary, through demonstrations and workshops. The GLRS media centers provided a collection of materials which were used for short term loan, training and field testing in order to determine their appropriateness prior to actual purchase at the local level. Increased demands for GLRS services were brought on by growing numbers of special education staff throughout the state. Additionally, the passage of mandatory federal legislation in 1973 (Section 504 of The ...Read More