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Home My WebLink About2021-03-18-SEPAC-SEPTA-min Lexington Special Education Parent Advisory Council(SEPAC) Lexington Special Education Parent Teacher Association(SEPTA) Business Meeting Minutes March 18,2021 Attendees: Carissa Black,Colette Powell,Maria Bertram,Roseanne Bonardi,Sara Cuthbertson,Scott Bokun,Anna Miler, Bronte Abraham,Christina Lin,Christy Waller,Heidi Mann,Mona Roy,Nicole Locher,Sarah Carter,Stephanie Hsu,Arvind Sudarsanam Call to order: 7:04pm Location:Zoom Carissa read Governor Baker's Executive Order from March 12,2020,which allows public meetings to be conducted remotely due to the state emergency related to the COVID-19 outbreak. Adjourn:8:57pm Approval of minutes for 01/21/21 meeting: • Small error: Change membership total from 154 to 164. • Approved and seconded. Nominating Committee: • Mona Roy,Heidi Mann,and Christy Waller nominated to serve on the 2021-2022 committee. • Approved and seconded. Officer reports: • Co-Chairs: o COVID-19 Surveillance Testing: ■ Karen Rufo is researching whether LPS can provide a nasal swab option for children who cannot provide a saliva sample. ■ They committed to encouraging staff and students in classrooms where mitigation techniques can't always be used to take advantage of weekly pooled testing. o Quartery Meeting: ■ Progress Reports: • Plans for a new Fall progress report for elementary schools are progressing. • LPS is determining the best format and steps necessary on their end to institutionalize it. ■ LHS Student Advisory Committees: • We have two great student representatives on the committees,one of which is neurodiverse. • Have committed to work with the District to help develop some best practices around how to help include neurodiverse students in these types of after-school or non-school-hour activities. ■ Electronic Use Policies: • SC policy sub-committee would like to review electronic use policies and provide more detailed guidance to staff to make sure that disclosures don't happen. • It was suggested to SC Liaisons that it would be helpful to have an approved way to electronically sign documents like IEPs. • Questions from the SEPAC membership around the correct pathway to discuss concerns about staff members. o Tiered Monitoring Review: ■ LPS is undergoing its 3-year review. Special Education parents should have received a survey from DESE in March. The SEPAC Co-chairs also met with the DESE representative earlier this month. • Treasurer: o Current balance$13,739. o Dues/Donations$8,044. We've exceeded our dues/donations goal of$6,000. o Continue to try to find impactful ways to spend down the balance. • Membership: 0 176 members,which is a 14%increase since beginning of year. o Social media outreach has been the primary form of outreach. o LexFUN is interested in having SEPTA present,so will be setting up that for April. o Colette attended the PPC Community Roundtable and was able to connect with many community groups in Lexington,and will work with Maria on the best ways to connect going forward. Of particular interest was ELPAC and helping them navigate special education and IEP meetings. Vaccine Appointment Initiative: • Initially started as a way to support SPED staff,especially those who cannot take advantage of mitigation factors. • Launched on 3/5,but quickly expanded district-wide on 3/7 with the help of Hastings and Estabrook PTOs. • Over 100 parents and community members volunteered to help find appointments. • —200 appointments as of 3/14. 0 40%of appointments were teachers,28%were SPED staff. o Overall booked appointments for 13%of LPS staff,25%of aides,34%of counseling staff,and 17%of LHS. • Feedback from staff has been extremely uplifting after such a hard year. • Next steps: o Still booking appointments,but pace at LPS has slowed. o Exploring expanding within Lexington to transportation groups. o Partnering with Worcester Public Schools to provide the same service to their school employees. Support Group Updates: • Dyslexia (Nicole): o Had first Dyslexia Task Force Meeting on Tuesday;additional meetings scheduled for April and May. ■ Kathy McCarthy gave an update on gened literacy and K and 15Y graders are doing fairly well given the pandemic. LPS was able to do the dyslexia screenings,and hoping for more detailed numbers in the next meeting. ■ LPS is planning to do more formative assessments when students return full-time in April. ■ Had a discussion around Reading Recovery and some differing opinions. Optimistic that those conversation will continue. ■ Some discussion on summer school options. LPS will provide more details at the next meeting. o Hosted two parent support group meetings this week. ■ Young families aren't familiar with how to ask for help and how to go about. Is there an option to do a second Spring Basic Rights or other option? ■ ACTION: Colette will review website listings and also check with the Federation to see if they have recorded sessions. Also will look for learning disability-specific topics. • IDD (Heidi): o Hosted a support group meeting in February and had a few new attendees. o Some of the families that participated didn't identify with a specific disability. Might be worth considering adding a general disability support group for those who don't fit into one of the current groups. o Concerned about DLP numbers in the middle school and the sustainability of the program when numbers drop to low single digits. School Committee Updates: • Full Return plans are getting worked on now,and LPS is not expecting a large disruption at elementary level. • Solicited feedback on plans,and several members brought up suggestions for discussion at the CIT meetings. o Clarity on schedules and teacher changes as soon as possible so parents have time to prepare students for the transitions. o Clarity on if teachers at HS will remain remote and Zoom into classrooms. o A desire for more detailed plans about how the District will support transitions. o ESY and Compensatory Services School Liaison Updates: • Estabrook(Rian): o Spring ETS Special Education coffee will be 4/1 at gam. There's a survey to fill out with feedback,which is linked in the chat. • Hastings (Christy): o Principal Lipsitz retiring,so will have a new principal next year. • LHS (Mona): o Spring ETS Special Education parent chat scheduled for April 6th.