Coraggio Consulting
Loudoun County School Board, Special Education Advisory Committee (SEAC) Meeting, Wednesday, September 11, 2024

Date: Wednesday, September 11, 2024
Place: Loudoun County Public Schools / School Board meeting (see BoardDocs / LCPS-TV)
Length: 2h 36m (video)
Official meeting video (Vimeo / LCPS-TV): https://player.vimeo.com/video/1008666160?rel=0
BoardDocs (School Board): https://go.boarddocs.com/vsba/loudoun/Board.nsf/Public

Machine transcript (speech-to-text) produced by Coraggio Consulting. Not an official county record. Names and numbers may be misspelled; check the video at the timestamp before quoting.
Speech-to-text: whisper.cpp, model large-v3-turbo. Produced 2026-10-21. Timestamps are [HH:MM:SS] into the meeting video.

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[00:02:55] - Good evening, everyone. If you could please find a seat if you're able to, and we will get started. Thank you all so much for coming out this evening. I hope everyone had a wonderful, refreshing, restorative summer. SIAC took a little bit of a break.

[00:03:13] We had some fun with policies over the summer, but other than that, I think we all got a little bit of time to relax as well. I wanted to go over a couple of quick little housekeeping things before we get started with our presentation.

[00:03:29] There is a public comment sheet on the back table. And so if you would like to make public comment later in the business meeting, business portion of our meeting, just sign that and we will collect it at break. Also on the screen you will see we have our QR code for sign-ins.

[00:03:48] We have gone all digital with attendance this year. So anyone who is here, whether you're a SEAC member, a representative, just a community member, a teacher, staff, if you could please just let us know that you are here tonight if you are at home.

[00:04:04] If you could also please sign in as well, that would be wonderful. There is a little box you can check that if you would like to receive emails from SEAC and I will spam you appropriately. Also new this year, we have name tags for people.

[00:04:22] We have name tags for all of our SEAC members, so it's a little bit easier to tell who's a SEAC member and get to know us a little bit better. We also have name tags for our staff as well, just so that we can all do a little bit better job connecting and really making this feel like a community.

[00:04:41] In addition to that, if you don't fit into one of those two categories, we have just little sticker name tags and we would love if you would feel comfortable putting your name on a tag as well so that we can get to know you. There are snacks in the back. Starting next month we will have the Cruising Cafe here. We've got our our cast students who are working on their life skills who are just fantastic at selling snack items and drinks and stuff for a very reasonable price and so they will be set up starting next month they are

[00:05:19] currently in training but instead we have some other little snacks tonight and some goodies made by our member Laura so thank you Laura also new this year we've got a parent resource services table in the back so we're very excited we're hoping that this will be a great opportunity for you know our community members who are coming who may have a question about something special education related and they're looking for an answer you can go to Leanne and she will be happy to provide you information resources find another time

[00:05:58] to follow up on a more detailed issue but they are there they are going to be here at I think all of our meetings so please take advantage of this resource and then we are also just doing a slight tweak to the order of our meetings and And we are going to have Leanne come and present to us the upcoming workshops.

[00:06:23] Oh, my goodness, it's still light out. It's just amazing. I usually, I was second to last last year, so this is a great change.

[00:06:42] I am Leanne Kidwell. I'm the consulting teacher for Parent Resource Services, and we are at the Historic Douglas School in Leesburg. And I, as Liz said, I am a resource to every parent, not just special ed, although my background is special ed, and I know special ed.

[00:06:58] but if you have a question concern you need a resource please give me a call i will be here every month my brochures are on the back table and are just real briefly go over the upcoming workshops which aren't many right uh for next month we only have one um it's what what is child find excuse me what is child find and that will be the 26th of september here at the admin building from 6 30 to 8. So welcome back and I hope to hear from a lot of you. Thank you so much Leanne

[00:07:37] and now we'll get started with our presenters for today. We have the good fortune of having Dr. Aaron Spence our superintendent here to kick things off and get our SEAC started to an awesome year. So thank you so much. Thanks good evening. So welcome to this first SEAC meeting. We're so glad to be here with you. It's an honor always to be here with you all, with the executive board, with all of the voting members, with all of the members who are staff who are here,

[00:08:15] and then especially our families who are here. Really appreciate the opportunity just to connect with you and celebrate a little bit about some of the work that we're doing, but just to express how grateful I am for the collaboration that we have. I do want to say thank you to SEAC for all that you do to advocate for the students of Loudoun County Public Schools.

[00:08:38] Truly, and you and I have talked about this, and I think people recognize this, the work that you do is vital to the success of our students. So the policy work that you do, the thoughtful review that you do there, making sure that our students really are reflected in that work and the governance of our school division, but more so the advocacy that happens in this room around making sure that children are known and that they're seen and that they're heard and loved really is critically important and it's a special collaboration and I've said this in other places

[00:09:12] and I think I've said it in here that it's it's not it's not always the case that there is such a powerful and special collaboration with a special ed advisory committee in school divisions across the commonwealth so i don't want to say it's unique but it is really powerful and we should be very proud that we have that here and that we've got great leadership and that we've got a very supportive school board so so i'm glad of that i i did bring some notes because i also want to do a little bit of celebrating a few things because i think they're products of this

[00:09:47] collaboration so if you didn't hear we just recently received our confirmed data from the Department of Education around the standards of learning. I was very proud to see the progress for our students with disabilities in that data. There were increases in every single category for our students with disabilities. There was an amazing increase of 14 points in English writing for our students with disabilities, 5 points in mathematics. And I think that growth like that, although it's not the only thing we're working on, it does deserve to be celebrated. And I do think it is because of your efforts to ensure that our classrooms

[00:10:23] are inclusive places that are centered on best practices that we're seeing that kind of growth and i want you to know that we're committed to continuing in that work with you in other positive news last school year we started in september with 66 special education teacher vacancies this year that number stands at 38 and for our assistance we had 49 vacancies last year that number also is at 38 and all of that is with the addition of 67 new special education staff members And I think that's a really great thing that we should be celebrating.

[00:10:57] That means, A, we have more people and more people want to come and take those jobs because they know that LCPS is a great place to work. And so I'm excited. I'm excited for that. And I also want to say that staffing was the direct result of advocacy that happened with this group.

[00:11:15] The advocacy around understanding the difference between caseload and workload. The advocacy between needing to understand that the staffing model that existed isn't working anymore allowed us to begin to build into the budget new positions and will have a significant impact on how we propose positions in special education in the coming budget.

[00:11:34] And I want to thank Tedra and Dr. Tedra Richardson and her leadership for really being the force to push that with our budget team. And I want to thank our budget team for listening. But they listened because you all raised your voices and said, hey you got to take a harder look at this and you got to make it more realistic in terms of what's happening on the ground and so we've done that and not only did we do that but we're filling those vacancies and I'm excited about that and honestly I think that deserves a round of applause because I'm very excited about that there's there's other things I want to celebrate with you some of

[00:12:10] the wins that are a direct result of the collaboration between this group and in our administration and our school board and and frankly I think a direct result of the continued belief that we can be better for our students so for example a top priority in our conversations has been transition and focusing on transition and as a result of that conversation LCPS now has a supervisor dedicated to transition services something that they didn't have before and I'm excited about that and if you didn't watch the school board meeting last night it's okay I'm not going to hold it against you but last night our school board did vote to make the

[00:12:49] development of a transition center here on LCPS one of its legislative priorities and so we're excited about that as well and just want to also acknowledge some of the things that are happening around playgrounds I know playgrounds is always a conversation for this group and your advocacy around playgrounds matters it's an important part of our conversation with facilities and I know you know that our school board heard you and that they made as an initial step fencing our playgrounds important first step and put that into their their budget requests for our year end funds and so that project is underway and we know that'll make our

[00:13:28] playgrounds more accessible for more of our students that's something that we should be proud of and more importantly that's something that our children deserve and will be a important first step as we continue to build more inclusive playgrounds across all of our schools so thank you for your advocacy around that as well I know that I know that I could go on I think there are many other things that we could celebrate but I also know you have an agenda that you need to get to so I just want to say this again kind of as I alluded to earlier I appreciate that this is a group of passionate

[00:14:03] staff members and family members and advocates for children who want to make sure that that what we're doing is shaping a better future for all of our children and in particular our children with special needs here in the school division I want you to know that I and I don't speak for them but I think I can confidently say our school board and especially our team that gets up every day and comes to work thinking about these issues is really deeply grateful for the work that happens in this committee and that will continue to happen as we move through this new school year

[00:14:41] and i hope you're excited about this new school year i know that i am i am saddened by the the one shadow that that's over us with what happened in georgia and and then in maryland and i want you to know we we remain committed as ever to safety as a top priority and are having those conversations as i know you are but all of that aside this is we are off to a great start we are off to a great start and i'm out there and i'm talking with our teachers and i'm talking with our principals and right now it just feels like we've got our feet under us and the the stuff that happened a while back just doesn't seem like it happened right like like we're not even saying the

[00:15:20] c word anymore right we're just moving forward now and we're going to make sure that as we move forward that our kids have wonderful experiences and and just know that the way we're going to make sure that happens is by building on the spirit of collaboration that exists right here in this room and and because of that we're going to just make sure that every single kid regardless of whatever challenges they face whatever abilities they bring to the table that we give them the opportunity to thrive based on on their unique strengths and I'm excited about that work and committed to that work and looking forward to the great work ahead and I thank you for letting me

[00:15:56] spend a little time with you this evening thank you thank you so much Dr. Spence and next we have with us this evening Dr. Daniel Smith who is the LCPS chief of staff and is going to be giving all of us a policy overview which is one important component of the work SEAC does. Thank you. Thank you Liz and welcome everyone. I'm excited to be here with you tonight to talk a little bit about

[00:16:31] the policy review process, what we have in store for this year and where we're at in terms of this process so I think let me see do I click my own slides there we go all right so we're good to go so I just again just want to provide an overview of the process what are some of the reasons why we take a look at policies and then what are the what we are anticipating 64 policies that we've identified this year that we believe will come up within this school year and how we've tried to structure those in a way that's user-friendly for you as you take a look at these as you are able to give us some feedback on each of these policies as you're able to do that as a part of

[00:17:07] SEAC or as a member of our community. This document is a one-pager that we have linked on our website and I'm going to go to that in just a second that we really just try to put out there to show what are some of the reasons we look at policy what is our process and it also has a link to our page our policy and regulations page that will give you an overview of the policies that we have coming up this year. And so this is available on our website on the LCPS policy site. And so I just wanted to make sure that you are aware of that. I don't think, let's see, we're not going to do

[00:17:42] that. All right. So in terms of goals for the policy review process, we are required by Virginia Code to take a look at each of our policies every five years. And so that is where we start initially when we start to talk about what policies do we think are coming up this year. Well, we know some are coming up because they're up for their five-year review, so that makes it pretty easy.

