Fall River School Committee - Special Ed / Alternative Ed and Early Childhood Subcommittee

we're going to call to order the special ed alternative Ed and early childhood subcommittee can we please call the role Mr AG here Mr Cory here Mr Pera can we stand for a salute to the flag to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all first weend the open meeting law any person may make an audio or video

recording of this public meeting or may transmit the meeting through any meeting tende these are therefore advised that such recordings or Transmissions are being made whether perceived or UNP perceived by those present and are being acknowledged and permissible do we have any citizen input there is no no citizen input we'll go right to the first agenda item is an update on Early Childhood okay good evening uh so we

um ex continue to expand our programming this year opening the new site at 2501 South Main Street there are currently nine classrooms um in that building with that it brings us to currently 32 preschool classrooms across eight sites throughout the city we are um in the process of opening the final classroom at the 2501 the for Learning Center site which will bring us to 33 classrooms we

have the to a total capacity to serve 609 children in that in those classroom rooms 19 of the classrooms are full day and have our four and 5-year-olds who are in their last year of preschool and will be heading to kindergarten in the fall and the remaining 14 classrooms are halfday sessions and those serve mixed age groups um children ages 3 to five uh who are children with disabilities as

well as our integrated um half days also have um slots for four and 5-year-old children from the community that will be heading to kindergarten uh as you know our preschool program is foundationally a special education program um we do also serve children from the community in our integrated classrooms and so we populate our preschool classrooms based on referrals for special education at this

time as of February 1st of this year we have received 235 referrals for special education evaluations um for children ages 3 to 5 those referrals come from early intervention pediatrician office community child care programs as well as directly from families um or Community providers Our obligation is to evaluate and have services in place for children transitioning to us um on their third

birthday our referral rate continues to rise so as of February 1st we have been referred 42 additional children than the number we had at this that time last year year last year we took in about 340 referrals so we are projecting to be quickly approaching 400 um for this school year that's been pretty consistent over the last few years we've seen a 15 to 20% increase each year um in the last probably four

years which is kind of the basis for why we continue to expand in order to meet Our obligation under idea to provide services for children with disabilities ages three to five we have had to continue to open additional classrooms to meet that need additionally um as I mentioned so in order to have integrated programs we have children from the community who are in our classrooms as peer models we seat

those children in classrooms through a lottery our Lottery is currently open for September for next school year it open on January 2nd runs until March 31st at that time we will conduct um developmental screenings and um the lottery process to offer seats to families as of February 1st we had received 241 applications to the preschool Lottery that is 100 more than we received um in the same month last

year we have we are anticipating if structures stay the same to have about 260 seats for Community peers and so we're anticipating probably applications of um around 350 families for those 260 seats our current enrollment we have 306 students with disabilities um who are in classroom placements and additional 91 children who are serviced either through walk-in services or who we go out into

their Community Based program to provide services to them and we currently have 210 peers from the community in our classrooms any questions C yes thank you for the uh for the breakdown so since the Inception of Early Childhood it seems to be on a trajectory that continues to grow um how do you see that in the next foreseeable 5 to 10 year future you know it's it's hard to say we had so we are this growth

is not unique to full River um it we're seeing it across the state and Nationwide the needs of our little ones continue to grow we had um really thought a good amount of what we were seeing was covid related these are children who were born into that environment and so opportunities to build social skills to build communication skills um we're seeing lots of delays in finding gross motor

skills that we hadn't seen to this level before with that we thought this year we'd start to see some stabilization because as we're taking kids in who were three we're now looking at kids who were born in 2021 and had more of traditional opportunities um but it's not stabilizing the way we thought it has so I mean I'm not really sure at this point how to project it I know we talk a lot

about it um there are a variety of groups of Early Childhood coordinators that meet throughout the state in different you know types of communities and we're all kind of facing the same thing and really struggling with how do we project what our needs are for classrooms for next next year if this rate of growth continues to grow in a way that we just can't sustain yeah um could you classify um

when a child is screened okay what are they looking for as far as the disability is concerned so at screenings we're really looking for you know early development and so we use a couple of different screening tools that look at Children's language skills are they speaking in phrases that are you know two at least two or three words is their speech intelligible we look at are they developing fine motor skills and so

we'll have them make developmental Strokes on a page can they make a straight line can they make a circle you know what does that look like we look at their gross motor skills and you know how if they can what they look like when they walk can they balance on one foot are they able to hop and so some of those early things we see are late toddlers kind of being able to do for

academic skills it's really recognizing familiar objects you know in the world and do they know what things are or what their purpose is are they able to identify some of the basic colors do they are they able to tell you their first and last name do they know how old they are so it's some of those really early skills that we're looking to see is this child developing the way

we would expect as far as those early skills are concerned uh and in in the uh Early Education environment have you seen how it translates to kindergarten or first grade yeah and so what we're seeing a lot of is kiddos that we are catching early we're able to start to build some of those skills for them to be able to learn how to learn so what happens a lot when we get kiddos in is

they don't even have sort of those basic skills of how to adapt to a schedule when it's not sort of at will how to follow a routine how to you know complete something that may not be your favorite thing to do and so we start really working on those early skills for kiddos that were able to catch early we're seeing that transition into kindergarten being more successful the demand and the expectation in K is high

and so when we bring kids into that not having had that experience this is where we're seeing you know our our K staff really really struggle with kiddos who aren't able to sit in a tent aren't able to regulate aren't able to follow the routines without really a high level of support and then they're not able to access the academic piece because we're spending so much time helping

them regulate their body and and being able to adapt to the environment that they're missing out on a lot of the academic skills yeah I mean I really hope it translates into that I know that kids at the K in one level uh have been more emboldened of late in their behaviors as compared to a decade ago there's been a huge societal you know change uh and so I just want to make

sure that everything that we're doing in early childhood is helping to pave the way you know to this earlier development the scientific development that's going on with the frontal lobe the whole thing you know and how it translates into our reading scores for the elementary level especially the third grade reading scores when they when they start to get noticed yeah and that's something we're

we're starting to look at too so we this is the first year we've had the ability to offer our particularly focused our students with disabilities first because that is our initial purpose for having the program to be able to offer the kiddos who are in their last year of preschool before going to kindergarten the opportunity to participate in a full day classroom and so we're taking our

kiddos who are most delayed we're putting them the first year year and a half in a half day program bringing them up to a full day program and then transitioning them to kindergarten so we're creating that smoother transition so that they can be more successful because we are just as you described seeing our little ones come in with less and less ability to regulate their emotions and so spending a lot of time

teaching children how to recognize what they're feeling and then what to do about it when they're in an environment where it isn't they're not the sole child there where they can get necessarily all of that you know individualized attention where they can be self-directed in the way they really want to be are the parents invited in yes so we we run our preschool very similar to other we have

open house we have parent teacher conferences you know we have other opportunities for families to come in we also send a lot of information home on what are we doing in school what are what's the langage we use for this what are the visuals we use for this so that's all that's all part of the conditional movement as well if we can condition parents from Early Childhood especially with the transition into

elementary school then maybe we got the parents hooked for a good long time over their child's early development I hope that's one of the keys of the Early Childhood Program try to hook the parents into you know following their child and advocating for their child at length you know know for whatever their needs may be and you know we that is a goal of ours as well we want to have

