My Goal in Blogging

I started this blog in May of 2008, shortly after my election to the School Committee, because I believed it was very important to both provide the community with an opportunity to share their thoughts with me about our schools and to provide me with an opportunity for me to ask questions and share my thoughts and reasoning. I have found the conversation generated on my blog to be extremely helpful to me in learning community views on many issues. I appreciate the many people who have taken the time to share their views. I believe it is critical to the quality of our public schools to have a public discussion of our community priorities, concerns and aspirations.

Monday, April 5, 2010

Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) Meeting

Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) Meeting Notice

The Massachusetts special education law, Chapter 71B of the Massachusetts General Laws, requires a school district to establish a PAC, and assigns both an advisory and a participatory function to the PAC.

For additional information, please refer to the Guidance for Special Education Parent Advisory Councils guidelines on-line at: http://www.doe.mass.edu/sped/pac/default.html.


The District would like to take this opportunity to thank the previous SEPAC officers, Gail Whitlock and Denise Andler for their service, contributions and efforts last year and in previous years. At this time SEPAC is without officers and parents within the community have expressed interest in holding an open meeting this month to identify new officers. Therefore, we are sharing the following message and details from one of the parent organizers of the meeting schedule on Monday, April 12th, 2010.
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Dear Fellow Parents/Guardian,

You are invited to a Special Education Parent Advisory Council (SEPAC) meeting for the Amherst, Pelham, and Amherst Regional School Districts on Monday, April 12th, 2010 at the Amherst Regional Middle School library from 7:00 PM to 9:00 PM. Childcare and light refreshments will be provided.

The agenda for our first meeting includes:

~Creation of the SEPAC Board
~Discussion of upcoming Special Education Evaluation
~Creation of Peer support for parents/guardian
~Open discussion on any issues of interest

SEPAC is a family oriented organization. It is free and open to ALL parents and guardian with an interest in Special Education.

Sincerely,

Pat Ononibaku
for the Organizing Committee

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Catherine,

Thanks for posting this. We need to make this community active. Active to advocate for our children, active to improve the efficiency of the District's use of precious resources, active to hold administrators accountable, active to inform our community about their children's civil rights and IDEA laws.

This is an important meeting for anyone with an interest in Special Education in our region. Everyone is welcome - your input is important.
SPED Parent

Catherine A. Sanderson said...

Anonymous 9:11 - I share your view that this is a very important meeting, and I hope parents will attend and share their views!

Anonymous said...

What should a parent do if he or she is interested in volunteering for SEPAC?

us said...

Readers, educators, committee members, administrators, parents and all citizens...please read this wonderful article defining the law regarding inclusion and the common threads we share with the entire public school community: http://www.kidstogether.org/noinclusion.htm