Tag: SEPAC

Call to Order

Introductions: Alison Elmer, Stephanie Greiner, Chris Carlson, Inae Hwang, Jessica Dombrosky, Lynne Bennett, Emily Butler, Julie Moscatel, Sophie Prevost, Sarah Barton, Claudia Donnet, Stephanie Trinkle, Joyce Schlenger, Kristin Burke, Brenda Mahoney

Approve minutes:

– Meeting minutes from February were approved

Officers/committee reports:

– This weekend was the Visions of Community conference by the Federation for Children with Special Needs. It was a virtual conference this year, and Sarah was able to attend. The key note speaker was Dr. Rosemary Allen. She spoke about implicit bias and what it means to be culturally competent and responsive. Sarah also attended a Beyond Basic Rights workshop on dispute resolution during the conference, presented by an Arlington parent and Special Education Lawyer. She also attended a networking lunch with other SEPAC chairs from around the area

– Basic Rights Workshop, Tuesday March 16^th, from 7 to 9pm

– Website is almost finished

– Last month Inae and Jess attended a workshop by Sarah Ward from Cognitive Connections on Executive Function. She spoke about using actual images to help the student visualize what “done” looks like, rather than the usual pictures that are often used as visuals for special education and younger students.

Planning Workshops for the coming year:

– Arlington SEPAC is hosting a Basic Rights – Evaluation and Eligibility Workshop, presented by Phyllis Keenan from the Federation for Children with Special Needs. The workshop is from 7pm to 9pm on Tuesday, March 16^th. You need to register via a link to get the Zoom link and password.

APS Staff reports:

– APS Staff will be meeting again next week with Lauren Bellon and Brenda Mahoney from the Whole Child group to work on developing a social-emotional learning vision for the district.

– Elise Wulff presentation was shared at the Special Education Department meeting among elementary school paraprofessionals for professional development.

– On Friday afternoon the Board of Education approved the Commissioner of Education’s request to return PK-Grade 5 to full time, in person education by April 5^th. Superintendents will be meeting with Commissioner Riley to find out more details about the plan. The school district has been working on planning for an increased return, so there should be more information from Dr. Bodie in the coming weeks. Students who are in Remote Academy can remain in it until the end of the year, but the Hybrid model will be eliminated. Middle and High School students will return around 4 to 5 weeks after the elementary students return. The general education schedules will change rather than repeating the same two days.

– Dr. Bodie has to present a plan for a return to full time at the School Committee meeting on Thursday. In the beginning of the year we banked a professional development day, and it looks like this day will be used to set up during the transition to full time.

– We are continuing to look for staff to cover these increases in students, plus staff to cover the duty-free lunch periods for teachers.

– There will be a forthcoming survey from Dr. Bodie to determine the intentions of parents, especially to gauge the interest among Remote Academy families to return their students to full time. This will determine if staff will also move from Remote Academy to In-Person.

– Related services are likely to remain the same, but the learning specialist/push-in services might change when the general education schedule changes.

-Stephanie Trinkle asked where the paraprofessional job postings were. Alison said they post paraprofessional jobs on School Spring and Indeed.

– Many PTOs are coordinating with parents to help schedule vaccinations for teachers. Also, you can contact Liz Exton of the School Committee for more information.

– Brenda of The Whole Child spoke of how the safe and supportive schools vision meetings have been going. At the last meeting they spoke about having an event day, partially online and partially in person, much like Sarah Burd’s Wellness Day that was planned before the pandemic. With the coming changes of children being back in school full time, there will be much to discuss at the next meeting.

Public participation / New business / Open discussion:

– Sarah said that one of the things discussed at the working SEPAC lunch. Leslie from FCSN is collecting surveys that have been used in the past, like Acton-Boxborough’s annual survey that they’ve done for 15 years. We could present these surveys to parents in our district to find out more about their concerns and interests.

– Brenda mentioned that there are many parents in the district who aren’t sure if SEPAC is the place for them to gain more information. They want to help their child with higher needs which might not be diagnosable or fit into a specific category. Sarah mentioned that your child doesn’t need to have an IEP for you to attend meetings. Anyone who has questions about Special Education and how it runs in the district can attend meetings and learn more. Claudia mentioned that the district information or the Facebook page can be more specific that anyone with interest can attend, to be more welcoming.