really strong relationship with with our families we are for many families the first touch they have with the school department you we're the first people they meet we're setting the stage for what will your relationship with your child's school be like and so we do we try we communicate a ton we try to bring families in and we do a lot of back and forth of you know what works at home

what works at school and trying to make sure there's some kids consistency and some flow back and forth between the school and the home I would love to see the parents invited directly into the classroom to see the processes taking place the academic process the developmental processes all of that and then I think they would see wonderful things with their children and they would develop a great appreciation for

the level of teaching and coaching that's going on from our end because we're certainly providing a a great sense of environment for all of these developmental needs for the these children and I'm sure that the cost analysis on something like this has to be pretty high right now yeah so that's something um I know that the committee is looking for and so we will be working on creating a cost analysis um for our

preschool program um once we get through U Mr alme is going to work with me on that once the budget his presentation is finished next week we're going to begin to work on that and we will get that out to you thank you I I mean all I have to say is clearly preschool education is important for all children right so even though it's important that we get children at the most need in I think

it's pretty obvious we just need to continuously look for space regardless of if we grow 20% next year or not I'd love not to have to turn away those 100 kids who also equally would benefit because we know there's a fine line between a a doctor or or such um giving a recommendation for that you know there's a fine line in other words there are kids who could benefit completely from it that would be you

know in kindergarten um you know would be better for them as well so although I understand that this is the law you know what we're doing and it's great I'm not not not patting us on the back for a Man Out program but like meeting that school spending it's just kind of following the law it's cool but if we could do better and more so like I think that's the

takeaway I have today I know the work that you're doing there and it's wonderful but the takeaway I have is we need more space whatever it costs we need more space we know we're going to need more space so I like to stop being proactive with that regardless of if we don't know for sure um what the numbers are going to be next year but you know that's all I had a question on it says

we have and continued to struggle to meet the obligation am I implying reading the way I read that is that we are not meeting the obligations so is that not accurate we are today um we are in the process of opening that final classroom um at fall Riv a Learning Center um although we ended up in a situation towards the end of last school year where we were full

and I do anticipate we are going to run into that same situation um again this year and so at the end of last year we had children who were qualifying for special education services late in the year our May and June birthdays who were not able to start school until until September so we did create a classroom um that we ran in the summer to provide compensatory services to those students

last summer um I am concerned and I do anticipate that we're going to end up in a similar situation this year so how is it that when you get tested at the 3 and four and you provide services to some and are we providing the bare minimum on services or do we when you say special education services or specified is there is there an opportunity to provide that but not have a full classroom yes so the

children so the 91 children that we are servicing um the bulk of those here there's a handful of those children who are in um a grant the cppi grant program there's about 10 of those kids who are in classrooms where we're sending um a special education teacher out to the center to provide classroom Based Services the majority of our children that are service only are children who were only eligible for speech therapy

for occupational therapy these are kiddos who overall are developing pretty typically their cognitive skills their early learning skills are typical but speech and languages tends to be at the Forefront of that where they may have um delays in their articulation skills they may have some very mild delays in their speech and language skills where we are providing speech and language therapy

only to those students so we are not placing them in one of our classrooms they come in um for walk-in therapy or we send speech and language therapy out to them at whatever program they're attending in the in the community so the 306 with disabilities in classroom placements there has no op they all totally you need a full classroom or half those are children that have autism children that have more Global

developmental delays that are requiring a higher level of services yeah and how do you determine who gets a half somewhere around here I read about half day y so for students with disabilities children that have two or three more years of school before kindergarten go into our halfday programs so these are our littlest guys they are are three-year-olds and our young fouryear olds once children are in their last

year of preschool before kindergarten and so that's that four by September 1st cut off that's when they're eligible to attend a full day it's only that one last year before kindergarten and that we don't have we're obligated to provide that service we are not obligated to provide the full day but we do but we do yeah that's been something that's been a move um across the state that most districts

are trying to move towards a full day program in that true like the pre kindergarten last I totally get it just that is not our obligation when we ask for like the cost analysis how much does it cost and how much do we get reimbursed y those are the pieces as well that we need to to know because right now we had money or whatever and it might not see yeah so we got to know

what is it that we doing so that we can the full day is not try to make a determination uh my last question or and ask was about um out of that group you have substantially separate classrooms is that the same as the in kindergarten so the numbers are lower so regulations for preschool for substantially separate is nine where at um school age children it's generally 12 so the number is lower

programing is similar these are our kiddos who have the greatest delays who have the highest needs um and are requiring the highest level of so out of that number of 306 you'd have you could get us a number of how many how manyan sep yeah I can get you that because we have other like as we look at it we have a lot of kids in substantially separate throughout the

district so we have a lot i' be curious to see what that is and we have more in our half day programs than in our full day programs so what we will tend to do is sort of try to step them out of substantially separate where when they come in at 3 if they're really showing us a high level of need requiring a high level of service and support we may

start them in a subpar program and then our goal is by the time they're in that full day year before K that they're attending in an integrated right the uh you had mentioned about not having a number of whatever I personally think we need a fiveyear plan of Early Childhood I also think that we always talk about Universal prek we just need to do it and at that point we need to see what the

cost benefit analysis is of what is it costing but the goal is to have it be Universal so you have at records of how many four year olds we have how many five year you know you can figure that out in a 5year plan to say in order for us to do uh Universal prek we need 27 more classrooms whatever the number comes out to that's where I think we

need to be looking at right now we're piecing it a little too slow for my lik and it's just five here three there we should never be up against we don't have space to service a K in the May June whatever shouldn't be absolutely shouldn't be that way that means we're not planning well enough in my mind if that's happening yeah we can definitely I think one of the challenges in looking

at Universal pre and you know for districts that have been able to do this successfully they do it through a mixed delivery system there are many families who what we are able to offer for prek doesn't meet the needs of the families these are families who require longer day longer year um because part of their preschool is also child care and so for most districts that have successfully been able to move

to Universal prek they do it through a mix delivery and so part of that is not just students that would be enrolled with us but having enough seats throughout the Community for four-year-olds who are you know ready in that last year before kindergarten to attend in a program that meets the needs of the family and so it wouldn't be an expectation that the school department would have a seat for every child in the

city who's four years old but that working together with our partners there is an available seat in the city and we aren't there I mean we I work a lot with our Community Partners and most of them are running weight list as well right but that's why I think it's important that we have it to be for everyone at that point as you're just saying it's going to have to be a mix it's going to

have whatever whatever it is but I've never seen to this day Universal precare we got a thousand kids that are four years old we would need to have space for a th000 kids 400 of them are in private you know whatever the we need it in a plan that says this is what it's going to cost because the state's going to come down and say we want to do this

we want to put here and then we're going to say oh well we can't we don't have space we don't I think we need to get a a actual 5year plan that says this is how we're going to get to everyone um because that there's going to be more questions once that gets delivered I would say yeah so whatever you can do to try to expedite that um to us and is there any plan to