[00:18:05] We also want to make sure that the goal of our process in taking a look at policies is make sure that there are some things that may need to change in terms of our practices. There may be some updates that we need to put in place because of changes in Virginia code, and we want to make sure that we do that in a timely manner. And then the last goal of our policy process, we want to make sure that we are incorporating feedback from our staff, feedback from our parents, feedback from our communities. And I think one of the things that I think is so great about Loudoun is that we do, I think we do a really nice job of trying to get everyone's feedback around policies. I've

[00:18:43] seen other school divisions and I have not seen one that I think is so transparent around putting policies on the front page of the website, the way that we organize it, the way we share it with you and all of our advisory committees to try to get that feedback, how that feedback goes directly into board docs and is shared with board members as they, it's unredacted as they take a look at some of that. And so we want to make sure that we continue to have that engagement. And frankly, that's one of the reasons I'm here tonight, because I want to be very clear and open with you about here's the policies that we are hearing that we think they're going to come up for review and want to let you know that in as much advanced notice as possible. So here's a quick overview of

[00:19:22] our process. So when we start to take a look at policies that are up for review, our staff will often look at the Virginia School Boards Association model policy, if there's one available. They provide us with templates to take a look at that have been reviewed by their legal teams and taking a look at Virginia code. And so we take a look to see if that model policy is available.

[00:19:45] Staff will then work with that policy for a little while, take a look at what we might need to incorporate say is there any changes in virginia code is there any changes that we need to update within this policy to conform with our practices and what we're currently doing and then once they have a good draft together then they will take it to what we call is our primary committee for review and so this goes to one uh one or more of our standing committees of the school board we have as of last night we have nine standing committees on our of our school board at this time and each of them really review policy and so it will go to that that three member committee to take a look at

[00:20:23] that committee will do some work with it and so sometimes it takes one month to go as information sometimes that committee might say hey we want to see these changes and bring it back again they may say we want to have some more data some more information so bring it back again and so it does take take some time in that committee to do that work because that's really where the work takes place around our policies once that committee feels good with it and said we want to move it forward we're going to move it forward to action at the next meeting that's when we put it out for feedback so we get it in a good place in that in that committee then we put it out to our advisory and select committees and so that's where our the folks in the work with in

[00:21:02] my office in the superintendent's office will send out specific emails to each of the the leaders of our advisory groups and our staff liaisons to say hey these policies are now up for review and they are now available on the on the public website for review and so we we update our website at that time to make sure that everybody knows that they're out and available. We leave them up for about two weeks is about the time that we leave up for review because it's really between the first the the committee meetings is about a month and so we leave it up for two weeks to get the feedback then we usually take about a week that we take we need to take a look at each one of the pieces

[00:21:39] of feedback how it applies if we need to make some of those changes and then in the fourth week the agenda is posted for that next committee meeting which we need to have all the feedback and any updates to the policy posted and so that's the reason for our timeline and so we have that feedback there and then it'll come back for action that policy will come back for action at that next primary committee meeting and so the board the board committee will take a look at it that time if they feel good about it at that point they'll vote to send it to the full board and then that usually goes for information and action this whole process at the the least amount

[00:22:16] of time it will likely take as i would say is three months sometimes it just depends on how much work needs to needs to go on we've we've recently had a policy that's gone back and forth between committee and the full board a couple of times and so it just it does take some time we want to make sure that we get it right so it is a can be a at least a three-month process usually at least a four-month process, and it could be longer. So just so you're aware of our list of advisory and select committees, you do see SEAC there at the top, and we do have several other advisory and select committees. These are the ones that get every single policy. We send a specific

[00:22:54] email inviting participation and feedback on our policies. And then I've also put a link to the policy review, which you'll see with our new updated website has been updated and has those links where folks can provide feedback. So as I shared, we are anticipating we have 64 policies that we believe will come up for review. And so we say we believe they're coming up for potential review. Some of them is because of a five-year again. Some of them is change of Virginia code that we need to make changes. Sometimes there's a change in a model policy from the state department that we need to take a look at and review. And there's other things that we know that from our

[00:23:30] board members that they would like to take a look at, that they have an interest in. And so we've added those things on there. So for example, I think a good example is playgrounds, right? I think somebody just referenced playgrounds. And so you will see that that policy, we have added that because we have heard interest from the board. There is interest around playgrounds. So in anticipation of that, we have added that to this list. So this year, I want to share, we did, and I'm going to click on this for just a second. Actually, I'm going to go back for a minute. Just give me a second. I'm going to go back because I want to show you where we get to from here so you

[00:24:03] can see. So on our policy review page, you will see, I think. Okay. So our new policy review page, you'll see we've got four policies up for review right now. And then it lists each of the policies in their chapter. And so down here at the bottom, you will see new policy, new revised policy up for potential review. And we've tried to separate these in three different ways. This is the first year we've done it a couple different ways to make it as user-friendly as possible. So the first list, these all have the exact same number of 64 policies in it they're just organized a different way

[00:24:38] the first is by chapter so you'll see the 1000s the 2000s the 3000s the second list is by committee so we do identify which of these policies do we anticipate are going through student services committee which will go through the legislative audit and policy committee all of our different committees where do we think these policies will go through so it's by committee and then the last list is by projected season. We know that with 64 policies, you're going to need to prioritize which policies you look at first. And so we, I have worked with the committee chairs and the staff liaisons to say, when do you think these policies will come up for review? And so we have projected

[00:25:14] a fall 2024, we projected a winter 24-25, and a spring 2025. So that you, as you are looking at these, you can prioritize which ones do we think are going to come up first. And so now I think I can go back to that list. So this is the one by chapter. So you can see here we've listed the policy. We have a couple of ones that will be brand new. So we know we need a policy about literacy plan. We think that's going to come through curriculum instruction. The purpose of the review, it's a new policy. And we think that's going to be this winner is when feedback will go

[00:25:48] out. So you can see and take a look at really any of these to have an idea of when they might be coming up for review. And so that, that's those lists for you. And I'm happy to, you know, I know Ms. Crotty and I are going to meet and talk through these a little bit more because we talk in terms of what's being proposed in some of these, why might they be coming up, which ones might you want to take a look at. And so I'm always happy to consult and talk on that when anything that might arise. So let me go back here. So those are the three lists that we have for you. And finally,

[00:26:25] i just want to make sure you have my email i'm happy to reach out to me or hope casterly sometimes hope is more available than i am and she can she can get back to you pretty quickly on any policy questions but we want to be a support for you we want to help you in any way we want your feedback on our policies um so that we can have the very best policies that's gonna it's gonna govern our school division and our work with our kids and our staff each every day so um hopefully that wasn't too fast and hopefully that gives you a quick overview in terms of of where we're at

[00:26:54] All right. Thank you very much. Thank you so much, Dr. Smith. Okay. And next on our agenda, we have Ms. Tedra Richardson joining us, who is our Assistant Superintendent of Student Services.

[00:27:15] Good evening, SEAC. It is truly a pleasure to welcome you to a new school year in LCPS. SEAC truly does serve as a vital bridge between our families, our educators, and our school administrators. Your insights and feedback have which have been echoed by Dr. Spence and Dr. Smith truly assist us in shaping policies and practices that impact our special education services making a real difference in the lives of our students and and their families. I would now like to give you an overview

[00:27:54] of some of the goodness that's been coming from the Department of Student Services. It has been a very busy time. I know Mrs. Karate started us off talking about a nice relaxing summer. So I do hope, yes, that we had moments of that, but the department has been truly busy. So as a department, we have been delving into the work of showing up. How are we showing up for ourselves? How are we showing up for our colleagues so that we are truly building a culture of care and connection across the five offices, and we are excited about that work, and it

[00:28:30] will be year-long work and work that we have to dedicate ourselves to every single day. From the Office of Diagnostic and Prevention Services, they have revamped and reconfigured the MTSS module to make sure that we are in full alignment with the Virginia Literacy Act and the required reading plans for students across LCPS.

[00:28:52] was a huge lift this summer. From the Office of Student Services, we have one of the largest celebrations. We started this school year off with the passing of policy 6640, which includes the ability for our school nursing staff to use the Follow Me app for our type 1 diabetic students and their continuous glucose monitors. So we started the year off with 31 elementary schools and 19 middle schools utilizing this technology.

[00:29:24] And we've been super excited. And the collaboration and the support and advocacy from parents is really what got us across the finish line. So thank you for that. Then from the Office of Special Education, wow. We served 783 students this summer through extended school year services.

[00:29:43] Thank you, Office of Special Education, for all you do. The Office of Student Mental Health Services has been collaborating with the Office of School Administration, our Title IX Office, our Department of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility to develop and provide a training for all of our administrators on preventing and responding to mistreatment, bullying, and harassment and that training kicked off in August during our LEAD Loudon conference and those trainings will continue to take place over the course of the school year. The Office of Procedural Support and

[00:30:21] And while I appreciate that Dr. Spence gave me the kudos for the special ed staffing, Dr. Paige Carter and Donna Smith did the heaviest of the lifting. Donna Smith and her team really worked on the calculations per school, per student, along with Dr. Carter with the feedback and the tweaking and what are our needs here and input from our Office of Diagnostic and Prevention Services with the numbers of students that have been found eligible to truly make sure that we had adequate staffing for special special education to reflect the management of caseloads that that's

[00:30:58] needed for compliance but more importantly the workload and what does it feel like look like and sound like at our building levels for our students so just want to celebrate the hard work that has happened over the summer that has afforded us the ability to kick off this school year so very wonderfully i do look forward to our continued collaboration and i just thank you all for your continued partnership and feedback

[00:31:25] and advocacy you are greatly appreciated thank you and next we have miss carrie labelle who is our school board liaison she is the representative from the catoctin district but she is our special SEAC liaison to the school board yes I am walking without appendages today there is hope I'm short

[00:32:04] in case you hadn't noticed yes I'm Carrie LaBelle I am your Catoctin board rep and I'm also your SEAC rep and I was so excited when they told me that I was going to be the SEAC rep I had asked for that because I have a long history in special ed. My sister had downs and from there forward everything that I did was focused on special ed. So here we are. Some of the things, well let me

[00:32:36] first just tell you a little bit. When we were sworn in as board representatives back on January 2nd we were following a very very nasty situation several nasty situations and a lot of the board members did not get along well and people when I came back from Richmond because they'd sent us to a conference and they said well how are things going with the board like it was almost you know

[00:33:09] we'd be swallowed up what I am here to tell you is that this board even though I'm a minority in this board, we get along pretty well. We found when we were in Richmond that not only did we like one another, we actually were together on a lot of ideas. And I think this is something that is going to turn out to be a good thing for Loudoun County. I was asked to tell you what it is that I

[00:33:45] do as a SEAC rep? Well, I am your voice, your liaison, your conduit to the board, directly to the board. You tell me what you need, and I take it to the board, and I work on it. And one of the first things that I was told when we started back in January, I started getting letters from parents about VDLE, you know, virtual distance learning elementary school, and oh my god, it was going away, and we needed something to be put in its place. And I saw the urgency, and I saw the

[00:34:21] sincerity, and a lot of you talk to me here about that in SEAC, and guess what? When the vote came up, it was, anybody remember? Nine to zero for VDLE. Now, what I need to remind you is that VDLE, the money we used for it for this year is one year only it had an ending point so I think if you are still hoping for some kind of education other than in a regular special ed classroom I hope you are

[00:34:57] working on some sort of plan because that money will not be available when we work on the budget this year. So that is one of the first things that you all need to know. But let's talk about some of the other successes we had. As Dr. Spence mentioned, we got through Adaptive Playgrounds.