– Claudia brought up that Gibbs doesn’t have three different SLC classrooms for the different programs, and that might be something to get feedback on from the survey.

– Stephanie Trinkle brought up how it’s hard to determine the differences in the goals between Arlington SEPAC and The Arlington Sped Alliance (TASA). Inae mentioned how the district can’t do some of the things we wish they could do, and suggested that TASA try legislating to make these changes possible. SEPAC is about communicating and collaborating with the district to get parents and students the information and resources they need.

– Claudia mentioned that this way of having meetings on Zoom is helpful and more convenient for attendees, and wondered if this would continue. Inae mentioned that right now we can do these meetings via Zoom because the Mass State Legislature said we can do meetings via Zoom. SEPAC is subject to Open Meeting Law, and the Legislature states when we have to be in a publicly-accessible place and resume the open meeting requirements. There might be a way to broadcast the meetings online, but this will be in addition to an in-person meeting.

Announcements:

– Our next monthly business meeting is on Tuesday, April 13^th, from 7pm to 8pm on Zoom

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions: Alison Elmer, Stephanie Greiner, Joyce Schlenger, Sarah Barton, Inae Hwang, Jessica Dombrosky, Chris Carlson, Lauren Bellon, Nathan Forster, Cheryl, Katrina Berenstein, Rebekah, Stephanie Trinkle, Eileen Coleman, Jamie Gallo, Mai Oishi, and Marais Young attended

Approve minutes:

– Meeting minutes from January were approved

Officers/committee reports:

– Our workshop on Self Advocacy from Elise Wulff of MGH ASPIRE last month was very well received. Inae sent the video to Claudia Bertoli to be put up on the APS website.

– Basic Rights Workshop, Tuesday March 16^th, from 7 to 9pm

Planning Workshops for the coming year:

– Arlington SEPAC is hosting a Basic Rights – Evaluation and Eligibility Workshop, presented by Phyllis Keenan from the Federation for Children with Special Needs. The workshop is from 7pm to 9pm on Tuesday, March 16^th. You need to register via a link to get the Zoom link and password.

APS Staff reports:

– In January we had the Tiered focus monitoring visit. This happens in the middle of a six year cycle. They are reviewing special education, civil rights, and English learner education. They are telling us to wait 60 days from when they are on-site before issuing us a continuation improvement plan. We expect to get the report back in two months. They sent a survey to parents and got 250 responses and interviewed 15 families, including the two SEPAC chairs.

– Tomorrow night at School Committee they’re going to give the budget proposal for the upcoming year.

– Lauren Bellon from the Whole Child group is working on a social-emotional learning vision for more effectively supporting children and families in a more holistic way, paying attention to mental and physical well-being. They talked today about an eight year plan to implement these changes. It’s a grassroots movement that has been slowly growing and working on outreach.

– Last year, before the pandemic, Sarah Burd was going to host a day of workshops related to Social Emotional Learning.

Public participation / New business / Open discussion:

– Federation for Children with Special Needs is holding their conference virtually this year. The cost is $55 per person, and as part of our membership we are allowed to have one educator attend the conference. Melanie Jarboe is a special education lawyer and is going to be on one of the panels at the conference.

– Collaborative Problem Solving has been used more often at AHS, and looks at behavior through the lens of students/parents/teachers do well when they can, and that discipline issues are due to unsolved problems and lagging skills. Dr. Janger would like to have the high school host a parent workshop in the coming year.

– There is a documentary called “The Kids We Lose” and they have been looking into doing a collaboration with SEPAC to host a screening.

– Wakefield Public Schools is hosting Dr. Stuart Ablon, Director of Think:Kids at MGH, on Thursday night, February 11^th:

https://www.wakefieldstudentsupport.com

– Stephanie Trinkle asked about how the inclusion specialists work to coordinate work and supports with the general educator, special educator, and aides. APS has added data blocks for grade level team meetings and collaboration between special educators and general educators or reading specialists. Every Wednesday afternoon there is also common planning time. Also, if you look on the A Grid of your child’s IEP, you will see the amount of time for consultation between educators/specialists/paraprofessionals.

