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September 14, 2006 Meeting |
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The Sevier County Special Education Parent Advisory Committee (SC SpEd PAC) held its twenty-first meeting on September 14, 2006. Two members attended. New Topics · Meetings for 2006-2007 A couple members mentioned that meetings during the school day are better for them, so we are bringing back a
morning and an afternoon session for next year. We'll do two evening meetings as well, one each semester.
This will cover those who can't do the meetings during the day meetings and also because this gives the members
a chance to attend the after-school training sessions.
Our remaining meetings are
Attracting New Members
We all need to be on the look out for members who would be good. Here's a direct link to the application. Jeff gave out versions in English and in Spanish at the meeting. Related to the recruiting need is the need to balance membership from different schools, student age ranges, and student functioning levels. This balanced representation was an idea from the start of the PAC. However, with only 2 to 6 members attending each meeting and working on the issues, willingness to get involved in the PAC is the overriding qualification for membership right now. With that in mind, Jeff resurrected the activities priority listing developed at the very first PAC meeting in February 2003. Please complete the activity priorities listing before the November 2 meeting and bring it. Thanks! Cyclical Performance Review Here are the results of the parent survey for school year 2005-2006 . We got back only 178 after sending out more than we ever have. That's the bad news. The good is that once again, the responses are overwhelmingly positive. Kathy Dufau helped with the tallying. Jeff shared the parents comments (not included on the linked file). SpEd Parents Library In the section of the SpEd Materials Center nearest to Jeff's desk, he has started a lending library for parents. With titles such as Powers’ Children with Autism: A Parents’ Guide, The Physicians’ Desk Reference Family Guide, and the Wrights’ From Emotions to Advocacy: The Special Education Survival Guide, this section of the special education materials library is specific to the parents’ information needs. See Jeff about what all is there and how to sign out books, journals, or tapes. Ongoing Topics
We have some information on how a few counties close by are doing before school/after school childcare, but we need to work out the level of need/interest county wide to having a service that is special education specific and 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. Jeff has spoken with Pam Walker of Kid's Place a few times, with nothing settled yet. 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, Megan Duhon, and Brian Sims are the only volunteers 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.
Only a few members have signed up for our 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 doesn't take long. 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. Since we'll be meeting less and working by subcommittee more, the Yahoo Group will become a useful way of communicating SpEd PAC business. Please join it! Afters/Meeting Closers Jeff distributed information from TennCare and from People First of Tennessee, Inc. People First is involved in transition to work training and Jane Smith is the East Tennessee coordinator (423) 623-3416. If you couldn't make the meeting and would like either set of handouts, contact Jeff by e-mail or phone (865-748-7711). Next Meeting Thursday, November 2, 6:00 pm at the Sevier County High School Library, Sevierville. |
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