[00:35:18] We found the money for it. And Ms. Donahue and I were thrilled last Friday to be at the ribbon cutting of the Lovettsville Elementary Adaptive Playground. It was awesome. And I have tons of pictures. And if you can stand around after the meeting and want to see them all, I would be happy to share them with you. But it was awesome. The kindergartners, this was their first year in school. This was their first week in school. And they hadn't been out for recess yet. And so they

[00:35:51] were allowed the first go at that playground. And it was like a stampede. They were having so much fun. Another thing that we have worked on that you've brought forward to us was your concern about student meds and student getting them consistently different kinds of meds that we were allowed to administer and we managed to bring forth policy 8420 student meds and that passed I can't remember what the count on that was but yes that got passed and it's there for you

[00:36:26] another policy we worked on was 8655 student personal device use we carved out a spot even though we don't want cell phones out during instructional time or in you know in the schools we carved out a spot for students who had medical needs to be able to carry their personal devices so that parents teachers families could monitor them so that was another win for special ed

[00:36:57] let me tell you a little bit and then we had of course policy 6644 which we already talked about so I won't do that again but we are working right now on policy 8655 student restraint no that's the wrong number we are working on student restraint right now as part of a committee and I'm hoping that we're going to see some movement towards star rooms they are awesome

[00:37:31] I'm going around visiting some of them and the other thing that we are working on very hard which is wonderful and the plans are awesome let's hope we get them all in there is the new transition center so these are a lot of the things that we're doing right now but remember I'm available to you. You let me know what you need to have done and I will bring it to the board and I

[00:37:58] will fight really hard for you. So thank you again. Thank you Carrie. And next we have Miss Nakia Purnell who I believe is going to help us with the next section of our presentation. She is our Assistant Director of Special Education here in LCPS. Good evening and welcome back. We are so

[00:38:36] happy to see so many people here tonight like this is a really really good turnout even Jimmy out in the hallway said oh you guys have a lot of people in there tonight I said I know it's very exciting so I am the part of the program that will get you prepared for the next part of the program because there is a ton of sitting so we are going to do a little bit of a get up and move activity and I know you just got here but we're going to get all our wiggles out right now while we connect so is everybody up for that perfect and if there are accessibility issues and moving and standing and going from one side of the room to the other presents a

[00:39:14] challenge for you certainly you can stay at your seat and we will utilize a right hand left hand I almost said left hand I'm still not good at that but a right hand left hand option for you all so we are gonna go ahead and jump into our connection and get started and it is titled back to the future there will be no acting or impromptu, you know, Saturday Night Live type thing. I promise we will not embarrass you in that way. So we are going to play a game of this or that. And so what we will do is if the

[00:39:48] thing on this side resonates more with you, you will move to this side of the room and opposite if it resonates more with the thing on this side of the screen. And yes, if you are looking at this screen behind me, not at the one I'm looking at. So let's see how I deal with that. That's going to be really exciting too. So we're going to go ahead and jump in. Does anyone need more clarification of the rules? Good. If you do have questions, just raise your hand. Okay. So we are going to start, if everybody would stand up. All right. The first question is, did you go to a

[00:40:27] school in another country, that wall, Virginia, that wall, or right in the middle, another state. I'm going to give you some time to get to where you're going. Like, let's say elementary or secondary, you can choose, not college, not college. We're talking elementary or secondary.

[00:40:53] And you guys can share when you get to your locations. Oh my goodness. No, not college, Elementary or secondary? All right, so we've got a really small group.

[00:41:10] Oh, and another country. Oh, anybody want to share what country? New Zealand and France. Mexico and Canada. Germany and England.

[00:41:29] Morocco. One more. Trinidad and Tobago. So we've got a nice diverse group. And then we've got some out-of-state, But we've got a lot of people who are educated in another state.

[00:41:45] So we know that can be very, very, very different from Virginia. All right, stay where you are. And you might end up staying where you are, but you might have to move. All right, next one. How did you typically get to school, elementary or secondary? Remember, a bus, right?

[00:42:01] Bus this way, walk that way, and car in the middle. So we got a lot of bus riders, a lot of bus riders.

[00:42:25] it looks like the bus riders win this one but we had some walkers so I would assume that you guys are in pretty small school divisions or where you are very close to the school that is located near your house or you have the story where I walk three miles okay okay okay all right all right stay where you are next one what type of school did you attend public private or you had a little

[00:42:57] bit of both okay all right so the vast majority were educated in the public school system so we love to see it we think public schooling is what is best that is where you meet so many different people there is diversity there is nothing wrong with public schooling but there is also nothing wrong with private schooling and then we got some they got the best of both worlds so I love that

[00:43:34] yeah or they're confused could be could be could be don't tell all right next one just a few more did you learn to read from whole language or language experience because if you remember because I have no idea how I learned to read both or like a basal reader or like reading groups if you can remember if you can't just stay where you are no one will question it

[00:44:08] like those systematic reading yeah oh boy okay so either we've got almost a really even mix or no one really understands that question and you guys just either moved or stayed where you were that's okay that's okay okay I thank you guys for indulging us in this there's just a few more and this one oh this one might share some things about you that you don't want us to know

[00:44:46] but was your first high school paper written with pen and paper was it typed on a typewriter or on a computer my computer people over here okay so most so we can see the divide

[00:45:21] The divide is very clear here, that these are our pen and paper people. These are probably our 80s and 90s babies, maybe. But then this group over here, this group over here is probably also some of them, because we probably got the best of both worlds.

[00:45:44] Maybe middle school was pen and paper, but then computers came out. Okay, okay, okay, okay. but we got a group of veterans right here in the middle who actually had typewriters there was one in the library I can remember we never got to use it but it was like an it was like an antique thing on display that was really interesting okay all right this is a big one this really might tell whether you were kind of rural or maybe even inner city right did your school have air conditioning

[00:46:21] or no air conditioning? Air conditioning over here, no air conditioning over there. I know, but you had air conditioning. Okay, not even pinned. Okay, so if you had it intermittently, it's okay if you stay in the middle. Or both. Okay, in the middle or both in the middle. So

[00:46:59] there's a good split here. I'm not sure what school is like without air conditioning, but that seems like learning may have been a little rough i'm i'm not sure um especially for crystal where is crystal because i'm sure if crystal didn't have air conditioning she couldn't do anything okay all right did your teacher use i know did your teacher use chalkboard overhead projector

[00:47:24] or interactive whiteboard i know okay so in all fairness in all fairness there may be a small group that just had chalkboard because you know, the overhead projector might not have come out yet, but the overhead projector and the chalkboard kind of go hand in hand.

[00:48:04] I feel like those were kind of around at the same time. But if you only ever had like Promethean or SmartBoard, well, no one, right? So we haven't quite gotten there yet. Okay, okay. Okay, so I thank you guys so much. You can go back to your seats.

[00:48:23] So when you get back to your seats, we do want to engage in some small group conversation. And certainly after that, we will ask for opportunities if anyone wants to share out.

[00:48:41] And you don't have to feel pressure to share out. But just giving you an example of things we have in common, things that are different, what school was like when we were in school, what things were available, what things weren't available, how many resources had versus what we did not have. So what do we want special education to look like for our students or our children here in LCPS? We want you to engage in a conversation at your tabletops with your peers and if you want to join another table if it's just two if not you can stay with just the pair but have a

[00:49:21] conversation about what you want that to look like and then from that conversation we want you to raise one word if i ask you to share out you don't have to summarize the entire conversation but we want you to put it into one word to describe that experience so i'm going to give you guys let's say about three to five minutes to have that discussion and then

[00:49:45] we'll come back and see if anyone wants to share out their one word we're going to take just a

[00:52:47] couple more minutes to wrap up our conversations and don't forget to be thinking about your one word

[00:54:03] okay let's wrap up our conversations okay so liz has the mic if anybody wants to share the one word that they came up with and liz's table of course wants to go first of course we do um so we individualized our word and our word is rise but it's an acrostic poem which stands for rigorous individualized and inclusive which is i2 structured and enjoyable i like it

[00:54:41] you kind of you kind of bended the rules a little bit but if we're anything in special education we're flexible so we got hand up in the back jenna oh good we got a mic back there so we had a lot of ideas that floated around the table including engaging and inclusive and you know meeting having well-rounded students making sure we're educating the whole child and not just focused on one area but what we came to the conclusion was that all of those

[00:55:17] things require intentionality and planning so that and being purposeful in our in our process okay so it was really good we got rise and we've got intentionality you gonna have to remind us what rise stands for okay what do we have over here? So our word is potential because we talked a lot about need for more handwriting and cursive skills CTE skills and more inclusion and when we thought about all those individual discrete things we felt like they all

[00:55:55] pointed kids to reaching their full potential so our words potential. Nice nice potential yeah I like it anyone else want to share their word no pressure sure right here in the middle one second let us get the mic so the folks at home can hear you so our word is robust no matter what you do you have to do it in a robust manner I like it go big or go home right robust I like it okay in the back so we too talked about a lot of things but we determined

[00:56:34] cohesive we really want our students from early intervention through transition to have a cohesive inclusive educational experience in in all areas of their education okay so we want an environment that represents rise that is intentional that is i guess highlighting uh-uh the student's potential that then is robust got it and cohesive and bridget oh my gosh it's like a game of memory y'all are going to help me and we said all because

[00:57:10] all means all all with an underline means all and all means all we're going to wait until the and try to see if we can remember them all so we will in in complement to rise we had sit which is for safety inclusiveness and transparency nice all right does anyone else want to share so we are do we think we're ready let's see if in unison we can we can do this so we've got an

[00:57:47] environment where students rise then where their potential oh intentionality and then who is next and their potential is being met in a robust manner that is cohesive and that's for all and where that represents the sit acronym okay we got it thank you guys so much for engaging in that we will always have an opportunity to connect with one another at each of these meetings again to

[00:58:26] continue to show that we certainly and we kind of coined this term first because we've been saying this for a couple of years we have more in common than we know so we want to keep reminding ourselves of that and that we are a team so we will continue doing these activities so you can collaborate and learn from one another and we can continue to highlight those commonalities thank you so much you guys had as much fun as i did that was really great all right next we have

[00:58:59] dr page carter our lcps director of special education to give us a nice update carrie i have to move it down too okay well i um want to share with you just a little bit of what's been going on this summer and as we prepared for this year and as we kicked off the year and i was so grateful for Dr. Spence to talk about how it just feels like we've had a really good start. This is my I'm entering my second full year as director and this year's start was very different than last

[00:59:35] year's start for me so I feel like I've got some under my belt too. Our theme in OSE is at your service and there is a customer service bill on on this picture. We actually at our retreat all of the supervisors have customer service bells at their desks on the fourth floor, and whenever we do something good for a kid, we ring the bell. Now, Nakia and I have a very special bell. Would you ring that one time for us? I went a little overboard, and you will occasionally

[01:00:09] hear that sound from our office. So we, actually more often than occasionally, but we are celebrating the good things when we're able to help a student or do something good for a teacher or do something that promotes safety or promotes transparency or anything like that.