– Another question was regarding student goals and how they determine progress. Students have end of unit assessments based on curriculum, plus 3 benchmark assessments each year, plus I Ready math assessments (multiple assessments during the year), plus DIBELS assessments, which are nationally normed reading assessments.

Announcements:

– Our next monthly business meeting is on Tuesday, March 9^th, from 9am to 10am on Zoom

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions: Alison Elmer, Sophie Prevost, Chris Carlson, and Stephanie Greiner attended. Liz Exton from the School Committee was also in attendance.

Attendance: Claudia Donnet, Rachel Ostrow, Sarah Barton, Eileen Coleman, Naomi Muller, Rebekah Lea, Sarah Forster, Ileana Gatica Herrera, Claire Johnson, Michele Phelan, Tracy Perneta, Marais Young, Noel Dyer, and Lauren Bellon

Approve minutes:

– Minutes from November 2020 were reviewed and approved

Officers/committee reports:

-We have been working on getting workshops together for the second half of this year

-Work on the new SEPAC website continues and is close to being uploaded

– We used to have an in-district Listserv where parents could opt-in. We have been taking notices from Alison and others and sending them out via arlingtonSEPAC@gmail.com. If you would like to be added to the mailing list, please send an email to the above address so you can be added.

Planning Workshops for the coming year:

– Federation for Children with Special Needs – Basic Rights: Transition Planning for IEP students age 14 to 22 – Monday, December 14^th 6:00pm

– Riverside Community Care’s System of Care Meeting and presentation – Tuesday, December 15^th 9:30am

– SEEM Collaborative’s training on Supporting Children in Remote Learning – 7:00 to 8:30pm on December 15^th

– Elise Wulff, the Director of Children’s Services from ASPIRE at MGH, will be doing a workshop on Helping Kids Learn Self-Advocacy Skills. This workshop will immediately follow our evening SEPAC Business Meeting at 7:00pm to 8:30pm on January 12^th. Sarah will make up a flyer and send it out before the event with the Zoom link.

-We are trying to plan a Basic Rights workshop from FCSN in Arlington, probably happening at the February 9^th evening SEPAC meeting.

-Requests for an Accessible Recreation Fair/Exposition on extracurricular activities and therapies that are available for students who need a higher level of support to participate.

-Inae suggested putting together a committee in order to organize this event.

-Others spoke of ways that the district might be able to support families and these after-school recreation programs in order to minimize the amount of discrimination that occurs and sometimes makes these activities inaccessible for some children with disabilities. Alison suggested having some of the support personnel from school and town recreation programs attend a meeting to talk about what they do to support children with disabilities in these programs.

-Inae also mentioned that it would be nice to also include summer camp options in the Recreation Fair, which didn’t happen the last time we held it.

-Michele suggested holding the Recreation Fair as a Zoom Fair in the spring, with breakout rooms or presentations given in a specific order.

-Augmented and Assistive Communication Options/Providers Workshop – Alison mentioned that we have an AAC coordinator, Amanda Lewitus, who might be able to answer any questions families have on AAC: alewitus@arlington.k12.ma.us

-Chris Carlson provided a link to Recreation Opportunities:

Special Needs Recreation Programs & Events Massachusetts

-We would need to establish a 501c3 in order to raise money for workshops, otherwise any money we raise goes to the School Committee. PTOs have sponsored speakers with us in the past, so this might be another route that we could take to fund workshops in the future. Rebekah Lea is a tax professional who has offered her experience with taxes and filing, should we decide to start a 501c3 in the future. Michele has proposed that those interested in discussing this further should email each other off of Zoom.

APS Staff reports:

-The Superintendent Search Committee extended a contract to Dr. Elizabeth Holman for the 2021-2022 school year. The School Committee is in the process of negotiating that contract.

-Departments and different schools in the district are giving presentations in the end of January to the Budget Committee on their needs for the upcoming year

-The school budget is allocated based on projected needs, and built on funding estimates that we get from the state. There will be meetings where departments give presentations to the budget committee in the next couple of weeks, and the final budget is voted upon in March.

-We will talk about what Special Education has put forth as needs as they continue to move through the budget process.

SEPAC Board Elections:

-Michele Phelan nominated Inae Hwang and Sarah Barton as Co-Chairs and Jessica Dombrosky as Secretary. Eileen Coleman seconded the nomination.