go more so you got 33 now what is the plan for September uh we are not at a place where we have a solid plan for September yet it's in progress we we need space physical space and Staffing are two biggest challenges right um we need physical space and um we are looking ad options but not necessarily to expand prek it's to um we have to um release some pressure in enrollment in in some

schools so we are looking for that's our priority physical space for that um and moving those preit classes so I think that um we're looking at options but we're not in a position where we can say we're going to 10 more classes because we don't have a building to add 10 more classes if we took one of our buildings for instance right we said all right we're going to take one of our buildings

empty them out and we're going to make it a Early Learning Center we could empty out the the students that are at Eastern Avenue put them there we could take prek from somewhere else and put them there we could open up additional classrooms but we have to absorb those kids that we took out of that building somewhere else we don't have space somewhere else in our other buildings to

absorb them so uh we're looking at we do have 2501 as our option as we're right now as a team looking at what how we're going to populate 2501 to release some pressure and then that will Ripple into what we're going to do right just this isn't a secret that we need more space y I agree and we've been talking about this adium and it's frustrating as one member because we've known this we've

known this we've had money we've you know the time is way past it it's February already and we're worried about now we don't have space because we can't so we can't we didn't have space and the exra funds that we had do not allow us to buy a building they don't allow us to buy a building so even though we had we could we could lease a building and as you know we looked into leasing um

modular on Globe Street we wanted to do that we have you know a property there that we wanted to do but that and we had set money aside from s to do that but when we did a an analysis of how much it was going to cost to prepare that land to bring to build those modules Etc the cost was more than any of us anticipated more than we paid we paid for building

or we're paying for building so it was not it didn't it wasn't fiscally um sound that wasn't a good plan so we have to go back to to I mean we have you know we are constantly looking throughout the city to see if there are any spaces that we could potentially rent lease or whatever to add more space I'm with you I agree we need it it's not for a lack

of trying or for looking yeah I just think we we need to get pent to paper and and and when one thing doesn't go you got to Pivot to something else because now we have gold Street like this building is that totally you can't repair that building well we can we probably can't repair that building just like we' repair it Wily but Wy we would spend millions of dollars to repair a building that's

going to give us six classrooms or eight classrooms right so um there are constraints in regards to prek ideally it would be uh it would make sense for us to have a one level spot where we could um because they're little they can't go up more than you know two flights of stairs you you can't put kids on the third floor prek kids on third floor for safety reasons so um you know

I certainly we can look so yes so depends on sort of how you think about it but yes so uh at for Learning Center we are on sort of the basement or ground level as well as the first floor and so on the second Flor on the first Flor is an a grass there's a fire so you can't really have a second flaw how's the South Main um as far as red doing it for

other classrooms for older students who Could That space we know we we need to inhabit that uh for the fall so um they're working on the the top two floors we to finish that up but our plan is to um you know populate that building we're trying to figure out what makes the most sense for us to to to because we could potentially say all right so in in my mind you know uh this hypothetical

right where I don't have the power to make those decisions just by myself right because financial decision decisions take a lot more but we could say oh we're going to make a prek to 8 that sounds great we're going to make a prek to 8 we would only be able to do a two Unit School how how many kids is it going to impact where is that where are we going to absorb those kids to put

there and what does that mean in the schools that I you know is it just going to be a difference of you know like two kids in one class three kids it's not really going to give us a lot of bang for our buck I'm not saying it's not I'm just saying in thinking that there discussions that we've had oh if we made it prek to five okay could we squeeze in

three units three of each that we could do that could we just say we're going to move uh you know a whole group from a school and then make space somewhere else so we're looking at demographics we know that for instance fansa is the most uh densely populated neighborhood really the there are 12200 Kids that actually could go to fansa because they that's they had neighborhood school but it's

not built for 1200 kids so they are at capacity but there are kids that belong at fanska that are being bust elsewhere in the city wherever they space so we're looking at all those things to try see what makes the most sense to alleviate some of our issues and to for us to maximize what we have the uh in the past like we've had meetings and uh task forces or whatever

maybe you can look back to the records and see what those were many suggestions I suggested looking at the dery where the PACE Center was instead that was three years ago if we did that then we'd have another 10 classroom whatever the amount of classrooms could be that that's the kind of thing that I'm talking about yeah uh we look at I was just watching city council thing with

the bank Street down can we do put 10 15 20 classrooms in the bank down and save that building and and you know use our resources to to work with the city to save that building there's plenty of different options I just feel like we haven't pulled the trigger on them we just keep saying oh well we'll go here we we took that pipe dream of the globe street is and we spent $350,000 for

nothing well it wasn't for nothing we wouldn't have known that we couldn't do it yeah right it was I think it was so all I'm saying is let's try to get a plan together and what I would like to do is have uh another meeting in 30 days where you come back to this committee with a solid plan and we'll call that meeting after you know when whatever people can make it Mr Cory yeah just

want to add I'll be brief Christen is this uh Early Childhood Program mandated by Department of Education those mandate as far as a trajectory of growth is concerned are they putting any pressure on our city to grow it by certain levels each year so no so there there is lots of conversation at the state level about the move towards Universal pre and so I think that sort of the advocacy pressure

that that we get to grow is more towards Universal pre yeah where we're kind of our growth obligation really is to the students with disabilities so the the requirement for us to have preschool programming is related to students ages 3 to 5 with disabilities and we have to have appropriate programs to meet the needs of those students and so right now that's sort of what dictates our growth

but there are still going to be limits because we have spa space limitations in place so there are going to be limits as to how the program continues to move forward year after year well that's the struggle we have because yes we are limited by our space and we do have those constraints however the students are the students and they will send down some money for us to build a building

who knows we would love that we would love for preschool to be fsba want to ask the superintendent as far as the devault school is concerned we we may have an opportunity to get that building back and that could serve some of the Overflow in the Flint that's that's just an idea that flashed in my head I was also concerned about the Wy school and the stone school I don't know if there

those are potential options down the road I know that there's infrastructure needs for those buildings but they may be cheaper than building a whole brand new complex I think that the mo I mean I obviously I'm not that's not my expertise but I think the most coste effective piece might be that we look into the PACE Center and doing exactly that and creating some preschool space I think we have to look

we because we have that space there yeah whichever way you guys can get creative you're going to have to get creative I certainly I'm not in on those developmental meetings but you guys can forge a plan forward and figure it out with all with all of this how long has this program been uh in service now three years the preschool program yeah no it predates my coming over what about what about when the chamber pushed

through Joan sprager and all of that is this all is that all part of this too uh yes and no some of it is really more around our reach into the community and our collaboration with Community Based program so so the the chamber commerce was really loudly advocating for Early Childhood on based on the scientific studies and I'm just wondering if they're in touch with any grant funding Pathways maybe to help us in our

endeavors to grow this program righteously you know the the right way and there may be I think we just you know as Maria has said right now we need to identify the physical space looking at there there are definitely funding sources and ways to partner with some of our um folks in the community but physical space is a limitation and my last question is are the teachers and staff uh who work this program they're

all part of the entire teaching staff of our of our district right and those students are also part of the uh general population of our district is that correct too right although their their reimbursement is different than a typical student yes thank you I yield anything else we'll have a shortterm and a long-term plan because I think we have shortterm immediate needs as well as a long-term plan thank you uh

moving right on uh to the new IEP roll out and I just before you start I can say we did get a lot of information from M openchain and I think it was well put together there's a lot of info here I apprciate um so I would say just kind of go over it the committee is going to get this as well they will um because I looked at it

myself and I said wow this is pretty much before you start I my papers are all jump sure is there a certain order yep so this is the timeline that you have that talks about the new IEP rule out this is the first one Al all right you got that one okay so just so that people are aware the uh desie is rolling out a new ID that all um school districts are mandated to implement in