[01:00:27] Or when we're in a meeting that could have been contentious and it wasn't, ring the bell. Like we're just really celebrating all the things that are going well. And I'm going to share with you guys some of those things. So we are serving right now, and I'm going to excuse that approximately word, but we haven't had our total student count yet.

[01:00:51] So, we are, we know we have 10,137 students with disabilities, but there are also many transfers and many students who have just been found eligible who haven't come into the system yet. So we suspect it's somewhere around 10,400 at this moment.

[01:01:11] And if you recall, we ended the year last year with 10,409 and many seniors graduated. So that says a lot about how many eligibilities we had over the summer, but we are growing in special education.

[01:01:27] Before I go any further, if you serve on the OSE team and are buying into my at your service, I'd like you guys to stand up so you guys can see. So all of the supervisors in OSE, would you stand up so people can see who you are?

[01:01:43] so we we spent a lot of time this summer um talking about what customer service meant and ultimately our customers are our students all 10 400 of them right and so and and with that comes the staff that serve them and the families who care for them so it is our goal every day to ring the bell so many times we start to irritate the other departments on the fourth floor and maybe the fifth floor. But it really is our goal to be at the service of students

[01:02:23] with disabilities to the maximum amount that we can do in a day. Which, thank you guys, I know those days often go well beyond eight hours. So thank you for your work. All right. And I have to unlock my notes here. Okay. Next, I just wanted to share a visual that really highlights what Dr. Spence pointed out is that we have filled more of

[01:02:55] our positions this year than we had by October last year and so many more and we are of the positions that we still have vanket five of the TAs are in the hiring process now and three of the teachers are in the hiring process and I got an email that two more were secured today so we are moving at a really good pace and it is true that folks want to come here and do special education and that is huge in part to the collaboration that we all share this is another way of looking at the vacancies it's the

[01:03:31] same way i showed it to you last year but if you look at the blue is october of 2023 and the orange or salmon is this month so we are really proud we worked really hard to come up with some creative ways to attract folks and we're still adding to that working as we work through the budget as we work with human resources and budget and business budget and finance to really come up with ways to make Loudon the place to be to serve students with disabilities because we are in

[01:04:05] competition with some with some school divisions that pay more than we do or have different things than we do and we want to do everything we can to attract the brightest and the best to serve our students all right so one thing to brag about on August 15th and shout out to everybody in the office of student or in the department of student services some of those guys helped us come up with enough sessions to cover all 1,300 roughly of our special education teachers and related service providers they joined us at Independence High School Nakia and I had the privilege along with our friend

[01:04:43] Charlene Gray of doing a talk show style keynote. It was showing up with Nakia Purnell. She was the host. As you can imagine she would be a very good talk show host. But we were able to talk about what it means for us to show up for one another, for our students, for our families, for our community and teachers responded really well to it. The feedback was amazing but another gist of it is that in order to show up we have to take care of ourselves too we can't just run in because special education will do that to you and so the importance

[01:05:21] of making sure we're taking care of ourselves and doing the things that we need to do especially our teachers who are in the classroom with our students every single day so it was a really great time to be with them and they were able to go to sessions throughout the day and get some professional learning it was a really good time SIAC was there parent resource services was there we we had a really good day and we are I might talk about in a second but we're planning similar style conferences this year for our teacher assistants and behavior assistants so they'll be have the opportunity to do get together and do those things some of the things I want to highlight and celebrate that we

[01:06:01] were able to get going this year are additional and it's really repurposed human reservice human resources people for our students with visual impairments We now have a specialist who is able to really support both vision instruction and supporting visual impairments as well as orientation and mobility.

[01:06:23] We were able to staff those positions, and those folks are unicorns, and we were able to fill those positions, so it's exciting. We also added to our troops of one-to-one TAs who support students who are blind so that if they need to be out there is someone who can come behind them and serve that student that's very specialized and not anybody can walk in and do that and so those are those were priorities for us this year and we were able to make that happen and almost all of those positions are filled so we're but we have a full force we have one more teacher of the blind and visually impaired to fill if anybody knows anybody and we are looking but we have a

[01:07:02] full staff to serve our kids we also added a transition supervisor and the work that they are doing to move transition forward is just at an incredible pace we're so excited that the cast cart is getting ready to open on the fourth floor we've been snackless for some time we're excited they'll be here the other thing that I really want to celebrate and I want to brag on so many departments but I'm going to highlight one there is purposeful and inclusive collaboration happening across the division whether we're working with facilities or planning or we're being included on the front end in our

[01:07:41] department and it makes such a tremendous difference in the way we're able to serve our kids but I have to do a shout out to our friends in DDI which is our technology folks they are going to be supporting the setup and maintenance and replacement of our iPads for communication devices so it isn't something that our team is going to have to take on. It's going to be where it belongs in technology. And it wasn't even our idea. And we're just so excited because they're like, we want to help. We see what you're doing and we want to help. And that is just incredible. And we're so

[01:08:18] excited that they're going to be partnering with us. And they always have, but this is in a really intentional way. And we're excited about it. The next thing is that our team worked this summer to develop a resource guide for all of our special education staff and administrators and those who support it.

[01:08:36] It is in one place, one landing page. I see a couple of our folks in the schools nodding. Jesse, do you like it? Awesome. Okay, good. Good. One-stop shop where we're not having to click and hunt and peck to find all the things that we need. And so that took a lot of effort, and I'm very grateful to my team for putting that together.

[01:08:57] And then some things that we're continuing to work on. I told you guys that we were going to have four professional development opportunities with probably two conference-style opportunities for our TAs this year, and that's new. TAs are often, they do have professional development opportunities, but not near the amount that we feel like they need to truly be successful, and so this is something that we're going to do this year.

[01:09:23] And we're also going to continue our focus on direct support through our specialized instructional facilitators who go out to the schools. So they are going to be spending more and more time in classrooms and supporting teachers, building capacity, and doing all those things.

[01:09:41] We're also going to be participating in one more audit. We had three last year completed. We're still waiting on the results of two of them, but we've got a little bit of previews on those things. But we're going to have an external audit, And it's a company who does a really thorough look at special education.

[01:09:58] They're going to be here between 18 months and two years to really peel back the layers of special education and see where we are really thriving and those areas where we need to improve. And when I was talking to them, they said, what's off-limits?

[01:10:13] What is it that you don't want us to be a part of? And I said, nothing. We want to look at it all. So we're really excited about that coming. And it will be work, it will be good work though.

[01:10:29] So we're excited about that. It should kick off probably sometime in October. All right, and then before I sit down, I just wanna say another big thank you to SEAC for the collaboration, for the way that we listen to one another, and the way that they support the efforts for our students with disabilities.

[01:10:48] Because we're at a really, really good place where we have everybody working together for common goals. And I brag about it at the directors meetings like you wouldn't believe because it is not that way everywhere.

[01:11:03] Thank you for being here. Thank you for showing up for your kids and all the kids in Loudoun County Public Schools.

[01:11:19] - Thank you so much, Dr. Carter. And I know that we feel exactly the same way. We absolutely treasure our collaboration and our work together with everyone in the Office of Special Ed. so next up is our business meeting we're going to take a five minute break so that people can go run to the bathroom grab a snack if you need to and then we're going to get started again for those of you who are at home again we've got the qr code for electronic sign-in up on the screen so if you haven't had a chance to sign in yet you can feel free to do that it'll we have it on a bunch of slides just because i know last year there was an issue with people like i missed it

[01:11:59] So don't worry if you need to go run to the bathroom right now and you don't get a chance to do it. There will be other opportunities to QR code. So we will start right back up at 7.15 on the dot.

[01:18:01] All right, everybody.

[01:20:33] We're going to go ahead and get started. Thank you guys for your patience. We're trying to sort through some technical difficulties. Excuse me. One second, everybody. If you could please make your way back to your seat. We're going to get started.

[01:20:49] We've got a lot to get through. I love that we are all connecting, but we gotta get going.

[01:21:07] All right, we are going to get started with the role of SEAC and Virginia regulations. It's on, I don't know if we can, does the mic need to get, is that better? I think part of it was people are still talking. Okay, all right.

[01:21:23] Okay, everyone's favorite part of the program where we talk about the regulations that guide SEAC. we are state mandated to perform the following functions, to advise the local school division of needs and education of students with disabilities, participate in the development of priorities and strategies for meeting the identified needs of students with disabilities, submit periodic reports and recommendations, assist the local school division in interpreting plans to the community, review the policies and procedures the provision of special education and related services prior to submission to

[01:22:02] the local school board and participate in the review of the local school divisions annual plan so my name is liz crotty i am going to introduce all of our seac officers very quickly i am the chair and then we have katherine moran to my right who is our seac vice chair of planning To my left, we have Carla Sola, who is, again, our CIAC vice chair of membership.

[01:22:31] Next to Carla, we have Erin Rosalpo, our CIAC vice chair of communications. Katie Rosenbrook is our CIAC secretary. She is unable to be here tonight. Our CIAC past chair is Sharon Trofe, who is participating virtually.

[01:22:47] And then we have Dr. Paige Carter over on the end, who we have all just heard from. And our school board liaison, Carrie LaBelle, and then our alternate school board liaison is Melinda Mansfield. So one thing I wanted to do quickly this evening, if we can, is to just go around and quickly let all of our SEAC members just give a real brief introduction to themselves.

[01:23:15] I think that's been one of the things I know when I was a SEAC member it took me a very long time to even realize who the other SEAC members were much less people from outside of our membership not knowing exactly who we are and where we come from and what we do so I thought perhaps we can just go around real quick let's get we will just go in the order on the screen Alicia McFadden you get to

[01:23:46] start us off and then followed by Beth. Sure, well, you can share as much as you want. I don't want you to feel like you have to share anything in particular, but if you want to share your name or any other information, feel free. I'm Alicia McFadden. I'm a speech pathologist and owner of CSTC Therapies in Ashburn. And I joined SEAC just to have better collaboration with the school district and to be able to give that support to clients and their families. Awesome. Next,

[01:24:21] - We have Beth Carlson, she is one of our new SEAC members. - Hi, I'm Beth Carlson, I am a new SEAC member, as well as the new Stonehill Middle School representative.

[01:24:38] I joined SEAC because I have a son who is in sixth grade and he is autistic, and I just wanted to be a voice and advocate for him, so thank you. And then Craig Metz is going to be joining us virtually, I think, but I don't see him on the screen yet.

[01:25:00] So we'll go to Jennifer DiDonato. Hi, I'm Jen DiDonato. I am a mother of a fifth grader who has dyslexia and dysgraphia, which is what brought me to SEAC originally to be the PTA rep.

[01:25:16] I've been on the board for a year and a half, or not on the member for a year and a half now. Outside of this, I work in cybersecurity and privacy as the CISO of a large company. So any time a privacy policy or cybersecurity policy comes up, I get really excited and usually take you guys really late into the night.

[01:25:35] So that's me. Thanks. Next is Kathy Fuligati-Lambert, and she's in the back. Hi, I'm Kathy Lambert. I have a daughter who attends Briarwoods. I'm really happy to be here.

