Board of Education Curriculum Committee Meeting Minutes ( draft)

September 25, 2008

ATTENDANCE: Shirley Mosby, Chair; Rosa Murray, Bruce Kimmel, Glenn Iannaccone

OTHERS: Anthony Daddona, Dr. Lynn Moore, Mr. Whalen, Ms. Haney, Ms. Emro

CALL TO ORDER

Ms. Mosby called the meeting to order at 7:37 p.m.

DISCUSSION

Special Education Professional Development

Mr. Daddona came forward and said that the Curriculum Department organization before July handled both regular education and Special education in separate categories. He said that all students in Norwalk belong to all of the teachers. The curriculum that was being taught in basic English and basic math classes for Special Education did not reflect the curriculum that was being taught elsewhere in the District.

Since July, all of the professional development programs have included special education because the District now has a co-teacher model. This means that a certified science teacher is now co-teaching with a certified Special Education teacher and following the science curriculum. Modifications are being made, but these changes are being made by both a Special Ed and a Science teacher together. The entire District is now focused on the CALI model.

One of the keys is that the District is looking at data driven decision-making. The decisions must be made on data, not on a reaction, not on emotion. Every school has a school data team and a grade level data team. Social workers and the school psychologists are all part of the work with curriculum specialists and special education specialists and the data teams at the schools.

Another focus for professional development is creating priority standards that involve all teachers about what must be taught at different grade levels. The areas and subjects that are taught to regular students must be taught to special education students. There is no longer a separation.

The professional development is more inclusive now. The special education teachers attend the same development as the teachers who teach the mainstream students. The special education teachers receive the same teaching strategies as the mainstream teachers do. The State has directed that the focus remain narrow at this time.

Mr. Daddona then reviewed the plans for when the students do not meet the goals, which results in more individualized attention. By teaching teachers the strategies that they need to have in the classroom, it reduce the number of the special education referrals. The State will be mandating this in the coming months. It is important to focus on one step of the program at a time in order not to overwhelm the teachers.

Ms. Mosby asked about the process of identifying the students into categories. She said that there was some misclassification of students in the past. Another staff member came forward and said that RTI (Response To Intervention) is used to do an initial identification, but a full evaluation needs to be done afterwards. She then reviewed the process in regard to the different tiers available. The State will be releasing some new criteria for the Learning Disabled soon. This will refine the situation and clarify issues.

Mr. Kimmel said that in New York State, a teacher must document and prove that initial steps had been performed before a referral is done. This has drastically cut down on the number of referrals. The staff member explained that the State will no longer be using a discretionary model, but has created the RTI (Response To Intervention) model.

Mr. Daddona said that many of the teachers are confused when a student does not require Special Education, but still has needs. He said that this would help the entire process. In the past, the Central Office has not worked together as it should have on this issue. A Special Education report is in the process of being compiled for the State by the instructional specialists and the Special Education teachers.

Mr. Iannaccone asked who would be overseeing the project. Mr. Daddona said that the District Data Teams and the principals are going to be held accountable for this. He then reviewed the process and how the evidence would be compiled. As the teachers become more a part of this, they are able to participate more fully. Mr. Daddona said that he was told there would be a monthly report to the Board about what the Leadership Team was doing according to the accountability plan. The Program Review Report will be critical to this effort. Ms. Mosby said that the Curriculum Committee would like the reports to come to their committee first for discussion before it is presented to the full Board. Discussion about this then followed.

Mr. Daddona said that one of the issues that recently became apparent was that it would be important to have a Parent/Student handbook for Special Education students. Mr. Kimmel said that he had some strong concerns about the Special Education section of the website and how difficult it was to manipulate. It was explained that the website has the State guidelines for Special Education. It will be important to make the guidelines more Norwalk related. Mr. Daddona said that the handbook needs to give the parents the information they need and frequently, the handbook contains terms that are familiar to educators but not to the general public. Ms. Mosby said that it would be important to involve the parents and also to make that portion of the site more user friendly. Discussion about this then followed.

Regarding Professional Development, Mr. Daddona said that he had spoken with Jamie about this area. Jamie then explained that there was a wonderful resource in Connecticut called the Special Education Resource Center, which has sent staff out to do training on occasion. The District also sends staff up to attend their programs on various subjects. It is important to balance the development out with classroom time in order not to lose instructional time.

Jamie then mentioned recent training that was done with the Wilson Reading Program. Mr. Kimmel had some questions about the program and what grade ranges the program addresses. Jamie then reviewed the details of this with the Committee. Mr. Daddona said that last year; the District had RTI (Response To Intervention) training for Naramake and Ponus.