September we knew this has been coming they've been working on it for years the last time the actual IEP was updated the form itself um was 2001 so it's been several years but it's important for families and you know everyone in the community to understand the process for special education is not changing it is just the document but there are some significant changes to the document one

of the goals of the department is to elevate student voice so now they want students as young as 3 years old in our PR Cas providing some input into their IEP whether it's through pointing at pictures drawing all of those pieces so that is one of the big changes but like you said Mr agar the subcommittee did receive the whole timeline um and kind of what our plan is so I'm just going to

summarize quickly in the fall the three of us went to training by the Department of Education we brought that training back to our district we developed what we are going to be rolling out tomorrow as far as training documents for our current special education teachers and administrators um we also are being supported by my leadership team in the special education department through our

special education supervisors so we're able to give them um uh the professional development in smaller groups because we have a large special education department right so about groups of anywhere from 25 to 50 depending on um the buildings we'll be doing that tomorrow we also um have a joint Labor Management committee um that CHS to address the roll out to families so we've been meeting um monthly on that

and we actually have a couple parents joining that committee so we've come up with um questions that parents we can give parents ahead of time so that they come should the IEP meeting prepared knowing the form is going to look very different for them we're talking about training at CPAC those are the pieces that we put in place and then we outlined the remaining tasks that need to get done prior to the SE setember

roll out um our system Aspen is already ready with a new IEP document it's actually available for us to kind of play around with even though it's not live yet um but we're looking to um bring on teacher leaders once we or um mentors for the for the IEP roll out once we train all of our district St staff we want in the summer and the fall buildings to have people there that they

can go to to if there is a question right because we're training a lot of people now but we're actually not able to implement it till the fall so I want to make sure that there's people touch points in the buildings um throughout our district so that they feel like if they have questions or they're struggling they have someone to go to so once we train everybody we'll be looking for volunteers um to do that

work and that's kind of the new I any question I just have one question I clearly it's a it's a more intense document right there's like more pages it's more invol so how and and I I clearly you noticed it was very much student centered too in it which is nice but how much more time are we talking like compared to what a regular IEP take what is this add great question yeah

it's a great question so what the uh what desie is encouraging districts to do and we've been fortunate our team chairs have been going through a Leadership Academy and they have been working on on how to facilitate a meeting using the new IEP where instead of you're sitting at a table and we all go around and we all speak you know individually it's actually a conversation so when we're talking about

student strengths if the SLP the speech person is there I can fill that out under the speech section while people are talking because we're all talking about the same um type of content and then we can distribute it that way so they're encouraging us to facilitate meetings a little bit differently but like when anything's new meetings are going to take longer we're going to try to do um you know prep work with

families ahead of time at open houses to show them so that when they come in they're not asking how does this look compared to my old document where is this in my old document we actually have um an special ed surrogate parent on our uh jlmc and um DCF worker on that committee too so they're going to be all for familiar with it as well Mr cor as far as uh revising um I'm

going to go back to the beginning when you were meeting in the a fall and uh you guys were going over accommodations and modifications and that kind of thing um one of my biggest gripes as a counselor in the schools where sometimes the way the accommodations were written would strangle hold and adjust counsel's case load time and so I just wonder where that's where that piece is heading

toward right now so can you give me an example of what do you mean by strangle well I I would have I had this case with an autistic child and the mother was a strong Advocate um and uh she was adamant about um my time as the adjustment counsel spend I can't remember what the specifics were throughout the week but I knew that it was just just too much time

for this one case in regard to the other 500 cases I had sure so that's so I'm dealing with 550 case load but I have to give a a Maj a lot of time to this one case so that's um actually Service delivery and not an accommodation maybe it was listed that way then but now it would considered Service delivery that is actually one of my goals for next year is to look at our service delivery

um model and how we're providing that because what people think sometimes more is always better but what we have to understand that Ser when we are providing direct service to a student that means they are not able to independently utilize skills or to practice right they always rely on the adjustment counselor to be there to talk through whatever is going on instead of saying let's take what you learned now

you need to be independent you've received these services is we've talked about this you know what to do right now I need to see you do it and so it's getting parents to understand that yes our goal is to teach them skills but our goal is also to make them independent with those skills and if we're tied to them all the time if they're getting 700 minutes a week of your individual time

we're actually preventing them from ever developing that Independence and that's really the conversations we need to start having um that more doesn't mean they're going to do better right more means now we link them with more time with Direct Services from an adult and it actually hinders their ability to internalize those skills and be independent yeah I'm just looking not to hamstring the cers because uh it it it

it's just it's it's a difficult thing because they're already working really really hard and so many other capacities yep and and for an IEP to just nail them down on one case said I'm I'm going to continue to advocate for the adjustment counselors on that behalf well we've added adjustment counselors throughout the district so that specifically Mr AIA brought that up at school committee meeting that um we had

to we submitted minutes that kids needed and we made sure that we were staffed equitably at each school so that we had an additional guidance uh additional uh School adjustment counselor at each middle school and at all schools so that they could be make sure that they are um receiving the the services that are on the IEP good and the um just a piggyback on that so the 550 case load doesn't exist

anymore which is good so you at the high school is 11 or 12 school adjustment CS there's actually more when you were there there was two sacks and 10 guidance Council no there there were four sacks when I was there but there was a time when there was two then it went to four Now it's 12 yeah yeah when when I started there were only 18 sacks in the entire District so the point's

well taken that we we're doing more with that but his point is well taken that you got to be careful how much time you put in that Service delivery and it has to be what the kid needs versus just so that's just training of what people do moving on to the um the next one specialized programming update sure so one of our department go that the oh I'm sorry yes it is so one of our department

goals this year was to really look at our um substantially separate classrooms redefining and restructuring really what they looked like because um as you saw in your backup documents we are twice over the state average for students in substantially separate settings right so we have 940 students currently in substantially separate out of our a little over 3,000 special education

students and um what concerns me because Fall River is such a large District right and we have so many students that students that are in substantially separate programs at a very young age they tend to stay in those programs throughout Middle School throughout high school and they're actually graduating from those programs so when I put together a task force to really look at you know where our numbers were what was

um creating this Gap where kids were staying in these substantially separate classrooms for their entire career right the goal would be to service them early on and be able to move them out and one of the things the task force and my task force had teachers bcba psychologists specialized supervisors a lot of different um staff from across the district right and one of the things we noticed was there was no partial

inclusion model for kids so you're either fully in general education in the inclusion classrooms or you're substantially separate the few students that do push out here and there there was not there's not like a a plan on how we're going to keep moving them out it's oh they're strong in math great let's put them in math yes and how do we keep going with that they're successful in math how do

