April 12, 2022 - Notes from Family-to-Family meeting, with some discussion omitted to maintain participants' privacy. Notes address the positive power of Linus Pauling Middle School's Home Court Program, the increase in student anxiety and need for more proactive supports, anticipating the roll out of summer recovery programs, trend data from FACT Oregon, a new Muddy Creek SPED family group, and concern about SPED teacher burnout/retention. [en español]
February 9, 2022 - Letter to the School Board and Superintendent Ryan Noss on the cultural, linguistic, and system barriers that BIPOC and immigrant families face when navigating special education services. The letter included a subtitled video from parents and four specific requests for action that were co-created with families, school staff, and community organizers. [en español]
January 25, 2022 - Presentation materials from meeting with district SPED staff. Shawn Bernard provided an update on Recovery Services, made a presentation on "Decoding the Alphabet Soup of Special Education," and asked for feedback on ways to make IEP meetings more welcoming.
December 14, 2021 - We did not publish notes from this Family-to-Family meeting to keep the space safe for families to share their stories and concerns. Discussion included challenges that Spanish-speaking families encounter when interacting with school staff, a need for a place to access resources to get community support for disabilities, concerns about teacher burnout, confusion about how RTI is different from SPED, and frustration with process to determine eligibility for Recovery Services. Families prioritized the issues with Recovery Services for district response.
October 12, 2021 - Summary of meeting with district SPED staff. Families were introduced to the new Assistant SPED Coordinator, Shawn Bernard, and learned about COVID Recovery Services. [en español]
June 15, 2021 - We did not publish notes from this Family-to-Family meeting to keep the space safe for families to share their stories and concerns. Discussion centered on challenges that Spanish-speaking families encounter in special education processes, and they identified the need for bilingual/bicultural supports like an advocate and support group. A small group organized to discuss potential next steps.
April 25, 2021 - Letter to District HR Director with recommendations for new SPED director hiring process, summarizing input from families gathered via survey. [en español]
March 16, 2021 - Family-to-Family meeting announcement and other SEAC news. The March meeting featured a presentation from FACT Oregon.
February 9, 2021 - Notes from meeting with district SPED staff. Topics included cyber-bulling, IEPs in new semester system at the middle and high schools, and forthcoming options to recover learning after distance learning. [en español]
January 14, 2021 - Letter to district leadership summarizing concerns from December Family-to-Family meeting: technology challenges, use of EAs to support distance learning, and services in secondary semester system. [en español]
November 14, 2020 - Letter to families summarizing November 4 meeting with district leadership and follow up action items. [en español]
October 28, 2020 - Letter to Superintendent Noss and the School Board summarizing themes of concern from October 14 Family-to-Family meeting: improving communication between families and staff, providing a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) to students who cannot access learning via computer, and individualizing support for students with disabilities in distance learning. [en español]
August 21, 2020 - Notes from special SEAC meeting with district SPED staff discussing special education services in distance learning. This was the first SEAC meeting to ever be held virtually, yet there were no Spanish interpretation services. [en español]
Meeting notes and communications prior to the 2020-21 school year are in paper files and available by request.