[01:25:57] I have been dealing with the special world for probably 22 years now in Landon County. have two children so I'm really happy to represent not just my child but anybody that may need help next we have Kelly Ralston not sure if she's here with us this evening okay Laura Colossi who's down and up front hi everyone I'm Laura Colossi mama to my oldest son he's in the k-2

[01:26:36] autism class at Legacy yeah I'm just a new SIAC member love to bake so if you They were wanting treats. Let me know. Next, we have Melissa Waugh. Hi, I'm Melissa Waugh, and I am a special education attorney.

[01:26:58] I got into that biz 14 years ago when my husband and I adopted two children from foster care who came to us with IEPs. And, of course, the first IEP meeting, you know, they give you your rights. And I'm like, thank you. And six months later, I finally got through the document and realized, oh, my gosh, I was doing Medicare Medicaid law, which is a little complicated.

[01:27:18] I'm looking at this thinking, how are people getting, understanding this and how to apply it to the unique fact pattern of their kids? And that's how I got into doing special education law 14 years ago. And my two children with special needs have graduated from both from Broad Run High School. But I, thanks to Sharon and Liz and some others, I am staying on board and helping out with CX.

[01:27:42] So thanks, and I look forward to working with all of you guys this year. Next is Rosina Kotick. I'm Rosina Kotick. I have four children, two in, well, bookends.

[01:27:58] I have a senior in broad run, and my youngest is now a fifth grader, Discovery. Those are my children with special education needs. I also, I own a company that does service facilitation, so I am the Medicaid waiver guru.

[01:28:15] So please ask me anything. That's a very helpful skill. And Sakina Zarbush. She's right in the middle there in the back. Thanks, Catherine. I knew where you were. My name is Sakina Zarbush.

[01:28:31] I am a speech-language pathologist, and I have been treating adults and children for the last 25 years. And the reason I joined the committee is it's just a different learning experience, interacting with the families and hearing their stories.

[01:28:49] And I felt like it's just going to help me see another side of things. And thank you. Next is Sarah Plattenberg.

[01:29:05] Hi, I'm Sarah Plattenberg. I am an educational advocate. But I also have three boys in Lownd County. All of them have IEPs for a variety of things. Everything from medical, ADHD, autism, dyslexia. If you name it, we probably have it.

[01:29:21] So it's been quite a learning challenge. Like Melissa, I was doing something different. I was a teacher in my previous life. And like Melissa, I went to my first IEP meeting as a parent and thought I definitely knew what I was doing. And I had a pen, and everyone was sitting on the other side of the table, and I was sitting on this one by myself.

[01:29:42] And I realized at that moment I had no idea what I was doing, even though I had been in hundreds of IEP meetings as a teacher. So learning everything I could possibly learn about the special education process, completely shifting what I was doing and you know that was 20 years ago and loving it and love being part of SEAC and I learn something every time I come so I'm so excited and really appreciate everything everyone's done and I just have to put a quick plug sorry this is totally not the right time but the SEAC committee working with Lawn County School Board really just was so

[01:30:22] instrumental in changing the diabetes policy and this came up because two of my three boys are diabetic and the policy was up and I was kind of really thinking about other kids and not really my own because my own are in middle school and high school and I was really thinking about those elementary kids kids who are non-verbal all the things I know about diabetes and I just have to say even though my kids are in middle school and high school it has been life-changing like in my mind this wasn't really gonna impact my kids or my life because we're so like in

[01:30:58] the groove and all the things but I just on behalf of every single parent of every child with diabetes just I it makes me want to cry it's just been that incredibly monumental and we are such trailblazers because not very many counties in the entire country have this progressive of a policy for diabetes and And I just can't say enough.

[01:31:23] So I appreciate it. Thank you so much. Next, Sharon, do you want to go ahead and introduce yourself? They've told me that you're not muted and you can just talk. I can unmute now.

[01:31:39] Yay. Hello, everyone. Thank you. My name is Sharon Trofe, and I am the past chair. I was the SEAC chair for several years until Liz took over. This is Liz's second year, and she's doing a phenomenal job.

[01:31:57] And I love sitting on the committees and working with everyone to make our special ed community the best that it can be. And I love seeing the forward momentum that's happening in LCPS. I look forward to a fantastic year. Hi, Shanaz.

[01:32:16] Hi, everybody. I'm Shanaz Khan. I have three kids, two of which are now out of LCPS. And my last guy, he has Down syndrome. I started this journey when he was in kindergarten with SEAC, and now he's a freshman in high school.

[01:32:39] And so, like Sharon said, it's been really wonderful to see how we're moving in a forward direction, and we'll continue to advocate for our kids. And Tom.

[01:32:55] I'm Tom Ketchum. I'm father of four, all of whom have received special education services through a combination of IEPs and 504s. My three youngest are still in school. my eldest has graduated. I also am the co-chair of the Meaningful Inclusion Committee here on SEAC, and also serve on both Equity and GEAC as well.

[01:33:24] - And real quick, 'cause I don't wanna leave out our officers either, so let's start with Catherine Moran. Do you wanna give a quick little? You can use the mic in front of you if you want. - Buttons.

[01:33:40] How do I do it? - It's on, you're gonna. - Sorry, I need a little bit of special instruction. i'm katherine moran i am first always a parent our youngest daughter is in her final year as a returning grad at riverside and hopefully we'll all make it out sanely in her final year and i'm a cast teacher at rockridge high school and we have six new students this year two are

[01:34:15] brand new um straight from high school and i love seeing their green faces every day every day for them is freaking new and crazy it's just fun um to see this career um and independent living side that they get to focus on um and then the four that we have that are returning they are we're seeing and it's just come out this week and it's been super cool that they are they've had some experience in another cast program they're new to us and they are sharing that we joked last the last two years we've had students who don't really talk a lot didn't really talk a lot and they had a hard time kind of getting to know

[01:34:55] each other and it just took a lot of time these guys won't stop and my end today I took three to Dulles Airport on the Metro for the job fair came back with the three same students and everybody was in one piece so I love I love what we get to do with our students we have a great transition team and program and I'm excited to have Jenna and yeah just neat stuff so I'm

[01:35:26] excited to be here thank you and Carla our vice chair of membership hi my name is Carla Sola my husband and I have lived in Loudon over 20 years our oldest daughter graduated from Rockridge High School and our younger son who is on the autism spectrum with also a speech-language disorder I homeschooled him until high school when he started with the first year at Independence High

[01:35:58] School and I was asked to be the PTO rep so this is my fifth year on CX so if If you're a PTO rep, you might think about becoming a member of SEAC. Or if you have any questions about homeschooling or high school or project search, all of which my son went through, I'm happy to talk to anybody.

[01:36:25] Thanks. Awesome. And Erin Rizalpo, our vice chair of communications. Hi, I'm Erin Rizalpo. Obviously, mom first. I have one who just graduated this past year from LCPS, from Briar Woods, and right now he's soaring at Shenandoah.

[01:36:47] And he still has supports there in college, which we have found to be very beneficial to him. And I have a second one still in middle school. He's an eighth grader, so almost a high school. We've been living the dyslexia world for as long as I can remember.

[01:37:03] I started this journey with both of my children in a different profession and found that I needed to become a little bit more vocal and proactive and became an educational advocate as well. And it's definitely been an interesting journey to hear stories from different families, to be there as a support for them, but also to gain the knowledge and experience that I've received at SEAC to help benefit not only my kids but the other kids.

[01:37:29] and then also to address some of the things that I see globally at some of the schools to help move that needle forward to get those issues fixed so they benefit the other kids. And like I said before, my name is Liz Crotty.

[01:37:46] I am a mom of three kids who all three have IEPs. Also, we try to collect as many categories as we can in different kinds of things. So I feel like, you know, when my first child became identified, you know, I was like, okay, all right, I got this.

[01:38:05] And as I've, like, I keep getting more things thrown at me and learning about more worlds and more aspects of special education. And I've been so fortunate to have so many wonderful mentors, particularly within SEAC, with Sharon and Shanaz and Craig and, you know, all the old timers.

[01:38:22] They've been so generous. I think this is a fantastic community. Sorry. Well, you guys use that term too, right? Sorry.

[01:38:38] But, you know, this is a great group of people. They know so much. They've been through so much. They are so generous with sharing their experiences and what they learn. I hope that everybody who is here can find, can learn and grow with us and collaborate with us and truly continue to help make LCPS the absolute best place for all of our children.

[01:39:06] I feel like we are truly making progress and it's thanks to every single person in this room and a lot of people outside of this room who are doing so much. So those are our SEAC members this year and we will talk more about if you want to become a member, if you want to join us.

[01:39:24] but first we're going to do public comment so we use public comment to inform our work to advise the school board on special education needs focus on system-wide issues rather than individual concerns or specific situations please do not use student or staff names in your comment verbal comment may be given but please complete and submit a comment form tonight please be sure to follow up with the CX secretary with your written comment or myself. Written comment may be read by either the author or by myself. And if you could please

[01:39:59] limit your remarks to three minutes. And we have one person signed up this evening. Leanne. Thank you. Hi everybody. My name is Leanne Zadobos and I am a parent. I will start there. So if I start getting emotional on that crazy train, just remind me of that. Thank you for having me speak here today. Thank you to all the volunteers, the PTA reps, the parents, everybody who makes up this

[01:40:37] committee. You don't go unnoticed, and we really appreciate, as a parent, everybody here. I do have, I live in South Riding. I do have three kids. My daughter graduated out of Freedom High School in 2016. I have a rising senior, or a current senior, at Freedom right now, and I do have a sixth grader who has Down syndrome, 12 years old, at Lunsford Elementary, and who is currently in gen ed.

[01:41:00] I'm gonna try and keep to three minutes. I tend to talk pretty fast. Public speaking, I'm in sales is not my thing, but just start, if you guys, this is my first time, so bear with me, hopefully I will not get emotional. As I mentioned, my son has Down syndrome, is on the general ed track in Lunsford.

[01:41:19] I know you guys are thinking, wow, gen ed, Down syndrome, 12 years old, middle school. It's a lot, let me tell you. I understand that Virginia has the SOL track and the VAP track, and currently right now, my son is in the middle. He's in the gen ed class, he's in a self-contained class, which I really appreciate all of the support that he's getting there.

[01:41:38] The gen ed class is way too advanced for him, but the ID class is not challenging enough. So I am in a world of gray, and that's really one of the reasons I'm here tonight. I appreciate the teachers that are all working with him, the case managers, everything like that.

[01:41:54] But really, we have to come up as part of a county, part of SEAC, what do we do about these kids? It's just not my son in Loudoun County that is in this gray area. I really would like that Loudoun County could take away my concern as a parent. When are we going to get innovative and think outside of the box besides a self-contained classroom with support there for these kids so they're not getting left behind? Loudoun County doesn't meet these student needs with just the VAPTRAC and the SOL. All the gray is right here, and like I said, Where's the innovating?

[01:42:28] We really need to plan for these kids as we're going through the next couple years. In 2015, Dower & Associates was paid by Loudoun County to adapt a curriculum for science and history for seventh grade students with a disability. I know Tedra and Dr. Carter, you guys probably don't know that because you weren't here, but Loudoun County paid for this.