we try science they might be interested in science so what you what we ended up um giving you with the new program descriptions if they um right now are still in draft form because I have met with um every principal um and the principles that currently substantially separate programs to talk about whether or not a new a couple new classrooms with our partial inclusion options were

feasible and the the response from the district has been very positive and very much that it's needed so right now we're still getting stakeholder input from other like you know important members of our department so more teachers team chairs those psychologists as a group the BCBS as a group I don't anticipate major changes from what you have tonight um but I'd like to be able to bring

those to the full Committee in March so that we can start um you know looking at students who are ready for a partial inclusion program but students that are in substantially separate programs that require them they're still substantially separate programs all we did with the program descriptions was to give teams more information when making those decisions so we change the names to not be disability based but

basically what um how students are going to be serviced in those programs or what the purpose of the programs are right and then we gave teams some entrance guidelines it doesn't mean it's set in stone it doesn't mean there's not room for a flexibility but these are some guidelines so that we are making sure when we determine students need a substantially separate placement that we have some evidence or some data to

support that so so the only um um grow is the new program for our incoming kindergarteners and that is really students who are in an integrated preschool with us already so they already are with typical peers part of the time but instead of being recommended for substantially separate which would have happened previously because the preschool team felt like they weren't ready for kindergarten right or full

inclusion Kindergarten now we have this option where we have a partial inclusion program so the kids will still be in a substantially separate program however they will have the opportunity every single day to participate in inclusion with their General Ed peers with the hope of by the end of that kindergarten year they can be fully included that is the goal for us so it might start with

they go in for morning meeting they go in for centers and as the students develop because it really is about developing either the foundational skills that are holding them back or the um ability to transition follow routines um be able to interact with peers in socially appropriate ways so we're going to work on those outside of the set outside of the general education setting and the staff is going to support them

when they go in right so we have that piece for our incoming K and then in Middle School um a partial inclusion model is when students spend at least Le 60% of their day in the general education setting they can spend anywhere between um 60% all the way down to like 80 80% 70 something per right so at least 60% of their day in the full inclusion setting when I look at our

Middle School schedule if they're in for one core content to start our advisory block which everybody's developing skills um we have win which is what I need so if they're partnered with if I'm learning to read in middle school and you're learning to read your General Ed I'm special Ed we can be partnered together that's an inclusion opportunity and then unified Arts which many of them

already are in unified Arts right that gives us 60% of the time what we miss is that core content and then keep pushing them into more to see if we can get them there so those are the only two new programs otherwise is our existing programs just more clearly defined and so parents understand what this program means because we do have some families that have students in our um it's going

to be called prep but it's now our community- based program they don't use grade level curriculum yet families want them to take mcass which again we can disagree and and you know mcast is a thing from the state and we have no control over that but it's not it's not we have to do our due diligence to educate families that if you want them in this program that is not the mcast

track because they can sit in front of the test all day but we're not teaching them the skills they need to access that test so it's misleading so I want to be very clear with families on those types of things it's incongruent that it's yes very much in congruent right so in those descriptions it outlines that and that gives teams something to have a conversation about are these the

students St staying in with us until we're around 21 22 years old not all of them but yes some of them and then they transition into a Adult Services yeah Adult Services yep I know what that looks like that yes but not all of them do some of them graduate at 12th grade was that your case load too did you have that case load as well still have you still have that case load uh how's the

Staffing holding up as far as that entire program is concerned which one I mean she's dedicated you know years I mean our highest turnover tends to be in the substantially separate classrooms it's hard work all day long I know you know and we're asking teachers to teach multiple contents some of them have to teach multiple grades um because the students you know we don't we might only

have two sixth graders and E seventh graders we can't have two different classes right we you know we try the buildings try their best to limit as much as they can but it still is and you're with the same kids and the same staff all day long so um it's hard so many of our classrooms again are not filled with licensed teachers that's another concern of mine like if I'm learning math not from a math teacher

can the collaboratives help at all as far as Staffing goes as far as as far as taking on some case load um we've sent some so we do send some students out we have about 107 students that are out of district for us so at a collaborative setting I do this year have two contracted bcbas but they're only time to support us here they come to us um the collaborators are just as short

staffed as we are yeah since Co probably this drug Co interrupted so much as far as Staffing is concerned it's a different landscape now than it was preco right so even the collaboratives are struggling with staff yeah because I know that their facilitation is pretty cool they they have a lot of therapeutic stuff in their facilities that help these cases of course of course and we do we send our

highest need students that we really feel like we can't meet their needs here but our goal is to keep as many with us as we we can you know so that's kind of the work of the task force thank you I'm good you had started off just I'm just kind of in my mind how off we are from different districts you had started off by saying we have more substantially separate classrooms and looking at the

numbers I mean 940 950 whatever so almost a third right what does other districts look like how off are we from the average is 16 16% of their total special ed population we're at 31 yeah we're we're yeah I said about a third okay yeah so I like what I like what they're saying obviously it's not a quick fix obviously we need more special at teaches and that's why we need to

start at smaller right about K2 but not there yet yeah we have to start off smaller um and realistically just had our Jessie was just here for our TFM our site visit and one of the things they commented on is how many substantially separate class so this like so before they tell us we're going to do some we need to do something we want to get out ahead of it and it's it's right for kids

really absolutely so every the Staffing we going to use our exist existing Staffing our existing classrooms our existing Paris all of those pieces we don't need we're not going to open anything new we're going to use the existing the uh last page of your uh this particular sheet it talk and I voted like my colleagues for a lot of things we've added staff to you we put some pressure on you to make sure you do

things right and this last uh bullet of box talks about the percentage of students with an active I prior to expiration date last year was 78 now it's 94% oh that's um that's the next piece that is not this one I'm sorry Mr Ard that is under the um systems yeah I'm giving you a compliment anyway talk about was 24% now it's 62% like we always want it to be higher but here is

fruit at the like we added the positions we put pressure on you we try to do but there's a lot of good things that are happening so I want to give you credit for that any else on this before I jumped the gun and went to the next one is that the next one compliance yes yeah and I'm going to actually turn it over to Jim right um so are we on this

sheet now sorry it's number three no they don't have number I numbered mine TR sying systems instructions system structures um so really we looked at at least give you an update on three different buckets here um so the first one really is around the Improvement of compliance and I wanted to give you guys kind of a picture of where we were at so if you look at the background data that

at the Desi level so in order to address a lot of those concerns what we've been doing this year um I've led a task force um of two specialed teachers four uh two special ed supervisors four team chairs and we just added a specialed teacher to overhaul and um you know really kind of tweak our process and procedures and just update them and bring them up into what we how we currently operate it's

been eight years since we've updated them um in that work we started November we came up with a timeline scope and sequence we've tackled nine different items and and really looked at our process and procedures a lot of the stuff is very similar to what we've been doing but we have some tweaks to update it and make it relevant for current practice current Staffing um so when you look at the nine items they really

largely around the referral process evaluations students transferring into the district what we do when we have newcomers um and then facilitation of Team meetings um so it we've gotten a lot done we do have eight items that we're looking to tackle between now and the end of our process and then once we do that um in the late spring we intend sending it to Mrs Obin for final revisions um and approval so what

that'll look like for our process and procedures is essentially a manual of what to do how to do it um and it's all tied to compliance with uh Dy regulations and it's also required you're required to have written process and procedures for special education um and then the last piece of that we have used some models um from other districts of comparable size to help in that work and the input of the

stakeholders around the table task for has been integral because they really are the people doing the work every day um and then the next piece I'll just kind of quickly talk about the PRS complaints um if we look at and I kind of same thing for both that in the compliance update I looked at the same window of time to give you guys kind of a at least a comparable analysis so from

