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March 10, 2005 Meeting |
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The Sevier County Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SC SpEd PAC) held its fifteenth meeting on March 10, 2005. Six members attended. New Topics Jeff Moore, the Principal of Parkway Academy, attend the February 23-25 statewide SpEd Conference. Among the highlights he came back with:
TCAP week is coming. Jeff Romanczuk mentioned that the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program's (TCAP) Academic Skills Assessment (ASA) alternative did a writing assessment this year for the first time. (Last year, even those doing the TCAP Alt ASA during TCAP week had to do the regular Writing Assessment if they were in 5th, 8th, or 11th grade.) As a result, the TCAP Alt addendum used at IEP meetings has changed a little (on page 2). On February 17 and 18, Jeff attended the score scaling session for the TCAP Alt Writing (with 22 other SpEd teachers from across the state). We set samples of each number grade from among the TCAP Alt Writing assessments our 5th, 8th, and 11th graders did in early February. At this SpEd PAC meeting, Jeff gave out the rubric for GenEd and the February session’s revised rubric for TCAP Alternative. However, the real scorers won’t use the rubric to grade the TCAP Alt Writing assessments. They will assign scores from 1 to 6 (below proficient to advanced) based on several examples of papers that got each number grade from the scale setting group. Jeff also mentioned that the TCAP Alt portfolios are being scored between now and the end of April. Each one is looked at individually by three teachers, who each score it based on the same instructions but without knowing what the other scorers came up with. The middle score of the three is the one the student gets for TCAP reporting purposes. Jeff also talked about the letter going out to the families of SpEd students (probably at your next IEP meeting) to say that we may be sharing information on the student with consultants for the federal government so that we can be reimbursed for certain health and counseling services that the school system provides. The Web-based fee-for-service claim system is already in place. We’ll track all SpEd students receiving PT, OT, nursing, and social worker counseling, but only those not privately insured (that is, those on Tenncare alone) will be sent for reimbursement. Jeff attended a 12-hour training on the mapping database Sevier County will start using next school year. It’s a graphic relational database that can be used for mapping bus routes, planning where to put new schools, and checking whether or not an address is within the county. It can also print out the stops in a bus run and pull who (by name) and how many kids should be picked up at each stop (handy for a substitute driver to have). It seems pretty flexible and adaptable. In fact, there are so many functions the user can tailor to a specific query that it was tough to keep them all straight. Previously, Kathy Dufau asked about social skills and independent living preparation training. Two follow-ups for this:
Jeff also mention that it is annual parent survey time. These are due back to him by April 7. Ongoing Items Jeff gave Samantha Ensley a few more transition items and information on Breakthrough, a Knoxville-based non-profit organization that provides social and exercise activities for adults with autism. John suggested we start an after-school childcare specifically for the special education students. We have some information on how a few counties close by are doing it, but we need to work out the level of need/interest county wide to figure out at what schools to locate this childcare and what needs might be unique to Sevier County. We intend to offer tutoring and enrichment activities during these hours and there will be a charge for this service. Jeff and Allen Lee have been checking with similar programs to figure our staffing and financing issues. Anyone else interested contact Jeff by e-mail or phone (748-7711). Jeff asked for volunteers to serve as individual education planning meeting parent advocates. We're thinking that, especially for the parents of newly diagnosed students, it might be good if they had an experienced parent to talk to ahead of time about what will happen at the IEP meeting. This advocate could also attend the IEP meeting and provide whatever assistance the parent might need (from finding the meeting location to translating SpEd jargon). Kathy Dufau is the only volunteer right now. Anyone else interested should contact Jeff by e-mail or phone (748-7711). These parent advocates don't have to be SpEd PAC members, but they do have to be (or have been) parents of Sevier County Special Education students. Jeff will pass along to the SpEd Consulting and Lead Teachers the names of those parents interested in helping. Jeff started an online Yahoo! Group for the SpEd PAC. If you aren't already signed up for it, when you go to the link, the first button you'll have to click on is the "Join this group!" one. If you are already a Yahoo! member, your current log on will work. If not, you'll need to sign up for your own ID and password, which isn't too tedious. We have only five signed up so far. Once we get a few more members, we can use this online group for messages to all, file and picture sharing, polls, meeting notifications, and live chat. Next Meeting May 2, 2:30 pm at the Trula Lawson Center. |