[01:42:48] I'm sure, obviously, 2015, the materials completely changed, but it was very innovative at the time. Currently, in elementary school, as most of you know, The case managers are the ones who are adapting the curriculum, they're modifying the assessments, they're doing everything. But now as my son has pivoted into middle school, he has his case manager, and the case manager is a teacher.

[01:43:09] And the teacher is responsible for her class, she's responsible for all the classes my son is taking, working on adapting the curriculum, even though it's gen ed, but to his ability so he does have that access, but also assessing or working on the modified assessments.

[01:43:26] That's a lot for one person and all of the stuff that she has to do. I'd like to know, when are we coming up with a central repository for these teachers? I know Dr. Spence had said there was 38 openings, and I'm so glad that we are getting these teachers in, especially on the special ed side.

[01:43:44] But there's a very big burnout, right? When you're asking this one teacher to teach and to be a case manager with all the kids and to work with the kids in the gray area that are on gen ed and self-contained, It's a lot of work. A central repository for all of this work would be amazing, especially Loudoun County paid for it at one point in time in 2015.

[01:44:05] I don't know if we're looking at doing that now, but it might be something for the future to become innovative enough so these teachers aren't reinventing the wheel every single year with every single child, every single student. The other thing that I would like to say is I'm really disappointed in Loudoun County Public Schools and the life skills that have been offered to our students currently last year two schools in the area offered a life skill to the students it was a field trip to the library to pick off stickers off of the school library books i do

[01:44:41] know that the cast program had an it class at the academies which was helping the it department and it turns out the class was peeling off stickers on the chromebook thank you to the seac for canceling that class peeling off stickers is not a life skill there's no job that any student with a disability is going to be picking off stickers this is completely demoralizing to the student to the family and to be quite frank if my son was in that class my son is not a loudon county employee and that's just bottom line on that i would like to know who on the committee voted for that and thought that

[01:45:20] was a really good idea i am very happy to hear about the transition center I think it's going to be amazing I know somebody had mentioned about the cart that's coming around I think with the new transition center coming up it would be a really great time to survey the parents and say hey we've got this new transition center what life skills would you like to see Loudoun County sends out surveys for everything but where's the one on what life skills would be great what could we do to better assist these students not only in the cast program but the students that are coming up it at that

[01:45:56] point in time it might have been more appealing for me to put my son into the ID classroom but when I found out he was going to be peeling off stickers no brainer that's not happening not for me at least I just want to say thank you again the chocolate chip cookies were amazing I appreciate your time thank you for all the hard work that you guys do here it really doesn't go unnoticed and And thank you to everybody.

[01:46:28] Thank you. And now I'm going to pass it over to Carla to give us our membership report. Hi. SEAC currently has 19 active members.

[01:46:44] We have 21 available positions. We do have five membership applications that are at some stage of review at this point. And for anyone, again, who is interested, you can find the membership applications on our website.

[01:47:05] We do require, before your membership application can be considered by the executive committee, that you have attended at least two of our general business meetings and one subcommittee meeting.

[01:47:23] But if you have any other questions, please send me an email about that, because we hope to fill at least two more positions so we'll be full. We also have 77 PTA, PTO representatives that have been identified or held over from last year out of 100 schools.

[01:47:46] So we're looking to fill 23 more positions for PTA, PTO reps. Yeah, ignore the slide. Clearly, I didn't have the right numbers. And then finally, a shout-out to our PTA, PTO reps.

[01:48:05] I'm going to be looking at some dates, but what we would like to do is offer a Zoom call to our representatives to meet with some members of SEAC so we can further help you understand the role that we expect you to play as a liaison between SEAC and your school um because you're you're that you're that vital link and we're sharing a lot of information with you but you may be hearing things from your school um and that's information that might be

[01:48:41] something um that SIAC would like to become more aware of so uh we'd like to uh offer the opportunity um to have kind of a an interactive uh meeting so um I'll be sending out an email with the date for that shortly thank you so much carla all right um and just really quickly um we've talked a lot about the things that SEAC has accomplished in the last year with the help from a lot of people and you know one of the ways that SEAC is as effective as we are is through our

[01:49:16] advocacy um we have opportunities to speak to the school board we have opportunities to speak to our board of supervisors upcoming this fall is going to be the CIP process where two of the things that you've heard spoken about tonight inclusive playgrounds I don't know if the transition center will be quite in the that's probably a little further down the road but particularly but if you want to speak about it like the school board is always listening they always love a public comment but inclusive playgrounds particularly if this is an

[01:49:53] area that you are interested in we really do need public comments to come at the school board meetings as well and additionally I think it would be really helpful if we also spoke to our Board of Supervisors at their meetings I went last week to our Loudoun County Board of Supervisors and spoke on these two topics because ultimately even if every single school board member is in favor of this and loves this they get their money from the Board of Supervisors so we really do need them to be on board with this as well we need to try to get funding for these initiatives wherever we can otherwise we can have the best

[01:50:31] ideas in the world and they're not going to go anywhere so we are going to be working Erin and I on crafting an email that's going to give you the dates of the meetings coming up emails for people to contact not everyone can go and speak in person and we completely understand that but you know sometimes you can do a virtual public comment. You can send emails. There are so many opportunities to have your voice heard, to speak specifically to your personal situation and why these issues matter for you. We could send you out a form letter that could be reproduced a number of times, but that's not that impactful. Truly hearing about how these issues are affecting you and

[01:51:11] your families, that is what makes a difference to our elected officials. That is what they want to hear. So, we can give talking points, but we really want you all to speak from your hearts and how this impacts you as a parent, as a teacher, as a community member, and feel free to get as many people in your world also interested in these issues because we will be so much more powerful the more people that they hear from. If they just hear from Liz Crotty, I try to be as persuasive as I can, but I am one person, and they, you know, probably

[01:51:45] get tired of seeing my face. So we will send out this information and feel free to just share it and spread it as much as you can. Another area that we would really appreciate everyone's advocacy on is fully funding IDEA. This is something that has been talked about for so many years when IDEA was passed. That is the law that governs our special education.

[01:52:12] In 1975, Congress was authorized to provide funding up to 40%. It has never gotten anywhere close to that. Currently, federal funding only covers about 13% to 14% of the cost of our special education.

[01:52:28] So when we talk about needing more resources in our classrooms and things like that, well, you know, we're all having to make up the difference and to provide that. So I know we are all just individuals, and we're all just working alone, but if we can all use our networks, like I know my daughter has Fragile X syndrome, so I've been working with the National Fragile X Foundation.

[01:52:51] They have advocacy platforms. They go and they lobby Congress, and I'm trying to get them to add fully funding onto their legislative platform. If you are part of any organization and can try to push them in that direction and explain why it's so important to your families, there are a lot of issues that affect our families, and we can be a very powerful group if we all just kind of mobilize and go after the same issues together.

[01:53:18] So we will also provide information on that so that you can speak to that. All right, now we get to the business. Thank you all for being so patient. We need to admit our virtual attendees. Do we have a motion?

[01:53:39] We've got seconds, okay, all right. All in favor, any opposed, any abstained? All right, excellent, so we have Sharon Trove and then Craig Metz who are joining us as attendees.

[01:53:56] Okay, I sent out the minutes from our May meeting. I hope everyone had the opportunity to review them. Are there any changes to the minutes? If none then we shall consider them approved and move on.

[01:54:13] We are going to do a quick roll call to make sure we have quorum before we move into our policy reviews. Beth Carlson. Liz Crotty. Here. Jennifer DiDonato. Here. Katherine Lambert. Tom Ketchum.

[01:54:29] Here. Shanaaz Khan. Here. Razina Kotak. Laura Colossi. Alicia McFadden. Greg Metz. Katherine Moran. Sarah Plattenberg.

[01:54:45] Kelly Ralston. Erin Rizal Poe. Here. katie rosenbrook carla sola here sharon trope here melissa wa sakina zabush thank you awesome thank you guys for coming um again you'll see the attendance sign in if anyone's at home and wants to make sure we know they're here um now we're going to move into our policy review we have a new qr code this one will link you to all of cx recommendations so that you can follow along

[01:55:23] from wherever you are um and i will call melissa up to lead us through the recommendations from the policy subcommittee thank you liz um so the policy and compliance subcommittee first of all obviously all the seac members are invited to attend our meetings but so are members of the community members of the staff members of the school board and we had many of them attend our multiple meetings we had over the summer reviewing several policies we get some

[01:56:02] policies that we have no issues or concerns related to students with disabilities one of those that we received was policy 6350 wireless network facility co-location and it was determined that there was nothing in that policy that we needed to address for our community okay so if I could get a A motion from the floor to adopt the Policy and Compliance Subcommittee's recommendation not to make a recommendation to Policy 6350.

[01:56:34] Thank you. Thank you. All in favor, say aye. Those opposed, any abstentions? All right.

[01:56:51] And Sharon Trofe? Aye. Craig Metz? Craig, you might be still muted. Okay.

[01:57:09] We'll call that an abstention. Aye. There he is. Okay. He made it. Woo. Okay. Good. So moving on. uh we also reviewed a draft policy 2610 which is regarding loudon county school board's aides the only thing that we had a concern in this one was uh these aids who assist the school board members are given access to certain confidential information within the district and we just felt like there was not enough protection for students confidential information in the way the policy

[01:57:45] was drafted so that is the recommend um the recommendation sorry we didn't make a recommendation we just have uh published a concern that this school board revised this policy putting more emphasis and clarity on the need to protect the confidential information related to students with disabilities so uh can i hear a motion from the floor to accept the concern that we will be

[01:58:10] providing to the school board for policy 2610 is there a second uh all those oh discussion is there any discussion on that one and real quickly on the discussion uh liz and uh erin did a great job of making sure everyone got all this information advanced so this year instead of us if you have

[01:58:47] concerns about these policies please review them in advance give the concerns to us in advance But we do want to open it up if there's anything last minute. But we're going to try to speed these things along. So any discussion? All right.

[01:59:04] All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Opposed? Any abstentions? Sharon Trofe? Aye. Craig Metz? Aye. The next policy is policy 8420.

[01:59:24] This is a policy related to student medication. SEAC had a concern related to diabetes medication that could be carried and self-administered or administered to students with diabetes. There's another medication similar to glucagon called Baximi, B-A-Q-S-I-M-I.

[01:59:47] We just are going to make a recommendation that anywhere glucagon is referred to as a medication for cell carrier administration that we add Baximi. We were also concerned as a committee that there's a provision in the policy that says permission to self-carry and or self-administer may be limited, revised, or revoked by the principal or designee.