September 23 to January 24 so if we're looking at this school year same time frame last school year our PRS complaints have decreased by 50% um so if we look at the Advent uh or we look at the addition of you know our special education supervisors um the addition of some of those the addition of some of the team chairs we're getting ahead of different issues that parents are bringing to us and we're we're able to

resolve those um and work collaboratively with families in at least faster um which has been very nice to see so I mean the proof is there um for the compliance piece of it we actually started using a districtwide compliance tracker um so we had different tracking systems that were in place previously that track the same things we were communicating with each other now we use one kind of global and

centralized system um and all stakeholders in our office are using that to be able to monitor compliance and get ahead um of any potential issues and you look at it too regularly so we keep we both have access now to it as well so I mean it's something that I manage um and you know those the numbers that Mr agier talked about already when I look at where we were this point last

year so if you look at January and think about what the work we had done halfway through the year 78% of um our IEPs were active and we hadn't reached that expiration date so they were in compliance this point now we're looking at 94% so we're catching a lot of of a lot of these kids before something happens before something goes out of compliance we're catching mistakes um we're doing that a lot more proactively

collaboratively with families um and the work really is is paying off same thing with the re-evaluation pieces we've gone from 24% completed by that three-year due date to 62% now that number looks lower than I think it should than it should be um we have to keep in mind what we're doing to increase that is we're really um trying to work collabora with families and get consents to evaluate back in a timely

manner we've added doc you sign as a part of that process process so there are some efforts to increase it and I anticipate that number is going to climb um given the efforts and and where we are it's just doc sign has been very supportive I saw that I'm like oh this is going to be very supportive for our families we are getting things back so fast and the nice thing about this if

you look at that 62% that is September to January the end of January docu sign was launched at the beginning of January yeah so it's only chunk that M okay questions just yeah so as far as uh the referral processes are concerned um have you seen the numbers of referrals grow over the past maybe one or two years I would say so yes when I started here a year ago we had 20700 students eligible for special

education now we have over 3,000 in one year currently last time I pulled the um numbers of refer referrals the month of January we had F over 500 referrals for special education in January for the year so far not 5 in January so not that that we're still in the referral no not for January but not for the year either because they were still in the referral stage I just

didn't think it was monthly I no no but they're still in the referral stage so we have that 45 days to actually complete the the eligibility process so they're still in that window of time well I could tell you that um with my history um going back into the 80s and the 90s and the early 21st century the entire sped Department was was in shambles it it at one point it didn't even have solid leadership and

um I've seen a whole lot of improvement in the structure of the sped Department in the past I'd say 10 years um especially now having the opport opportunity to work with Kristen you in in a lot of ways and and Laur through the years I was always sensitive to what's going on but I'm I'm pleased to see that Jim you're working to make the uh process more efficient and growing and you're recognizing issues you know

hopefully earlier um um I'm concerned about bed staff about holding on to this bed staff you know it's it consistency relationship issues between teacher and student are so crucial students need to have a Rel in in those settings the better the relationship the student has with the adults around them the the caring adults then I think education really prospers in those moments when they know that there's a caring

environment for them like that absolutely so I'm I'm pleased to see you guys are really working hard to make the whole the whole of it more efficient and and to run it with regularity with that I'm going to be watching it really closely and hope that uh we we maintain you know what our role in overseeing the whole thing and and making sure that it's running good thanks

I no just good job I mean you came here like I need more staff I'm focusing on compliance we're so out of compliance and I as like a former nurse I'm like that is a big problem and yes obviously there's a lot of work that needs to be done but you guys deserve a round of applause I mean thank you every not just you Department pass that on to the department um of course just it's it

makes you proud you know so good job I forg I forgot to ask you one question Jim the role of the advocate how does that play in all of this the educational advocate so we've worked with that really hasn't changed a whole lot we work with educational Advocates on a number of cases yeah um one of the things I will say um Advocates are you know they're there to support families

um and typically they get involved to support families when families perceive that something's not going right for their child right there's either a breakdown in trust with the school um there's the child's not making progress the family is struggling with something for their child so that they're in a supportive capacity I haven't noticed a whole lot of change in that role um but I will

say I think the work that we've done um I haven't seen an increase I don't have a number to give you I haven't seen an increase in in at Advocates working on cases there have been some outlandish cases in the past you know driven driven by The Advocate and you can you can I I think you see that in any District I will say um what I Look to isn't necessarily participation from Advocates

it's more like what are the outcomes from that so when I look at the number of PRS complaints for example and I see that 50% decrease you know a lot of times PRS complaints are going to come people that know where to go to make those complaints right um maybe in those cases Advocates attorneys that are supporting families if we're working collaboratively and we've decreased that number that to me shows me that we're

proactively working with those folks as well that's good that's good to see thank you I thank on to the next update is on Staffing we have a one page yep so the Staffing you know I just gave you the breakdown just like we're struggling every other District we have about SE 70 openings in special education or over 70 openings in special education um you know 30 of them are

teachers uh we have a few sites a few team chairs some Paris slps I mean it's not um anything that surprises me it's kind of what the world that we're living in for the past several years right we're doing our best to try to interview on board people um it is we're doing the best we can with what we have any questions on Staffing uh as far as what what what do you

foresee like like on your wish list what could we do to improve the overall pitch of Staffing I I do think um you know we have to look at us being um competitive with our salaries with other surrounding towns right it's no secret that we have a neighboring District that pays it a lot more than us right other and the other pieces that we have to continue to make to have staff

feel like they are supported right so we know the needs of students are greater that's not going to go away I don't foresee that going away right so we have to understand that with that comes the support for staff and staff have to be willing to say like I'm willing to do the work because it's hard work but it's needed work like that's the other piece like we have some people that get into

teaching later in their careers like they might be switching careers that's a hard thing to do in the world of Education right now I wish they could teach compassion at the college level like a college level course just on compassion alone because that drives the whole new that drives everything forward it it makes the hard days a little bit easier because there's a deep meaning to

the work you know yeah more and more people are just leaving I mean they're just you know I'm resigning but I'm not resigning to go to another District I'm resigning to get out of education so obviously it's it's making it more difficult on those who are trying to carry the load it's an extra burden on on absolutely on our existing staff so competitive salaries would improve that somewhat moving forward I just think

when people you know feel like they don't have to worry about they don't have to go next door to get the money they you know what I mean to get yeah I don't like it when when when when our teaching candidates uh or our teachers shop districts I want them to stay here I want them to feel really comfortable right here right I mean again I used to be in rovi many years ago and it was

like far trained the teachers and sent them elsewhere right because people would be here for but I mean again and I was right that's what so I get it I agree with you Mr Cory I you know I wish I had the magic wand to make people want to stay stay in education because so what we got to do is we got to like be more human than ever in at every