Mr. Daddona said that Professional Development Day would be on Election Day and that the program would be working on Data Teams and which subject areas to focus on. On November 20th, each school will have to present their District Data Team at their individual schools. Discussion about the details of this then followed.

Ms. Mosby then reminded everyone that the website and the handbook would be looked at in terms of improvement. The Curriculum Committee will also receive Special Education Reports in order for the Committee to monitor the progress of the District in this area.

One of the Special Education staff then complimented Tony for bringing the two departments together. He then explained that it was important to work together collaboratively. He then said that frequently, students are put into Special Education before the plans developed at the PPT meeting are fully implemented. This results in students that are in the Special Education program that really don’t belong there. He said that he was really encouraged by the upcoming changes. He added that there were several positive comments about the CREC program from the staff.

Mr. Daddona explained that when CES does not have a service available, the District can send staff to CRIC, which is in the Hartford area.

Mr. Whalen, a resource teacher at West Rocks, said that he was part of the CREC review. He said that he had heard of this model a number of years ago when there was a discussion about having the Special Education teachers more involved in the regular classroom. Mr. Whalen then reviewed the services available to his student and how the CREC staff member evaluated the various programs. He said that he thought the RTI model would work out well.

Ms. Haney came forward said that she felt this would be very positive move for Norwalk and thanked the District for this. Regarding Research Based Instruction, she said that many children in Special Education struggle with reading. There are other areas of disability, but a large percentage of the children are in the program because of reading. One of the things Ms. Haney had noticed when she had put her children who are dyslexic into a research based program for ten weeks, was whether or not the program was done with fidelity. The children were subject to reading for six hours a day, five days a week for ten weeks. Ms. Haney said that her daughter progressed three grade levels during that ten week period and has continued to read at grade level. Her son needed an additional 90 hours to reach grade level. Research programs with fidelity requires patience, intensity and explicitly. This might be difficult to do on a District level. She said that her children had worked with Wilson, but it had not been done with fidelity, so the results were not as good.

Ms. Rose Emro came forward and said that she was pleased with the amount of progress she had seen this year. She said that prior to this, it was left up to the parent to bring each individual issue. Mainstream teachers were not always told when a special education student was entering a class. For her child, it created a problem when a team project was assigned. Ms. Emro then mentioned a Norwalk website (www.hhh.k12.ny.us) for parents of Special Education. She then stated that Stamford had workshops for parents with autism spectrum disorders. Ms. Emro then said that she felt that the transition was particularly difficult.

Dr. Moore then asked how much money was in the Special Education budget for Staff Development. Jamie stated that the District had started out this year with $6,500. Dr. Moore then asked how many teachers were special education teachers. Jamie replied that she did not know the answer to that offhand. Dr. Moore then said that she felt it would probably come out to about $6.00 per teacher. She said that while this was not the budget committee, it would be important to understand exactly what the resources were. She said that she would like to do some very specific things with collaborative teaching. Jamie said that what she has seen is that the funding is used to pay for substitute teachers. Many of the staff will pay for their own enrollment if they can have the day off to attend the program.

Another staff member said that there were a number of students that were making the transitions from fifth grade to sixth and training was needed for that stage. Many of these students need one on one attention.

Dr. Moore then said that if the $6,500 for Professional Development is basically used to pay for substitutes, then it would affect how the principals utilize the funding. Dr. Moore said that she sees that autism and Asperger’s students have a great need.

Another staff member said that she had recently attended a U.N. conference on inclusion sponsored by the U.S. Government where there were education ministers there from Ghana, Bahamas, Cayman Islands, New Zealand, Albania and many other countries. She said that it was fascinating that the same conversation is taking place around the globe about how everyone must work together.

Mr. Iannaccone asked if there was an overall budget line for Professional Development. Mr. Daddona explained that the principals have allocations that they can draw from. He also reviewed the details of this with the Committee. Discussion followed about how the funding would be handled.

Mr. Kimmel commented that someone had referenced earlier how difficult it was to remove a child from Special Education. He said that during his time as a classroom teacher in New York, never once in 21 years did a service provider initiate what is referred to as a Service 4 for a student. Another staff member who works at the pre-school level stated that he had done a few discharges from the program himself. Discussion then followed.

The discussion then moved to interim reports and Mr. Daddona said that it was time that the district updated the reports for parents. One of the staff mentioned a company named LRP Publications that provides training modules for teaching assistants. This would allow the assistants to work on the modules individually rather than pulling them out of the classroom.

Mr. Iannaccone then commended those present who participated in the two way conversation about this subject.

** MR. IANNACCONE MOVED TO ADJOURN. ** MS. MURRAY SECONDED. ** THE MOTION PASSED UNANIMOUSLY.

The meeting adjourned at 9:02 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Sharon L. Soltes Telesco Secretarial Services

Category: Committee Minutes