[02:00:11] SEAC is concerned that principals or designees with no medical training or background will be making decisions regarding a student's life-saving medication and their access to it during the school day. And even though the policy currently says that the principal or designee must consult with the parent before making any changes. SEAC is concerned that this may become a perfunctory exercise that will have a little impact on the principal or designee's decisions regarding the student's medication. SEAC feels strongly that these decisions should be made in consultation with not only the parent or guardian but also medical staff from student health services and if

[02:00:47] applicable the student's section 504 IEP team. And so that in essence is the recommendation that we're making is that the policy be revised to include consultation with Student Health Services and if applicable the students 504 and IEP team and our third and final concern on this policy there's a section in there that talks about related to for students with diabetes to be able to carry blood to check their blood glucose levels and self-carry diabetic supplies that talks about documented approval but it's unclear

[02:01:22] who's giving this documented approval and SEAC was concerned because the Diabetes Medical Management Plan or DMMP which is prepared by and signed by the student's physician or health care provider indicates that level of independence and what the student must carry regarding insulin, glucagon, and diabetic supplies so who's giving this additional documented approval so if so one option is to remove that or alternatively SEAC is requesting the school board clarify who is giving this documented approval so that is our

[02:01:57] recommendation number three so do I hear a motion from the floor first to accept the three recon concerns and recommendations from the policy and compliance subcommittee related to policy 8420 student medication is there any discussion oh sorry second Tom is there any discussion all right all those in favor adopting the concerns and recommendations the policy and

[02:02:30] Compliance Subcommittee, say aye. Aye. Those opposed? Any abstentions? Sharon Trove? Aye. Craig Metz? Aye. Okay. Just three more to go, guys, but these are biggies. So the first one is policy 5345, which is the restraint and seclusion of students policy.

[02:02:56] First of all, SEAC is recommending that Loudoun County Public Schools ban the use of seclusion. This is very forward-thinking. There are a handful of states in our country who have banned seclusion.

[02:03:14] There are some school districts in Virginia who have banned seclusion, to include our neighbor, Fairfax County Public Schools. But we will still be on the forefront, and this is so important because seclusion is not an evidence-based practice. Secluding children with disabilities has compounded negative effects.

[02:03:33] It causes serious physical and mental harm, escalates behaviors, and is ineffective for long-term behavioral change. Teachers and staff can also be traumatized by seclusion practices. And research shows that in schools which have banned seclusion, there is, quote, increased staff satisfaction, reduced staff turnover, and significantly lower operating costs, including workers' compensation policy costs and litigation.

[02:04:00] And those who read the policy papers or position papers, in the back we have research and resources. So all of these things, the research, the citations, the laws from other states, all of that is in this policy packet that we'll be giving to the board to include that citation.

[02:04:19] Ten states, including nearby states, Maryland, Florida, Georgia, and Pennsylvania, and many school districts, including Fairfax, have already prohibited seclusion. and the Virginia code related to the use of physical restraint and seclusion says nothing in this chapter shall be construed to require a school division to employ physical restraint or seclusion in schools so there's nothing in our current regulations that would force Loudoun County to keep seclusion as a policy so that was our first recommendation the second concern we had is that restraints should never be written into an IEP 504 plan

[02:04:55] individual crisis plan or behavior intervention plan a restraint is defined as any method or device restricting another person's freedom of movement physical activity or normal access to his or her body including but not limited to physical mechanical or pharmacological methods and we do add some additional definitions of different kinds of restraints into this as being prohibited the only allowed or permitted restraints would be emergency restraints in emergency situations only and only for the amount of time that that emergency is

[02:05:30] in play and that's also one of our recommendations is to change that in the policy as well but the first thing recommendation is that or sorry this is actually recommendation number two is that a prohibition of physical restraint being written into an IEP 504 individual crisis plan or behavior intervention plan as a planned intervention if it's a planned intervention then it's not exactly an emergency anymore so that's where our thought process was on that one concern three um there right now there is a policy 5345 and then there's a companion regulation but we felt like a lot of

[02:06:09] the very important information about how the policy should work was stuck over in the regulation and really needed to be moved over to the policy to include a lot of definitions the definitions were were not consistent between the policy and the regulation. So concern three is to just basically cut and paste all of the regulations, sorry, all of the definitions from the regulation and move them up into the policy.

[02:06:32] And just, and the other reason that's important of getting this critical information into the policy, the school board policies are obviously reviewed on a regular basis by the school board members, but they're also, as we are doing now, they're open to transparency through review by the community.

[02:06:49] Regulations can be changed at will by administrative staff. There's no input from the school board or from the community into those regulations. So that's the other reason we feel it's very important that this important information be moved out of regulation and into the policy for transparency purposes and review.

[02:07:07] With those definitions, we had a few changes within the definitions. We clarified the definition of emergency. We added floor restraints and prone restraints as types of restraints that are prohibited. We also modified the definition of seclusion to say that it's the involuntary confinement of a student alone in a room, an enclosure, or any other space or area with or without adult supervision from which a student is not permitted to leave.

[02:07:41] This includes an enclosed space created from classroom walls and furniture from which the student is not permitted to leave. Students who are told by school staff that they are not able to leave a room or area or students who understand that they are not able to leave a room or area should be considered secluded.

[02:08:01] This includes any time a student is involuntarily alone in a room or area and is prevented from leaving regardless of the intended purpose or the name of the area where the student is secluded. And again, the key to all of this is not permitted to leave. That's the key.

[02:08:18] I think Carrie had mentioned our star rooms. Our committee talked about those. We showed pictures of those. Liz was involved in development of one of our star rooms at Legacy Elementary. These are sensory rooms that children are allowed to go to as their need arises.

[02:08:34] As they need to regulate, they're allowed to freely go to the rooms and freely leave. They are not confined or secluded in these rooms. So again, the key to the definition of what is and isn't seclusion is the child able to leave of their own free will. So that's an important one for us.

[02:08:52] We also added a definition for supine restraint, which is prohibited. Concern four, let's see, yep, and concern four, the policy should contain all the key information in one place.

[02:09:09] we talked about that moving particularly the section from the regulation just verbatim procedures for appropriate use of emergency physical restraint that all those we just cut and pasted and recommending that those be moved up to the policy and I don't think we had any substantive changes to those concern five the policy needs to clearly establish that these measures are meant to ensure the safety not only of the students but of staff as well and we

[02:09:43] we heard stories about staff being harmed and injured this is a problem and and we as SEAC members we not only care about our own children but we care about our staff and we want to make sure that they're being safe and kept safe and out of harm as well and the reason that we're putting this emphasis in in changing the policy to and specifically include staff is because restraint and seclusion can not only harm students but staff too and there's information in here you can look up the story because I've included it in

[02:10:17] the packet but of Grafton schools that was a it's a chain of schools for students with disabilities in multiple states but back in 2003 they had used restraint seclusion so often and poorly that it lost its workers compensation insurance because of so many school employees getting hurt. So anyway, and that ultimately, you may have heard, led to their development of their ukiaru de-escalation equipment and techniques. But that's where that came from. And so reducing the use of these practices can lead to a safer work

[02:10:54] environment for staff, both physically and mentally, and improve staff morale and job satisfaction again making Loudoun County Public Schools the go-to district for the very best of the best that's what we all want for our kids recommendation five sorry concern six the language regarding notification of parents is unclear parents need to be notified of any incident of emergency physical restraint on the same day that the incident occurs and so we just made a recommendation to clean that language up a little bit and make that more clear we also made recommendations to clarify the list of all prohibited practices including the

[02:11:33] additional restraints that we added the definitions of and to include seclusion as defined in the policy concern 8 SIAC opposes deletions regarding what information will be put in the annual report information on employee training we believe should be included in the annual report on physical restraint and seclusion it's a glow I don't know why you wouldn't want to have that in there And we want to be able to celebrate how many of our staff are being trained on restraint and seclusion.

[02:12:08] And let's see. And then our final recommendation was SEAC advises Loudoun County Public School Board to take all steps necessary to work towards the elimination of the use of restraint emergency procedures while recognizing that they may be used as a last resort response in limited situations.

[02:12:27] And again, the packet has all the references and citations to support our concerns and recommendations. So, with that, yep, okay. So, if I could hear a motion to accept the recommendations on policy 5345 for restraint and seclusion of students.

[02:12:50] A motion to enthusiastically, 5345, here, I'll go back, there you go. yeah those multiple multiple multiple hour meetings and i thank you so much to the staff and the school board members who dedicate i mean after such long days and came and helped support the work of the subcommittee thank you so much um yes so motion has been made do i hear a second uh very very robust seconds and uh any discussion okay all in favor of adopting the policy and

[02:13:30] compliance subcommittee recommendations on draft policy 5345 restraint and seclusion of students please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Any abstentions? Sharon Trove? Aye. Craig Metz? Aye.

[02:13:48] Excellent. Thank you, guys. Okay, almost done. These two more policies, but they're related. The first one is medical homebound instruction policy 5360, and then the proposal from the school board was to, before homebound instruction and home-based instruction were combined into one policy and the thought was that this may confuse people because these are two very different things that sometimes get confused in people's minds and so the idea I presume was to break that out to make things more clear we think they're

[02:14:24] on the right track with that however we do have a few concerns obviously since I have a big huge packet here about but I'm just gonna summarize them okay so on homebound first of all we're concerned about the addition of the term medical to homebound instruction we don't think that's necessary we think that can be confusing first of all homebound it can be also for psychological and emotional reasons not just medical second of all homebound instruction is a term of art that is used in regulations and in the law and

[02:15:02] have definitions in the regulations in the law and so parents looking up what the law says about homebound instruction could be confused as to whether we're even talking about the same thing or not so we recommend medical comes out let's see the definition of homebound instruction just so people know the purpose of this is to sustain the continuity of instruction and to facilitate the return to the classroom for eligible students who must be temporarily confined at home or in a health care facility due to medical needs and the key to homebound is it's temporary it also requires a medical

[02:15:39] certification of need from the students treating physician or psychologist or psychiatrist so that's homebound let's see so we made a recommendation that this the language which is similar to this on what homebound is that that be lifted from the Virginia Department of Education homebound guidance document from April 2016 that was and then we recommended that language we were concerned that concern number three was that students were acquiring students are acquiring significant absences due to disability for either medical emotional or

[02:16:18] psychological reasons and the parent or guardian is not then made aware of the option of homebound or home-based services so we made a recommendation and this is actually particularly super important now because although the reg has been around for a little while it's being enforced for a myriad of reasons I'm not going to go into, but there is a regulation in Virginia that says students who miss 15 or more consecutive days must be dropped from the roll, and that's whether it's excused or unexcused.

[02:16:44] So even for medical reasons, even because of disability, they can be disenrolled from the school district. So that's why it's super important that LCPS is engaging early in this process to make sure that parents are aware of homebound and home-based options because those will stop that 15-day clock if the student matriculates into a homebound or home-based scenario.

[02:17:07] So we make recommendations related to that. And CIEC has received reports that students are not being timely evaluated for special education services, and certainly the need to be put on homebound instruction could be a red flag that students need to be evaluated.

[02:17:24] So we added language, proposed language to address that. Just a clarification, there's a reference to chronic illness, and we think that should be chronic illness or condition to make sure all appropriate disabilities would be covered. There's a concern about AP, IB, and DE, dual enrollment classes, being offered through homebound instruction.

