SpEAC meeting December 9, 2010
Dr. Murphy reported that the Bancroft transition plan is almost complete – about 90% formulated. Bancroft is going to start its transition out of district which will take about 1 to 1.5 years.
The Roberts school is the first school to start the phase out. Every paraprofessional (“para”) will be trained in the building. The training will be done in stages and will take about 5 days with 6 hours of training each session. Bancroft will aim to do one school a month due to the intensity of the training and coverage.
Bancroft will bring in staff to cover the paras while they are training. Additionally, some CST members are going to attend the training to hear what is being taught.
The Bancroft staff that will be doing the training are Sharon Jurman, Dawn Vitello – Megan ? and John ?. Each of these individuals will train the paras in their respective areas of expertise. Topics which will be covered are: Intro to ABA, overview of Autism, challenging behaviors, data collection, communication. Paras will engage in roll playing and will have homework. Bancroft will also analyze data collection to determine fade out.
There will be training to handle individuals with Asperger’s syndrome.
We are not talking about home programs or out of district placements at this point.
Elementary and secondary paras will be trained with emphasis on behaviors and issues unique to different age groups. This program is compulsory and as new paras are hired, they will be trained. After the training is completed, Bancroft will again observe paras and see if “tweaking” is needed.
Ultimately, we would like to hire our own behavioral specialist.
The design group plan is in draft form but ready to be approved. The annual yearly progress (AYP) failed special education and the economically disadvantaged. Discussion focused on the testing methods and some of the reasons why special education is so difficult to test and achieve the required benchmarks.
Linda Alexandroff then gave the school board update. The 21st of December is the next school board meeting. There will also be another negotiating session next week. The board is working on the budget.
A motion was made by Scott and seconded by Kim to approve September and November’s meeting minutes. The motion was unanimously approved.
Scott then presented last year’s and this year’s budget. There is no estimate of in kind donations from last year to figure out what we will need for food, etc for this year’s conference.
A general discussion was then held regarding the MEF grant. We can ask for up to $5000 as long as we have a 25% match from another corporation. We need to put a budget together for the grant.