-Inae and Sarah were elected as Co-Chairs, and Jessica was elected as Secretary.

Public participation / New business / Open discussion:

-Rachel Ostrow offered to be the Stratton liason and Marais Young also offered to be a liason

Announcements:

-Our next meeting is Tuesday, January 12^th, at 7pm, which will be a quick 10 minute business meeting, followed by the presentation by Elise Wulff from ASPIRE.

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86234778319?pwd=ZDFPdDNZZjZxbXVwNUYyZDR1VjJsUT09

Meeting ID: 862 3477 8319

Passcode: 043991

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions:

– Alison Elmer, Lynne Bennett, Kristin Burke, Joyce Schlenger, Chris Carlson, Dr. MacNeal, and Stephanie Greiner attended. Brenda Mahoney also was on the Zoom call

Also in attendance: Sarah Barton, Rachel Ostrow, Yael Mandelblat-cerf, Deb Savage, Krasi Petkov, Kate Wolfe, Elisa MacDonald, Stephanie, Vencislav Kourdov, from the Boland-Kourdov family, Emily Butler, Alan Hassell, Amina Grunko, Shira Wolff, Claudia Donnet, Meredith, Sarah Forster, Tashana, Stella Doyle

Approve minutes:

– Minutes from October 2020 and March 2020 were approved.

Officers/committee reports:

– We don’t have any committees in session currently, just Inae and Jess as SEPAC officers

Planning Workshops for the coming year:

– ASPIRE @ MGH has confirmed that Elise Wulff will be doing an evening workshop after the evening SEPAC meeting on January 12^th. The topic is on helping kids learn Self-Advocacy skills.

– Planning is underway for a Basic Rights Workshop from the Federation for Children With Special Needs, probably happening in early 2021.

– Lexington SEPAC has had many workshops and has mentioned that Arlington parents are welcome to attend. Looking into workshops put on by surrounding towns would be a way for parents to find workshops that match their needs. Inae mentioned that all SEPAC workshops in the state are currently open to all.

– Alison frequently sends emails of upcoming workshops for us to send to the SEPAC mailing list. (arlingtonsepac@gmail.com) Please send an email if you wish to be added to the list

– Evidence-based reading supports, or workshops on Executive Functioning challenges are topics that were suggested for possible workshops.

– Workshop on how to cope with the stress of the upcoming winter

– Understanding your Neuropsychological Testing results – How do you interpret what you’re reading in your report.

-Mindfulness workshops with Carla Leone.

– Transition planning after 22

-Mass Rehab Commission – transition planning in the post secondary world, workshops for students as they transition to college or careers after high school.

– Preparing for a post-COVID reality with our kids

– ADHD, Sensory Processing, and Anxiety Disorders are topics that parents would like to see addressed. Maybe mitigating the sensory issues of the current COVID environment.

– Support group to trade success stories or discuss issues for what has and hasn’t worked for their child at home with remote learning.

– Resource/Recreation/Summer Camp Fair – We did this many years ago and it was a huge success. We need a lot of help to organize this kind of event, and we don’t currently have the capacity right now to pull it together with the number of people on our current team.

– A Community Padlet where everyone can contribute their own resources if they have them. (Inae says we have a resource page on our website where we could post vetted resources.)

– Survey of parents in town to find out what skills/talents they might be willing to contribute to a 45 minutes webinar.

APS Staff reports:

– The Superintendent Search Committee recommended two candidates for Superintendent, and the School Committee voted on two finalists this past Wednesday: Dr. Victoria Greer and Dr. Elizabeth Holman. On November 17^th, Dr. Holman will be on site, and on November 18^th, Dr. Greer will be on site.

– School Committee will be discussing the budget, beginning in December.

– Most of the secondary schools have already had their curriculum nights and the elementary schools are finishing up curriculum nights this week.

– All the SEPAC meetings for the year are currently on the school calendar on the district website. Workshops will be posted there as well, when we have dates for them.

Public participation / New business / Open discussion:

– It has been suggested that we put off having elections for SEPAC officers until the spring. Last year’s elections were postponed due to COVID. Deb suggested putting it off until June, because parents don’t have much time to contemplate running for webmaster/media officer, membership officer, secretary/Outreach officer, or co-chair. Many others agree that it’s too soon for some people to commit to running for an officer position.