level from the leadership level on down to the power of professional in the classroom they should be dignified and respected in in every which way to know that everything they're doing is so meaningful toward the work of the child that's it if if we could dignify them and respect them they're going to love coming to work thank you no everything you said is accurate we have to pay them more we pay them more

we have more staff we have more staff the staff we have feels they have more support it's kind of a big circle we just can't keep doing the same thing there's too many vacancies on here yeah I agree with obviously negotiations on negotiations and there's an appropriate place for that but we can't keep doing the same thing and we're not going to get there so we need to do something bold and something different

for specialized employees that deserve more money because that because why in the hell would you do it per se if you didn't have to so it can't just be lumped as one group it has to be for those specialized teachers let's say or counselors or whatever if you have that specialty you should get more money than the person who doesn't have that and I'm not trying to get into negotiations but

that's where this number is too high we can't have 31 vacancies and then wonder why our special achievement levels are lower and all this so until we come up with a plan to say how we going to fix this we got to whether it's you've paid more for a vendor or whatever like uh you do for speech and and the like we got to figure out a way and and now is

the time because that 50 something between special life power professionals and teachers are not um good so I do something do something both would be my two cents I think Keith is taking notes just so you know yeah you know what we have to do it and it's one thing they show up with t-shirts at the next but everybody deserves more like everybody deserves more I don't care what they are so you're in a unit you

know everybody deserves to get what their F Shake is I get it but within that now we're at a crisis of we have a smaller population of somebody that's specialized like if uh take another year take a psychologist School psychologists are hot to come by right so if that's the case and that value to that person is more than we just keep on doing the same let's give everybody 4% 3% it's not

fixing the the issue so whatever you got to do let's try it um inclusion update uh status of inclusion every opportunities in the district yeah so um I think I summarized a little bit earlier about where our um substantially separate students are included for the most part it is those you know unified Arts lunch recess this is just a G right you didn't give us a paper on this one

no I don't this buil one of the other yeah um so you know again our goal is to build more that partial inusen that we can get the kids in one of the things that I'm looking to do it with these new programs right is also to bring in professional development for the teachers who are going to be the ones that want to try this I want to try to have neurodiverse kids in my classroom

whether it's autism whether it's you know um some other disability I want them there and I want to do the work so part of that will be um building up our teacher capacity to have more students with disabilities in the inclusion um setting and then for the inclusion of um students who are fully included we continue to have primarily services in the ELA and the math right because their

IEPs are not written for um content they're written for Reading Writing the skills right the math skills but they tend to put them in the um English and math those are the tested on mcast right students tend to struggle more so they're providing the services they need the always the big question is what happens with science and social studies I agre except when you have 71 openings

I can't get more teachers I need to fill the openings we have because when I have 71 more staff between pars and teachers I don't even know that impact yet right so I would love to be able to provide the support in more content classes right especially Sciences um we just need to fill the positions in order to do that I don't want to bring on more PE more positions without filling the ones

that we have to know the impact of that right um the uh let's see so most of the time how Ser how special education inclusion teachers monitor students in their science and social studies classes is grade levels have like grade level team time the special education teacher for the most part can be part of that team time so it's more of a cons consultation type of role I mean again you know if

there's a test that needs to be accommodated the the teacher can support the um content teacher the special teacher can support the content teacher with that they're just not physically in the room providing Direct Services to those kids um but I do want to show you I'm kind of excited about this so I don't know if you guys are aware but um Henry Lord the speech and language pathologist over there um hired I'm

sorry wrote a grant for the through the Doug fluty Foundation and they received a communication board so I work with the commission on disability in the in the city and they ask me about these so now we have 50 of these communication boards going up in our playgrounds around Fall River and if you click on this QR code it tells Families how to use this communication board oh I'm sorry um and

I'm going to ask the carpentry kids at dery to build posts so it actually stands in the middle of the playground so the kids can access it and any family that goes to their neighborhood playground will have access to this in the at the schools one of our schools already have this or one of our Henry Lord has Lord that had it Y and I think Mrs rodri was saying she wanted them in

all the schools and look what you do you guys are just winning it's actually I was talking to a family uh syvia family who asked me about um these and I said they're coming these have been backordered since October oh that's great any question than a remark could work so inclusion you know I I'm a sck for that other um science and social studies but I just think it's a bigger picture of not

getting services like extra help per se whether with an adult and then we get into is it if we're not giv a service at all right now I wouldn't call that a special education teacher I would call that a teacher so if you're a teacher that is not special ed certified but you could provide services to kids in an inclusion setting you'd probably have a lesser number of some of it's a

certification and special education that you need here or a but a second teacher doesn't have to be a special educ never advertise that's true a teacher just as an inclusion teacher doesn't have to be specializ right because at that point you might have a pool of people that are willing to do it they just don't want to go get the certification per se but you know so that's one area and then when

you get to the lower grades what is it what is the model of inclusion for like the lower grades because now that they have just one specialed teacher that Services four classrooms in first grade so it does vary depending on the school it depends on the number of special education per grade so most schools have at least one special education teacher for each grade some schools have also grade level Paris

to support special education students in the inclusion setting as well most times if the inclusion numbers let's just say I have um 15 students on my case load and I'm a second grade special ed teacher those students will be placed in just two different classrooms so the teacher has a limited number of teacher of General teachers that they have to work with um to be able to keep them

servicing kids as often as possible during the day depending on the numbers though that can expand to three classrooms depending on how how many right because we try not to have um a high number of special ed the percentage of General Ed to special ed shouldn't be as high as it probably is in some cases so so but it's not Universal that's no it's not Universal I think we need to do

something in the budget related to mandating something a couple years ago we had uh L classrooms that didn't have a foundation a foundational classro didn't have a power some did and some didn't so it depends on what school you were in school committee in the infinite was made a motion to put one in every room I think we need to do that with an inclusion when you look at it to say

there has to be some support but especially at the younger level you can't just keep doing oh well what if it's we have Paris K school committee approved prek K1 all have Paris in their classrooms we have a lot of openings but we have you guys did approve for that but the the idea is just to say that it's not an option yeah and that's where I think if it's not so if it's in the

budget and you'd say it's all clear great but you got to look at it and say no we need an extra power to help that other person so like if there's a special a teacher and what are they do in the other room if she's got three rooms she's in one room what are those other two rooms doing right like and that can be heck to try to teach that

oh that's all I'm saying is I think we need to be bold and do some some moves on that M you have no that's thank you for that uh Team ch implementation I see we have a one pager on this I would assume this is work in progress based on so it's a work in progress yep so we had the last impact bargaining session on the 17th um the roll out plan for annuals has not

changed since we brought it to f a f Rea and the school committee um I'm struggling with the filling of the two new positions so we do have a we have two other vacancies one that is being filled by um retirees and a recent one um where our our new hire just really didn't work out um so but the two new positions that I said I would um fill prior to rolling out the annuals remain

open we've interviewed three people in the past week two of them were strong candidates they don't want to come on board until the fall which I understand they feel like they have to finish out the year in their current District even though the posting doesn't say anticipated or for the fall that's what they're asking for so you hired them so we have offered one or one's in the process of um reference checks I'm just

