SEPAC Business Meeting – December 13, 2022
Call to Order
Introductions: Dr. Roderick MacNeal Jr., Alison Elmer, Amy Benjamin, Kristin Burke, Lisa Welch, Inae Hwang, Sarah Barton, Jessica Dombrosky, Amy Forsythe, Cathleen Hoelscher, Deborah Perry, Elizabeth McWhorter, Gina Filosa, Jennie Mansfield, Kate Radville, Claire Johnson, Anna, and Rachel Ostrow attended.
Approve Minutes: Minutes will be approved offline before the next meeting.
Officer/Committee Reports:
- Inae and Sarah had their annual meeting with Dr. Homan. They touched on a lot of talking points, including open/transparent communication with parents, and SEPAC participation and feedback on programming.
- Sarah has started a Google form where parents can express their preference on whether they’d like to participate on any committees.
- We are working on our annual survey and will make it available in January. If you would like to give any suggestions for this year’s survey, please message/email us at arlingtonSEPAC@gmail.com or on Facebook Messenger.
Planning Workshops for the Coming Year:
- We had our first Basic Rights workshop, Evaluation and Eligibility, along with Somerville, back in October. We are looking to host our own workshop, on either Transition or Understanding Your IEP, sometime in the spring.
- We have a parent who is working on getting a workshop from the Baker Center on Emotional Regulation.
APS Staff Reports:
- Alison presented the final report findings on the Tiered Focused Monitoring Group A cycle. The Group A cycle is a review of the Special Education and Civil Rights programming in the District. The TFM evaluations included pulling student records for review, interviews with parents, and on-site visits for interviews and review of Time-Out room spaces (we have one at Dallin Elementary).
The district was found to be in compliance with all review criteria, and no corrective action was needed. There was one area, initial evaluation timelines, where we were found to not be in compliance. (This is because four of seventy-nine IEP meetings didn’t occur within the 45 day timeline.) The corrective actions for this were done in Spring 2022, when the initial TFM process took place.
Here is a link to the final report:
Update on Literacy Curriculum Search by Dr. Roderick MacNeal Jr., Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction:
Presentation Link: Literacy presentation
-A Literacy Core Team was formed to establish a vision for the new K-5 Literacy Program.
-This Literacy Core Team worked with The Hill for Literacy, a contractor who partnered with the District. They used a research-based evaluation tool to consistently evaluate all programs.
-The Core Team narrowed the program choices down to 3 programs in Fall 2022, and a timeline to finish the review process was formed. These 3 programs were chosen by committee.
-One of the major criteria when evaluating programs was whether programs represented/were backed up by the science of reading. Another factor was that the program included multiple identities were represented in its course material.
- At the end, they will meet with publishers and users of the programs, to ask questions and get clarification about the program materials and implementation.
-This is our Tier 1 reading curriculum. Our hope is that by choosing a program that meets the science of reading, that we will have fewer students who require Tier 2 and Tier 3 support.
-Each school has three vertical teams. Among these 3 teams, they are further divided to focus on different parts of the curriculum review. (red, yellow, green chart of focus areas). Each school-based team has a month to complete their review of the curriculum.
-We will have an opportunity to ask questions and provide input before a curriculum is chosen.
-We understand that no one program is going to meet all our needs, but we want to choose the one that meets most of our needs and follows best practices.
-If you have any questions, please email Dr. MacNeal directly or email them to Alison.
Public Participation / New Business / Open Discussion:
- Kate Radville asked about de-implementation of current programming. Will teachers know not to be doing bits and pieces of old curriculum, or to not utilize the phonemic portions of the new programming if our choice is to continue to use Fundations/Hegarty for phonics and phonemic awareness.
Dr. MacNeal’s response: There will be a phased roll-out, because teachers will need to be trained in the new programming. The current Tools of the Mind curriculum will need to be phased out for Kindergarten, for example, and some classroom materials will need to be removed/replaced.
Teachers will have to be coached/supervised to make sure they are properly implementing the new curriculum and not following old curriculum practices. (such as using the pictures, guessing the word by the first sound)
Announcements:
- Our next SEPAC meeting is an evening meeting, on Tuesday, January 10th, at 7:30pm.
Adjourn