– We need to remedy the fact that we’re overdue for elections, because we are a legally proscribed body. Alan suggested that we can have an election in December, and then again by June we should have a goal of filling all five of the officer spots. Inae agreed that an election in December and then again in June is the right way to remedy the fact that we are overdue for electing officers.

– Inae is nominating herself for the position of Chair, Jess is nominating herself for the position of Secretary, and Sarah is nominating herself for the Co-Chair position.

-We will have elections for officer positions in December

– Deb has asked us all to craft a paragraph stating our visions for SEPAC in the upcoming year, before the June elections.

-Nominations for the June election will be in May.

Announcements:

– The next SEPAC meeting will be December 8^th at 7pm. The zoom link will be the same as with this meeting. The January 12^th meeting will be moved to the evening (7pm) so it can coincide with the MGH ASPIRE workshop. The February 9^th meeting will also be at 7pm.

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions – Alison Elmer, Dr. MacNeal, Chris Carlson, Joyce Schlenger, Kristin Burke, Sophie Prevost (Dallin/Hardy/Brackett/Pierce), and Stephanie Greiner attended. Liz Exton from the School Committee (SEPAC liaison) also attended.

Minutes from March approved pending editing after distribution over email

Officers/Committee Reports –

– The abrupt removal of students from buildings in March interrupted workshops we had planned for the end of last year. We are still currently working on getting the planned workshop from ASPIRE @ MGH.

– We also did not officially hold elections for SEPAC officers/board members at the end of last year due to the pandemic. Next month we will put up nominations, so if you would like to be considered for a board position, please send a notice to Jessica Dombrosky, SEPAC secretary (jessdombrosky@gmail.com) or Inae Hwang (inaehwang@gmail.com)

Current positions are Chair/Co-Chair, Secretary, Member at Large, Graphic Design/Web Design/Development

Planning Workshops for the Coming Year –

– Mass Rehab Commission (MRC) Transition Services (October 28^th, 7pm). Please email Jess Dombrosky if you wish to be added to our email list and receive notifications of upcoming workshops.

– In the last few years, SEPAC has co-hosted a parent information workshop with Mass Rehab Commission. Mass Rehab Commission helps with training, resume help, other services for students ages 14+ as they get ready to transition to college or career.

– SEPAC also hosts an annual Basic Rights workshop, from the Federation for Children With Special Needs.

– Elise Wulff from MGH ASPIRE was supposed to do a workshop on disclosure last spring. She has been doing a lot of Zoom seminars recently and feels comfortable doing Zoom for the previously planned workshop, for free. She is wondering if we want to change the topic to one that is more relevant now. (ASPIRE caters to children and adults with high cognitive autism/related disabilities)

– Carla Leone has previously done Mindfulness workshops with us, and might be willing to run another mindfulness workshop for families/possibly also students

– A caregivers guide to remote learning by Sharee Eavens, from a social-emotional agency up in Wilmington, MA

APS Staff Reports –

– We are entering into week 4 and you’ve been receiving updates from Dr. Bodie. COVID testing has resumed for our teachers, and it’s a proactive step to help keep our staff and students safe, and our schools open. The 4^th and 5^th grade at Stratton are currently remote due to a singular teacher there testing positive. Another staff member at Peirce also tested positive but it was determined that they didn’t have close contacts so no cohorts needed to be in quarantine.

– The IEP notifications you received over the summer were in relation to how the IEP services would be implemented differently due to the pandemic (Special Education Learning Plan (SELP)). The next memo you should receive will be related to compensatory services due to the shut down last spring. Students were still entitled to a free and appropriate public education. It needs to be assessed whether or not the student with an IEP made effective progress, and whether or not they require general education level recovery supports or whether they require additional compensatory services to make effective progress. Another consideration is whether or not new services need to be added to the IEP to address NEW disability related needs that may have developed during the closure (ie: services related to anxiety related to online learning)

– FAQ on DESE website explains in clear terms the things that parents would need to consider and discuss with their Team at IEP meetings.

Public Participation/New Business –

– Outreach difficulties – Special Education voluntary listserv no longer works, so our outreach to parents is limited. You can opt in privately to the private gmail SEPAC list. We are looking for ways to increase our ability to reach the district as a whole.

