April 5, 2007

The Array of Services Task Force and Subcommittees met on April 5 for three hours.  We all agreed to extend our work into next year in order to do a more thorough job of our work.  Two and half hours were spent on subcommittee work.  Below are the reports from the four subcommittees:

I.  Moderate Support Needs Subcommittee

• We agreed that the next task for our final meeting of the year was to define the term “moderate support needs”.  We will look next meeting at some definitions in the literature and expand and revise that for all work.
• Once defined, we need to identify the roles and responsibilities around the work of a student with moderate support needs.
• We agreed to also put some specificity around the recommendations for FTE both teacher and paraeducator and determine what qualities or behaviors might be the indicator of need for lesser or greater support in a student.

II. Significant Support Needs Subcommittee

We discussed:

• The changes needed in the Array of Services spreadsheet.
• The need for identification of the critical attributes of a successful intensive learning center
• The need to develop a severity rating system to help determine placement into an ILC
• The need for greater collaboration between general education and special education teachers and brainstormed ways this could occur, including having late starts or early releases once a week
• Identifying how the District level can support time for collaboration between ILC and classroom teachers
• Training for staff who work with students with multiple challenges or Autism
   

III. Paraeducators Subcommittee

• Our subcommittee made some changes to the survey that will go out to special education paraeducators, special education teachers, general education teachers (sampling) and building administrators (1 for each building).  The plan is to send the survey out the 2nd week of May and have it returned by the end of May.  The purpose of the survey is to gain insight into how paraeducators are assisting with the work of the district around inclusion and providing access for all students.
• We made changes to the “Request for Paraeducator Assistance” form and will bring copies to our next meeting to share with the group.
• Steve Landrigan, from Human Resources, provided statistics on how many paraeducators are employed, when (during the school year) they are hired, and retention information.  Steve also presented us with job specifications (need to be updated) for regular ed paraeducators and special ed paraeducators.

IV. Social/Emotional/Behavioral Subcommitte

• We analyzed the current state of affairs with programming for students in this category. We agreed that there are holes in the system, especially at the high school level. Using the TIES model, we will use data driven information to make recommendations.
• We are investigating the possibility of acquiring grant money to pilot Positive Behavior Support Model in 3 schools at three levels. We continued to discuss the importance of having a PBS model district-wide.
• Discussed the importance of providing training to general education teachers on the circles of instruction through district inservices.
• Discussed using the web for teachers, both sped and general ed to access resources, especially  around affective needs curriculum, social skill instruction and resources about the  new collaborative model.
• Talked about the possibility of using the IR team as inclusion coaches and making sure that  general educators know about them and how to access. 

CLOSING COMMENTS:

 At the end of the meeting, we agreed to take some time at the beginning of the last meeting of the year to do the following:

• Set a timeline for the work in 2007-2008
• Spend time at the beginning of the meeting to prepare a presentation to the entire group
• Present information to the entire group