Response to SEPAC

Wayland SEPAC invited the candidates to introduce themselves. The following was Erin's reply. Candidate Craig Gruber had not responded as of SEPAC's deadline.

Dear Anne-Louise, Katy, and SEPAC:

Thank you very much for the opportunity to address your membership and provide my thoughts around Special Education in our community of Wayland.

I’d like to provide a bit of background on me. I have lived in Wayland for over 16 years and I have four children that are currently part of the Wayland school system. My daughters are in 9th, 5th, 2nd grade and Kindergarten. My oldest daughter attended Loker for Kindergarten before it was opened back up as a K-5 neighborhood school and since then we have been a Happy Hollow family. I have participated in a number of school activities, civic activities and athletics in Wayland. I have served on the School Council’s at Happy Hollow, the Middle School and I’m currently serving at the High School as the Co-Chair of the Council. I have been a PTO parent representative, served on principal and assistant principal search committees, and served as part of the Superintendent’s Healthy Relationships Task Force. I have coached soccer in town for various age groups from K-8th grade and also played for a women's team in town. I have a long family history in Wayland and I am proud of our town. I am hopeful to be elected to the School Committee to continue to serve our community.

The extent of my involvement with special education services in Wayland has been limited to enrolling my children in the math and reading skills programs during the summer in preparation for the return to school in the fall. However, I have gone through the 504 and IEP process with my step-son in another local district. I do have a good understanding of the process related to obtaining support services and advocating for a student/child.

In 2015, the School Committee hired an outside consulting firm to report on Wayland’s provision of Special Education services to ensure that student and family needs were being met and funds were being used effectively and efficiently. I believe that a number of the suggestions that the report made were implemented by the School Committee in response to the report. However, the COVID pandemic surely impacted education services overall and made things especially difficult for students requiring special education services. The School Committee must continue to reevaluate the needs of, and budget allocated to, Special Education especially in light of the negative impact COVID has had.

While investment in Special Education can come at a high cost, it’s important that the increased investment be weighed against the costs associated with outplacement (and associated transportation costs). By investing in training and developing resources for Special Education services within the district, we can not only effectively reduce the overall spend, but we can better serve the entire district.

Over the past month and a half, I have had many conversations with various community members and I’ve learned that one of the areas that our district needs to focus on with respect to special education services is specific to our support of language based learning disabilities. I would like to support investment in training our teachers to be able to best support, teach, and help students that struggle with language based learning disabilities and give our teachers and in turn our students as many tools as possible to be successful in the classroom. I was excited to hear that we have brought in an Orton Gillingham certified teacher for the extended school year program as well.

One of the biggest decisions impacting our Special Education services right now is our search for a new Director of Special Education after the departure of Dr. Whitehead. Dr. Easy has commenced the process of assembling a search committee and I hope that the committee will have a pool of highly qualified candidates to choose from.

By supporting and improving our Special Education services, we are boosting our entire district. One of my biggest concerns in the district right now is the lack of effective and constructive communications between all constituencies of the community that play important roles within the school district. I want to ensure that every student, parent, teacher and community member feels heard and valued and unafraid to share their opinions openly. We should all be advocates for each child of the district and not just our own. If elected, I hope to bring these various constituencies together to drive our district forward through positive change.

I am open to talking to anyone on these topics further and I am also very open to listening to learn more about Special Education in Wayland. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to me directly via email (engibbons3@gmail.com) or telephone (508-735-6528).

Regardless of how you decide to vote on Tuesday, May 10th, please make sure you get out there and participate in the process of selecting our next School Committee member and others on the ballot.

Warm regards,

Erin Nicole Gibbons