In the past, there was an Arlington SEPAC Facebook page, and it was open for comment. The page became a toxic place due to the commenting and the School Committee said that it needed to be shut down. Since SEPAC is an advisory committee to the School Committee, instead of a 501c3, we can’t have our own page without School Committee approval. Having our own public presence on Facebook would make it easier for people to find us.

– Website is almost ready to be posted, hopefully by the end of October, and that would be another way to reach people.

– Liz asked if there was a way to recreate the email list on the new School Messenger. Alison said that it would still be an opt-in list. Inae reported that IT stated that coming up with a mailing list short of emailing everyone wasn’t feasible. Currently, School Messenger doesn’t differentiate between students with IEPs and students without IEPs, nor is it an opt-in tool.

– Alison suggested we can distribute a survey to parents so they can opt into an email list if they are interested in joining. Inae said that we still have real barriers to reaching people in district since distribution of information from principals and administrators depends on the building.

– Krasimira (Peirce parent) Elementary School PTOs put together their own directory, and parents fill in those forms with their directory information. They can add a question for opting into the SEPAC mailing list and then send information of all who opt in our way.

– Janet asked about whether other parents were also having challenges with asynchronous Wednesdays, and whether the district had any plans for addressing this. Inae mentioned that Wednesdays have been challenging for many, including general education students. Alison mentioned that she could reach out to her child’s Special Ed liaison to problem solve for specific accommodations/strategies for Wednesdays.

– Lauren Bellon – wanted to follow up on two letters written to APS from TASA posing questions for the Supt. Search Committee, regarding executive functioning and language learning challenges. Also, how can meeting minutes be distributed after they’ve been approved. Inae answered that after meeting minutes have been approved, they are sent to Karen Fitzgerald to be posted. She also said that the questions from the TASA letters are on her mind as she crafts questions to ask the candidates. They only get 60 to 90 minutes with each candidate, and each candidate must get through multiple rounds of expertise to clear the hurdle of the first round of interviews. The initial number of questions is around 15, and they are limited in the scope of questions they are able to cover in that time. Questions are drafted as a group/committee. There will be more opportunities for more specific input at a later time this year.

– Lauren also wonders what the forum/avenue is for parents who aren’t having satisfactory responses from the staff in their building, and whether they should be going to SEPAC before bringing up issues before the School Committee. SEPAC has no power, we are merely an informing body. We try to work collaboratively with Alison and her department, but we are an advising body with budgetary constraints.

– Stewart asked whether there was a School Committee member who was a liason/helped run the SEPAC. Inae said while there is a liason, SEPAC is run by volunteers, not the School Committee.

– Sarah mentioned that there are Special Education communication and organizational charts on the district Special Education website (on the left hand column of the website).

Links:

Organization Chart:

Click to access specialedorganizationchart.pdf

Communication Ladder:

Click to access specialedcommunicationladder.pdf

Announcements –

– Our next meeting is on Tuesday, November 10^th, at 9am via Zoom. The link will be the same as the one from tonight.

– We are still looking for folks to join us, so if you want to get involved, let us know.

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions:
-Alison, Lynne, Joyce, Kristen and Chris attended.

Approve Minutes:
– Minutes could not be approved because we didn’t have enough people from the February meeting
present. We will attempt to approve them in April.

Officers/committee reports:
– We are changing our April 14th business meeting to start at 6:45pm in the Gibbs Media Center so we can hold it before the Disclosure workshop (7 to 9pm).
– Jess is almost finished working on the new SEPAC website.
– Inae is hoping to go before the school committee and request that we be able to have a SEPAC Facebook group that is for posting information only (only admins can post, no comments allowed).

Planning Workshops:
– Elise Wulff from MGH ASPIRE will be holding a workshop on Disclosure at our April 14th Business Meeting.

