SEPAC MEETING MINUTES – 12/17/15

Attendees:

Jennifer Fay-Beers, Linda Kokoros, Leah Nabstedt, Jeffrey Rubin and Kristen Zechello

Minutes from the November 30, 2015meeting went through final approval and are being forwarded on for submission to the School Committee.

New

  • SEPAC Membership meeting scheduled for 12/10/15 at 6pm, Thayer Library had to be cancelled

Current

Subcommittee Updates/Goals for the school year 2015-2016:

  • MCAS/PARCC(Eileen Donohue -Chair)
  • See update below
  • Anti-Bullying (Linda Kokoros - Chair)
  • Boston vs. Bullying will be implemented and we as a group will seek feedback from each school as the program is rolled out.
  • iCare program implemented at the Integrated Pre-school and Monatiquot. Staff are very supportive of the program and Meredith Lincoln at the preschool has been identified as a point person. She has reached out to SEPAC to offer to help (i.ecoordinate, fundraise, etc.) to help get the program off the ground.
  • Diversity (Suzanne Brouillard – Chair)
  • A parent night will be advertised in all elementary schools that is scheduled for that March 7th at 6:15 at Town Hall. The SEPAC email list will also be informed of this event. SEPAC will bekept informed of details as they arise from Mrs. Fay-Beers so that a representative can attend as a resource for parents.
  • Community Inclusion Awards (Kristen Zechello-Chair) - No update at this meeting
  • Community Outreach (Kristen Zechello-Chair) - No update at this meeting
  • SEPAC Website - (Suzanne Brouillard-Chair)
  • Hoping to change the structure a bit to show subcommittee topics to guide parents to particular resources.
  • Braintree is investigating more options for websites for schools since the GPvillage platform is not the most user friendly.
  • SEPAC Facebook Page - (Leah Nabstedt -Chair)
  • Mrs. Nabstedt will put together another advertisement for Facebook that can be sent out to remind folks to “like” the page to receive updates.
  • Transition (Leah Nabstedt - Chair) – No update at this meeting

Open

PARCC the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career

  • PARCC scores were sent out to parents and they seemed to be fairly understandable.
  • Rebecca Fredericks and Courtney Miller have done some of their elementary presentations to go over the “by school” PARCC results and drill down to the areas in need of improvement.
  • January Professional Development will be geared toward the subgroup categories that teachers have requested in response to the presentations done at each school.

Ongoing Space Concerns/School Building Committee – No update at this meeting

  • School Building Committee met December 7th.
  • January School Committee meeting (either the 11th or the 25th) there should be a more official plan presented.

Support/Resources for students with anxiety - Update

  • The social and emotional health of students is a prevalent topic currently and the effect of a student struggling with anxiety is absolutely going to impact the classroom, and teachers.
  • The group discussed the differences between an Adjustment Counselor vs. Guidance Counselor vs. a Licensed Social Worker. Several districts nearby (Quincy, for example) have this type of position in their middle and high schools.
  • The group discussed possibly bringing in speakers for older students to discuss self-advocacy and strategies that helped them when they were students. The group felt that having folks who have been challenged in a similar way would make the presentation more relatable for students currently struggling with issues associated with anxiety and other related disorders.

Connect Ed Email for Workshop Announcements - Update

  • SEPAC requested that the Central Office either communicate with Principals and encourage sharing SEPAC Information via Connect Ed or communicate globally on SEPAC’s behalf about SEPAC workshops to assist with boosting parent involvement and participation. Mrs. Fay-Beers was supportive of idea and had spoken to Dr. Hackett about this. Mrs. Fay-Beers said that the day before we want an announcement to go out to emailher.
  • Mrs. Fay-Beers will have a discussion with Dr. Hackett about the particulars (for example, just sending out an email vs. a phone call) to ALL parents district wide for SEPAC events.

PDP Procedure for Braintree Staff to attend SEPAC Workshops

  • Mr. Rubin and Mrs. Fay-Beers will get the SEPAC Workshops in SMART.EDU so that teachers can sign up for our workshops beginning for the February 3rd workshop “Effective Communication and the IEP”.
  • Mrs. Fay-Beers will ensure that all staff get notified of the sign up on SMART.EDU.

Health and Human Development Curriculum for Students with Special Needs - Update

  • Mrs. Fay-Beers investigated specifically who is getting health classes and discovered 7th grade attends Health for half the year on 3 of 7 days in a cycle. In her discussions, Mrs. Fay-Beers discovered that in fact not all 7th graders are getting a health course.
  • Health is considered a “special” not an academic course.
  • Mr. Rubin shared that he attended a meeting for an out of district school that focused on “life skills” every day. Mr. Rubin shared that we may need to look at this for some of the substantially separate programs.
  • For example, there has been discussion about the STRIVES program incorporating a health componentin the summer.
  • Most students in substantially separate settings are already working on these skills in isolation based on their specific IEP goals.
  • Discussion focused mostly on students that would be included in a main stream health class but not quite understand because of their cognitive/social/language based or other learning challenges. How can we ensure those students will get the appropriate support that they require to grasp these abstract issues?

Parent/Teacher Conference Scheduling, Term 1

  • Mrs. Fay-Beers had several conversations with Principals regarding the issue of not all Special Educators and specialists being available for on-line scheduling. There will be more communication among administrators for next term conferences so that all teachers are included in the on-line scheduling.
  • SEPAC will follow up with parents via our email list to let them know to reach out to principals if they have any questions or don’t see a teacher they’d like to meet with.

Open Discussion

  • Mrs. Kokoros shared with the group a note received from Julianne Quintiliani, Special Education teacher from Morrison. “Ms. Q” wrote SEPAC a lovely letter thanking them for their donation of the stand-up desk for one of her students.

Next Meeting

  • January 21, 2016 11:45am at BHS Special Services Office

Minutes prepared by

  • Kristen Zechello