saying like you didn't just say well well let's wait till the spring next year you're going to try to lock them in no we're going to try I'm trying now my my thing to them is always like okay I totally understand that but what's your reassurance that you're not going to call me in July and say you have a better offer right so it's always this like you know your hopeful game but so

one is in the reference check the other one we just uh met on today so we'll see my only other comment on that is to have uh your executive team take on some of these cases to assist and I think it'll just be an interesting U exercise to see what it looks like for sure your team chairs or your supervisors and yourselves or whatever to to take on some of these to see how they can assist

any questions on that I I would just note that we do have 31 special ed teacher vacancies all right so we all want to roll this out and we want to roll it out the right way right so that means there's 31 teachers that won't be able to hold those annuals somebody else will have to step in to help with holding those annuals so um you know we have the two

um Team chair positions that um Miss chain is is hiring but she's also trying to fill these teacher positions so that we can get this all on the right foot right the annuals are the key and then when you read the data some annuals are being done by team chairs that has to that has to change too so if some are doing it but some are doing it but some

are also doing it stepping in I I understand that but when you look at the big picture you also have documentation that this whatever it is let's say it's 50% 30 whatever the number is are doing it so now is the time it's got to be done everybody should be going that we shouldn't be waiting until September that should be being done in my opinion and it's pretty clear by the data

special ed budget is the last item before we goote okay so again I'm currently working with superintendent Mr alme on prioritizing our needs like I said already 70 unveil position that is my number one priority but as far as the budget goes we're in the process of taking a closer look at we have our IND District classroom that is currently um staffed and run by cesi which the school

committee um approved last year for this one year because we could not fill our our social emotional programs with Staffing so we're doing kind of an analysis of are we ready to shift back to our um our own staff and you know that will be a impact the budget in the sense of we want to um mirror the program that cesi created so they have a little bit of a different structure so

we want to make sure that we're able to staff that if we do that but we're in the again we're working with the building principal who has this I'm working with the cesi leaders ship to see what you know where our kids are at um and looking at trying to pull the data what's our suspension data what's our restraint data what's our academic data for the kids that were our highest

needs because really this was like can we have somebody from the outside coming in and providing more intensive Services than we can do or are the level of needs of those students when they get to that um point so much that we cannot meet their needs in traditional Public School even with the Specialists that we bring in size of the school you know the Dynamics all of those pieces so that's

the analysis that we're doing so those are the only those are the the pieces that might um you know impact depending on which way we go um and the the one position that I felt like I really am advocating for with the superintendent and M elmeer is our cluster coordinator position so when we have the subcommittee at the end of the year in the springtime like around May bringing this cluster coordinators here so that

they can do a presentation for you on the data of our substantially separate so we we changed the role of the cluster coordinator this year to focus on instruction in our substantially separate classrooms because leads department heads they're fantastic what they don't have is the lens of special education so they were communicating that it was a struggle to support the teachers in substantially separate

classrooms multiple grades significant learning needs right their content experts yes but we needed a specialed expert too so the cluster coordinator was the role for that and so they're working collaboratively with the um office of instruction staff our leads all of those pieces um to support the teachers I just did a survey of our substantially separate staff that are working with cluster coordinators and

the positive feedback from the teachers of the level of support and it's all around instruction all of it is around instruction principles feel very strongly but we we have a limited number of them and with the number of substantially separate programs we still have right they're spread very thin one of them is supporting a community based um social emotional and language based three different types of programs at 13

different classrooms so that's the only like right now need and honestly I have to say it I mean you guys gave us great feedback tonight and we totally appreciate it on behalf of the department but I also want to say the school committee has been super supportive of myself and the special education department on the needs so I am confident that if I need something and I come to the school committee with

the data to say this is what I need and here's why I need it I'm confident that I can do that even if it's not Monday with the budget presentation questions yes uh as far as the whole department is concerned um my last turn turn uh term on the school committee um Michael Lo set up a three-year plan moving forward Miss bed has that plan been been looked at or is there consistency to

what he set forth as a three-year Vision or are you making changes or what so I think Mich the vision that I the three-year strategic plan from Michael that I saw was actually like right before he wrote it right before Co hit so like when things came back it actually we weren't in a place that that actually made sense right um and you know just like when anyone writes the

document you write it in a way that makes sense to you how many times do we sit with it and say what is this really looking at like what does this really mean so we used his document I used the Walker report um and the latest the last TFM from the Department of Education and we developed you know kind of what our first year our second year like I just said our first year was compliance

process and procedures and substantially separate classrooms next year is going to be eligibility criteria uh eligibility and Service delivery and then we'll continue it from there again the depart I mean the um the school department is so big it's hard to say like here's a three-year plan because I have different areas that I I wasn't trying to be literal about it I was just thinking in terms of consistency in

programming that just you know from from one leadership team to another leadership team and how's that playing out you know that's all Michael never had the opportunity to start his plan before he left so it's not like it was a huge shift for the department overall it was written but it wasn't no I I appreciate the way you present it tonight you you seem um very knowledgeable all you all of you do um

and very enthusiastic to try to like bring it to where it need needs to be and I realize that we have Staffing shortfalls so that's limiting right off the bat and at the same time we have uh desie mandates hanging over our heads saying grow it this way grow it this way grow it this way so we're that Balancing Act but I'm pleased with the report that I heard tonight with that I yield

anything no I have two things one I meant to ask this in the vacancies so all out of all those vacancies any of those positions that we had people in and they were terminated and you can get us that data and uh are they vacancies because we had determinate somebody who just wasn't you know doing things properly or whatever or are they vacancies truly because we just had a vacancy and I'm all not for terminating

people but if somebody's not getting it done and they need to be terminated then it is what it is um the question of the cluster coordinator so almost every year in the budget last three years I've made a at the full committee that said to the superintendent when we have a need we need to do it now especially when we have money versus waiting now what you explained relative to the cluster

coordinator it's very clear and obvious to me that we need to do that now not later not in the budget for the next year because the the data is right here 900 and something you know like so you convinced me anyway as one member now to do this right away and it shouldn't be part of the thing so I'd like to get a motion to forward to the full committee to actually implement that cluster

coordinated to deal with the special um population now motion is made by Mr yes seconded all in favor iose and thank you I think we've done that before we said okay we have a need we have some we have the money why are we going to wait so let's just kind of move that ahead as soon as possible and um any other new business anything Mr can I ask one more question

though the the the program descriptions is that I'd like to bring it to full Committee in March once I have all the stakeholder input again I don't expect any major changes does that have to come now for March to make a motion to that way to March that's what I say we can make a motion subject to your changes and just we should have to come back here you already gave us right that's

what I mean so make a motion to refer the job descriptions the program sorry the program descriptions to the full committee yes so for this month for this month March for March sorry for March yeah all in favor is that clarified okay good yes and I want to thank you for your work it's clear that everyone m is the same thing we're on the right track and if we just need to get some some

bold actions I say that a lot and I mean it so I yeah let's boast about full River out there so we can get as many recruits new recruits as possible let's boast let's let's be very boastful to I make a motion favor I thank you all have a great night