APS Staff Reports:
– Intelligent Lives screening was held yesterday evening. The panel discussion after was informative and
touched on topics such as inclusion and disclosure.
– The legislature passed the student opportunity act, and Arlington was one of around 30 districts who
received funding due to our enrollment growth. We are planning to use the additional funds to target early literacy initiatives and the achievement-opportunity gap/sub-groups affected by the achievement-opportunity gap. At the elementary level this will mean adding certified reading specialists instead of reading tutors to improve equity based on student enrollment in each school. Much of this is geared toward general education, but if we improve Tier 1 outcomes, the likelihood of students requiring special ed services diminishes. In the high school, funds will be used to add special ed staff and general ed staff
so co-taught clusters can be more effective (mostly in ELA, science, math). Ottoson will be adding
special ed staff as well.
– Inae is concerned that the change in curriculum since adding Tools of the Mind has impacted the literacy
rates because it changes when the Fundations curriculum is taught. Ensuring that our math coaches have
the flexibility and understanding to work with diverse populations is also important if our math
interventions are to be effective.
– Ottoson is adding another half cluster (due to increased enrollment), and we are looking into adding a
special educator to that cluster.
– We are in the mid-cycle for TFM (course monitoring). There will be an announcement in the paper with
a number to call if you’d like to do a survey and then be interviewed by the DESE representatives.
– There isn’t any progress on getting a new SPED mailing list. It is possible to create one through school
messenger and using power school to determine who receives an email, but it wouldn’t include those who
aren’t currently receiving special education services, so publicizing it so people can opt in would be
important.
– Middle School transition nights (5th to 6th, 6th to 7th) do not have definite dates yet.

Public Participation:
–

Announcements:
–

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions

Approve Minutes:
– Minutes from January were approved

Officers/Committee Reports:
– Successful and huge January meeting. We had over 20 people attend.
-Website is Under Construction and we’re working on getting it up onto the district site by the end of the
spring.

Planning Workshops:
– Winchester is hosting a number of upcoming workshops at the Winchester Public Library (add from
email)
– Arlington High School will be holding a screening of the film “Intelligent Lives” on March 9th
at 6:00pm in the Lowe Auditorium.
– Lexington is hosting a SEPAC/Recreation Fair on Saturday April 4th from 10am to 1pm at the Lexington Community Center Room, 39 Marrett Rd, Lexington.
– Belmont is also hosting a SEPAC resource fair at Butler Elementary on Wednesday March 28th
from 7pm-9pm.
– Elise Wulff from MGH ASPIRE will be holding a workshop on Disclosure at our April 14th
Business Meeting.
– Mindfulness workshop with Carla Leone – we are trying to arrange a mindfulness workshop (possibly
one that might also involve students) by the end of the year, most likely in June.

APS Staff Reports:
– Alison was unable to attend this month’s meeting.
– Still no word on what the dates are for the middle school transition nights.

Public Participation:
– Loubna asked about whether any surrounding towns were hosting Basic Rights Workshops. Jessica
offered to email the workshop handouts.

Announcements:
–
Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions – Alison, Joyce, Lynne, Stephanie, Chris, Christina and Bill Hayner attended.

Approve Minutes – Minutes from December were approved.

Officers/committee reports –

– We did Basic Rights Workshop in October, Clare Vann, a lawyer from the Federation, did the presentation, and she had a new perspective.

– Having trouble getting principals to post the agendas at their schools so parents know about upcoming meetings. Many PTOs are posting them.

Workshops –

– Rec Fair: Will not be happening this year, unfortunately. Two years ago we had a great turnout, and we’d like to get it off the ground again. We could reach out to other SEPACs in surrounding towns to put on an event together, but since many members are volunteers it’s challenging to coordinate everyone. Reached out to Somerville, Medford, Lexington.

– Disclosure Workshop from ASPIRE: MGH ASPIRE is willing to do a free workshop on Disclosure (how you talk to your child about their diagnosis and how they can talk to the world about their disability). Tuesday, April 14^th, Elise Wolf will come to the SEPAC meeting at Gibbs and do the presentation.

-Movie screening at the High School – “Intelligent Lives” – 6pm March 9^th in the Lowe auditorium at the high school. The movie follows young adults as they navigate their lives post high school.

– Transition Night in the spring:

-Gibbs: not planned yet

-Ottoson: not planned yet

-High School: Rising 9^th grade parents – January 22^nd 6 to 8:15pm in the high school auditorium

Special Ed presentation is between 7:30 and 8:15 after main presentation

– Mindfulness workshop: Carla Leone would do the presentation at some point in the spring. Past presentations have been on mindfulness before the team meeting and with having a child with a disability. We are still trying to decide what flavor of mindfulness we’d like to present this time. We might include students and do mindfulness with families as a whole.