[02:17:49] And so we make some recommendations about how technology could be used to make sure that those are similar to what students receive in the regular classroom. because if they're not under the rules for those programs the student can't get credit for that class so we make some recommendations related to that this was a biggie SEAC has received many reports that teams have limited students with an IEP or 504 plan to the minimum number of hours that are recommended by the Virginia Department of Education when in fact teams are not limited to these minimum hours that is what it says it is it's a minimum and so if student

[02:18:28] needs more we need to be offering and providing more than the bare minimum that video you require so we have some language to address that we also tweaked up there was a change made to those hours saying for example elementary students get up to one hour per day and up to needs to come out the one hour per day is literally the floor that is the bare minimum that video he requires so we need to take the up to out we have some recommendations related to ensuring that the work product that's being expected of the students on home

[02:19:03] bound is taking into consideration all of the students accommodations in that as well because there was a statement in there about assignments may not be completed in the presence of the homebound teacher but it's possible that there is a student with disabilities with an accommodation that or service that would require that it does need to be completed in the presence of the teacher.

[02:19:26] So I just want to remind staff through the policy that we need to keep those accommodations in mind. And this is for both homebound and home-based. We had a concern that students on homebound and also home-based instruction are not receiving instruction from teachers with subject matter expertise.

[02:19:48] For example, an English teacher trying to teach calculus. So even though there's supervision of that English teacher who's providing that homebound or home-based instruction, that's not going to allow an English teacher to instruct the student on calculus or give them the expertise to answer real-time questions from the student.

[02:20:06] So we provided a recommendation on how to address that issue. And that's it on homebound. So home-based is super quick. But before I move on to home-based, if I could hear a motion from the floor to adopt the concerns and recommendations of the policy and compliance subcommittee to draft policy 5360 what's now labeled medical homebound instruction thank you and a second is there any discussion on that okay all those in favor of

[02:20:41] adopting the recommendations say aye aye all those opposed nay any abstentions Sharon Trofe aye and Craig Metz aye all right um on the home-based instruction I'm going to go back and do the pick up the definition real quick because again there's a lot of confusion sometimes on what the difference is between these home-based instruction means services that are delivered in the home setting or another agreed-upon setting maybe the public library or the admin building in accordance with the students IEP or

[02:21:18] section 504 plan home-based instruction is a critter of special education law and regulations that is a service that is provided to students with IEPs that is in the special education regulations one of the proposals in in carving out this home-based instruction that there was kind of a combining of what in the policy is termed administrative homebound that is a process for students who may or may not have an IEP that for disciplinary purposes they are put on

[02:21:58] what's being called homebound instruction see as a policy compliance subcommittee we were concerned that that is absolutely going to be confusing because um and so we are recommending that instead of using the term administrative homebound that be trained to administrative assignment um because that is something that is not regulatory that is it's a great thing it's great that loudon county has it we're not opposed to that in any way but the labeling we think is confusing because those are two very different things um so that's uh one of

[02:22:31] our recommendations um and that a third policy be created to address administrative um assignment uh in disciplinary scenarios um the intent with homebound instruction i'm sorry home-based instruction for students with ieps um and we've added section 504 plans as well um but and that's a choice that um at loudon county can make as i've said many many times the laws the regulations create the floor loudon county has the authority and the ability to expand the rights of parents and students if they so choose so we have expanded that beyond students with ieps but also students

[02:23:08] with section 504 plans to be able to to be a part of this home home based policy and uh but anyway and so um i totally lost my train of thought on that uh anyway yes and we've already covered teacher expertise and it's the same concern and recommendation for that so I think everyone else is as tired as I am my brain is just totally shut off but those are our two recommendations

[02:23:42] and then moving the administrative assignment to a different thing oh I know what it was temporary and home-based we need to make clear is not temporary not temporary it is a placement and it's temporary in the sense that any other placement whether it's public day or private day is reviewed at least annually.

[02:24:04] But that's the timeline. Again, these are IEP team decisions. This isn't tied to the same rules with home bound with every nine weeks you have to re-up with the doctor. There's no doctor certification for home-based instruction. And the timing of how long that happens is up to the IEP team and must be reviewed at least annually, just like any other placement.

[02:24:26] Okay, that was it. So, if I could hear a motion from the floor. to adopt the recommendations the policy and compliance subcommittee on draft policy 5365 for home-based instruction thank you shanaz great um and any discussion and again guys in the packet all the references and materials and support materials are listed in the policy packet that

[02:25:00] everyone got access to okay um all those in favor of adopting the recommendations for policy 5365 home-based instruction say aye aye all those opposed anybody abstaining uh sharon troff aye craig metz aye okay that is it thank you melissa okay moving right along and i have had a couple emails with people wanting to sign in for attendance so i'm just gonna throw that up on

[02:25:40] the screen for two seconds our next segment is going to be did you know by tom ketchum He is going to talk to us about twice exceptional. No, no, this is happening. Does that cancel twice, two times?

[02:25:56] Twice, that's okay. That's all right. It's late, so we will make this quick. If you ask any of the parents in this room, I'm sure we would all describe our children as being exceptional in a myriad of ways. There's also a concept in education called twice exceptional, and that applies to a certain subgroup of students.

[02:26:21] Twice exceptional learners, which are also sometimes referred to as just 2E learners, represent a unique and often misunderstood group. These students possess exceptional intellectual abilities alongside one or more disabilities, including things such as learning disabilities, ADHD, or autism spectrum disorder.

[02:26:41] These combination of strengths and challenges present complex learning profiles that can be challenging to identify and support within traditional educational settings. TUI learners often face a range of obstacles in the classroom. Their intellectual gifts can mask their disabilities, leading to under-identification of certain types of disabilities and a lack of appropriate support.

[02:27:05] Conversely, their disabilities may overshadow their talents, resulting in unfulfilled potential and feelings of frustration and alienation. This duality can lead to a sense of cognitive dissonance where their high abilities and struggles coexist, shaping their experiences and interactions with the world.

[02:27:26] Identifying two e-learners requires a holistic approach that considers both their strengths and their weaknesses. Traditional assessments may overlook their abilities or their disabilities, necessitating comprehensive evaluations that include cognitive, academic, and socio-emotional needs.

[02:27:44] Understanding their unique learning profiles is crucial for designing tailored interventions that address specific needs and promote their academic and personal growth. Supporting 2E learners involves creative inclusion and flexible learning environments that accommodate their diverse needs. This may include differentiated instruction, assistive technologies, and IEPs and 504 accommodations that focus on their strengths while also addressing their challenges. Providing opportunities for self-advocacy and social-emotional support is essential as TUI learners may struggle with issues such as perfectionism, anxiety, and

[02:28:21] low self-esteem. Despite the challenges they face, TUI learners possess a wealth of potential and creativity that, when nurtured and supported appropriately, can lead to remarkable achievements. By recognizing and valuing their unique learning profiles, we can create inclusive educational systems that empower TUI learners to thrive academically, socially, and emotionally. All four of my children I mentioned earlier have been identified as 2e learners and it has provided us both a lot of great achievements to celebrate as parents but also a lot of challenges in the

[02:28:58] classrooms and getting their accommodations and IEPs right over the years. We do plan some additional content around 2e learners later this year in combination with GEAC and that may come in the form of a workshop or a special session and so stay tuned to your emails as we will update you about that. Thank you Tom. All right there's the the signing code. I don't know if you're going to be able to see it because it looks like they've just got us panned out right now. Oh there we go.

[02:29:32] All right sorry. So I'm just going to leave this up for one second so that if anybody would like to sign in any of our PTO reps watching you can. The next part we're going to move into our sub committee reports which most of our subcommittees have not met yet so we are going to basically just be sharing when they will next be meeting in the interest of time Aaron do you want to go ahead and just share briefly about our work session we had recently in the next meeting sure so we just bet it was last

[02:30:06] week yeah our first work session let me see here so basically it was a nice review of basically the the new decision tree we talked about the updates the intervention materials that they say we are having and then our so it was a pretty it was a good presentation that we had I would say to kick off the year coming up is our first official subcommittee meeting it's going to be virtual and we did change the time so it'll be Thursday September the 19th at 9 to 10 a.m. virtually and there will be a reminder going out so we hope that you guys can

[02:30:45] attend awesome and then those are the dates the work sessions coming up we'll also email all of this information out again so that you can add it to your calendars next we have the meaningful inclusion subcommittee so meaningful inclusion our first meeting will be next wednesday as you see there we will also as part of that meeting be discussing what work sessions will schedule this

[02:31:16] year including the one that i potentially just mentioned oh no sorry there's policy policy uh we just kind of meet ad hoc as needed um so but budget season is starting to come up we're going to be thinking about that so we'll probably be having some work sessions specific to that so stay tuned transition subcommittee um we are going to have the work sessions that are up there our

[02:31:53] first work session will be October 8th at 9:30 over here in this building and then our first virtual meeting for the transition subcommittee will be Tuesday September 17th at 6:00 p.m. and we're just gonna kind of go over have an overview of now we're gonna have this exciting transition center that the board approved so we'll be probably talking about that quite a bit so and And then SEAC awards, it's still a little too early to talk about it, but not a lot too early.

[02:32:30] So we will go over dates and times for all of that soon. It's our favorite thing to do for those of you who are not familiar with the SEAC awards are really special. So we would love to have as many people participate as possible. Our executive committee will be meeting tonight at Clyde's after the business meeting.

[02:32:48] So it is open to all. If you would like to attend, please come and join us. Do we have any SEAC representative reports yet? I don't think any of them have met. Do you have one, Tom? Quick update on equity, which had their first meeting actually last week.

[02:33:10] The equity committee is going to form subcommittees specifically on various things, including policy review, largely based on what SEAC is doing in terms of its format and so forth. And so there will be subcommittee meetings next month with the next meeting that you see there.

[02:33:29] November. And on GEAC, I don't know if we have our GEAC rep here, but there is a GEAC meeting tomorrow evening, at which point there'll be an overview of all the different gifted programs throughout the county. So anybody who does have an interest in that, that'd be a great session to attend. Awesome. Thanks, Tom. And then Carla's going to be our CTAC representative, and that'll be coming up soon as well. So we have already heard from Carrie. Is there anything else that

[02:33:58] you would like to share with the group or okay wonderful when you talked about public comment earlier it might be a good idea for people to also attend committee meetings if you can't make or don't want to go to the late board meeting committee meetings are smaller you have a little bit better interaction with the board members that are on that committee so that's another good option for bringing your ideas forward yes absolutely and all the committee member

[02:34:38] meetings are all published on the LCPS website with the new format they are really easy to find just scroll down a little bit and you'll see the calendar and you can attend as many committee meetings as your heart desires so our upcoming presentations we have in October so what's new in special education with miss Nakia Purnell and dr. Joy Engstrom I don't know if it's going to be in the format of a talk show but that would be fun, Nakia. I feel like everyone should get to enjoy that. It was really fun. So we're looking forward to that and then

[02:35:16] in November we are going to have LCPS family supports and social workers and then also have an LCPS resource fair. We sometimes have different groups who want to come from within LCPS and present to us and sometimes it's a hard format with them just standing up here and not being able to address individual concerns, so this way we feel like people can just kind of shop around, learn more about all of the incredible resources we actually have here in LCPS, ask questions that are specific to them.

[02:35:45] So we'll have a longer break time at our November meeting so that you really are able to engage and learn during that time. So thank you all for sticking with us. There is the attendance code once more if you haven't gotten a chance to sign in.

[02:36:02] Thank you for joining us this evening and we look forward to seeing you in October.

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