APS Staff Reports –

– The school district (elementary/secondary) along with the teacher’s union presented on their budget priorities. Public school committee meeting and participation from public will happen in the beginning of February. The School Committee then comes up with a number and the budget committee then votes on whether to approve the budget.

– MRC (Mass Rehab Commission) has partnered with AHS to hold a vendor fair for students approaching transition from school services into adult services (internships, job training, resume help). This year the event is put on hold because the person on their end who organized it in the past is currently out.

Public Participation –

– Survey: Claudia worked on survey questions on special education services at Gibbs that didn’t fit into the general survey they worked on at Gibbs. They suggested she present the questions to SEPAC. Inae and Alison discussed combining efforts to make the survey a district-wide survey that would figure out how much people really know about special ed services, how you access them, whether parents are aware of certain supports and resources available to them in the district. They are working on getting the Superintendent to send it out to her list, to reach a wider audience. Sending it to parents of general ed and special ed parents is good PR for our programs.

– Bill – The 501c3 is better than a line item for raising money, because with a 501c3, you control the money, and if the money is in a line item, the school committee controls that line item. (SEPAC currently doesn’t have a dedicated budget for anything, so at the December meeting we discussed ways to get presentations funded when most of them cost money. A budget line item was brought up as a way to fund presentations and other workshops. Most current workshops (except the Basic Rights put on by the Federation for Children with Special Needs) are donated.

– Would love a future workshop on Gender and autism. The Lurie Center has a workshop currently on this topic, and there are support groups locally for people who identify as LGBTQIA+ and fall on the autism spectrum. We can look into contact information.

Announcements –

– Next SEPAC meeting is at 7pm on February 11^th in the Gibbs Media Center. There will be a social hour immediately following the meeting.

Adjourn

Call to Order

Introductions: Alison attended.

Approve Minutes: Minutes from November SEPAC meeting were approved.

Officers/Committee Reports:

– We are still working on a survey to send out to parents with questions on their knowledge about SEPAC. This would help us to determine the best way to reach people and increase parent involvement.

– We will have a webpage up by the spring.

Workshops:

– Rec Fair Update: Inae hasn’t gotten an update from Erin since our last meeting.

– Transition night in the spring (Gibbs/Ottoson/High School): We have often had special education staff present at the transition night to help inform parents about the types of programming and supports available at the secondary levels. Many of the transition nights also have presentations on special education programs, but we have also had separate nights for parents of kids in special ed. The feedback we got was that the presentation done by Lynne at the high school was more comprehensive than the presentations for the middle schools.

– We talked to Aspire about a workshop on Disclosure (when and how to tell your child about their disability, or talking about your own disability if you’re older) and they said they would come and do a workshop for free. It might also be good to partner with groups like Rainbow Alliance or Queer Student Alliance to host the workshop if we go with Disclosure as a topic. Sarah is going to talk to Elise about the content of the presentations. Neurodiversity could also be a possible workshop topic. Possible dates for the workshop could be end of March or April.

– We will be looking into having Sarah Burd attend a future meeting and speak again about the Social Emotional Learning programs and supports in the district.

APS Staff Reports:

– We’re taking budget input from SEPAC for the next fiscal year (FY2020) to present to the school committee. Starting this Thursday, if you tune into the School Committee meetings, you’ll hear presentations from different parts of the district (secondary, elementary, Special Ed).

– Last year was the first year we discussed a 5 year plan in the district. In order to achieve equity or even parity, we need to increase the number of specialists such as OT and PT in the elementary schools. We’re also looking to add 0.5 OT, 1.0 PT-A, and no SLP assistants to support our specialists. These are our budget requests, and the superintendent will present the final plan to the school committee.

– In our supported learning programs, we’d like to see that all the support staff for the programs are BSPs (Behavior Support Personnel). Our learning specialists also have TAs who support students in the classroom.

Public Participation/ New Business/ Open Discussion:

– Inae suggested a line item/revolving account to present to the school committee so we can raise money to fund SEPAC events and presentations. School committee members previously suggested we form a 501c3 “Friends of SEPAC,” but there’s really no reason why we couldn’t have that and a line item. Other items, such as equipment like standing desks, slant boards, and curriculum items like improving Social Emotional Learning, were also discussed.

Adjourn