##VIDEO ID:8trusFv1ef0## e e will come to order good evening uh my name is board member Frank Thomas welcome to the Chicago Board of Education special education advisory committee meeting a notice of this meeting was posted on November 11th 2024 or at least 48 hours before this meeting at Von occupational High School the board office at one North Dearborn 42 West Madison in the lobby and on today is November 13 2024 and we're holding this meeting at vaugh I occupational High School multi-purpose room again I'm board member Frank Thomas and I would like to acknowledge the special education advisory committee chair who would not be here tonight in person as they're going to join us virtually uh member Debbie Pope I would also like to acknowledge the committee members who are here tonight Nicole Shepard Jim cavalero Frank lry Christine pomier Tanisha RS Olga prisbe Katherine bertron uh Alicia Rodriquez Tracy Stelly Stephanie Anderson Dandrea Frederick who has joined us virtually Kimberly Western DOD who has also joined us virtually and I want to recognize the the chief of the office of students with disabilities Ricardo trillo and on behalf of the board the Chicago Board of Education I would like to thank you for joining us this evening the order of the meeting will be as follows opening remarks announcements public participation office for students with disabilities update committee discussion and questions and then we will adjourn before we would begin I'd like to welcome principal Stephanie Anderson who has a few words to say okay thank you so much uh first of all welcome everyone to vaugh occupational High School um I'll start with just a few safety reminders uh the emergency exit is here uh in the corner of the room in case of emergency and please take the aisles if you do need to exit um if you need to use a restroom or exit this way uh out the doors the restrooms are down the hall and on your left and again please use the aisles if you're doing that um welcome again to Von occupational high school I'm Stephanie Anderson I'm the principal here uh I'm starting my fourth year as principal prior to that I was assistant principal for five years um and I am just uh very proud of the work that our school does for students with disabilities our school is 225 students with various developmental disabilities um and uh complex needs from n9th grade all the way through transition services our students our our goal for all of our students is to get them to their highest level of uh potential in the areas of academics functional skills vocational skills and social emotional engagement so that they can be meaningful participants in their communities um whatever their uh transition plan and their team team um would make so we really try to make an individualized education for every student make sure they get what they need to be successful and um I welcome you here tonight thank you very much as we prepare for the 21 member hybrid elected School Board the next special education advisory meeting will be announced at a later date we encourage you to email at be Boe seac cps.edu with with any comments or questions that or suggestions that you may have let us now proceed with public participation as a reminder Union representatives are allotted five minutes to speak before public participation and elected officials will speak after the conclusion of the public participation the rules of public partition particip ation are as follows the members who are registered will speak will be given the option to attend in person or via electronic format those who prefer to attend via electronic format were given information to access the meeting by dialing in dialing a number and using their phone we did this so they the speakers with limits have no access to Internet or who may have have weak internet connections could still participate using their phones for the record advaned registration to speak at the special education advisory committee meeting began on Monday November 11 2024 at 1030 a.m. and closed on Tuesday November 12th at 2000 2024 also at 10:30 a.m. after the 24-hour registration period or lot lottery randomly selected by five speakers advaned registration to observe in person began on Monday November 11th 2024 at 10:30 a and closed on Tuesday November 12th 20124 at 5:00 pm until all slots were filled individuals who were registered to speak will have three minutes to comment and will and I will call the speaker in order of the registration members of the public May submit written comments via written written comments via the written comment form on the board at the website www CPS boe.org or mail your comments to one North Dearborn sweet 950 by 5: pm on Thursday November 14th before we call the registered speakers we have union members from SEIU number 73 who will speak in person at a 30 second Mark you will be notified thank you thank you board member Thomas High special advisory education advisory committee U my name is staca Scott Kennedy I'm the Executive Vice President for SEIU Local 73 we represent 12,000 support staff in CPS specifically working with special education students we repres special education classroom assistants around 7,000 and we represent bus AES so subas and subbs AES as well I'm here to brief you all on our new contract that we landed because there are some major gains when it comes to seas and buades that I wanted to share with the committee we've testified to you all before about the issues our members were facing and so I'm here to talk about some of the solutions we found and I'm sure that survey might uh suggest some of the issues that we were able to correct in the contract so one of the main issues with special education and classroom assistance was a lack of training so there was no centralized orientation or trainings for professional development so you had 600 schools 600 variations of how they were onboarding new seas and what we were able to win in our contract was a centralized orientation at least once a semester for all new higher Seas we were also able to win for the special education classroom assist um very clear language on professional development that spells out exactly what they should be doing on PD days spoiler it doesn't involve cleaning out closets or classrooms it means actual educational advancement opportunities to develop in their skills and their craft what else we won which was a very big deal for our membership and I believe for parents is the right for our seas to request to attend IEP meetings so now seas are able to request to attend I PM 504 plan meetings and the principles have an obligation to try to actually find coverage so that they can show up to advocate for the children or the child that they serve additionally just if there's any parents listening you have the right to request that your student sea attends your IEP or 504 plan meeting so we have the IEPs we have new professional development language we have centralized orientation we have safety meetings now so Seas can call for safety planning meetings so if their physical um bodies are in Jeopardy or the student safety is in Jeopardy because of the environment they're allowed to call for a safety meeting to develop a safety plan with the necessary stakeholders and CPS we also negotiate a new language for our security officers that follows the law but gives them the right to a to request access to information around behavioral intervention plans specific IEP or 504 plan needs that security should beware of for example if a student happens to be a runner um these are all information sharing tools that we now have through collective bargaining with bus AIDS one of the main things that we won for our bus AIDS was fairer route assignments so we also won six-hour minimum for them which will help them to be able to make ends meet up from four hours but we won mandatory training that follows the law and ensures that they are actually trained in accordance with the laws one more thing about seeka training is is that by the end of the life of our contract every sea will be trained in Restraint and deescalation so right now the state um action said that it was two people per school that the principal designated all of our seas by the end of the life of the contract will have been adequately trained and restraint in the timeout policy so we've really listened to what we heard from sped Advocates and from our membership to try and negotiate a contract that would not only help our members but help the students that they serve and we're hopeful that if parents are interested in learning more that they reach out to our local union office and you can find our phone number on the website or email us and we'll be happy to schedule a meeting with parents to make sure that folks are educated on how our contract can help benefit the whole sped community so thank you very much thank you for your comments we will now move on to the registered speakers list there are two public participants registered to speak I will call your name and your number when it's your turn to speak for the speakers joining joining us virtually to unmute please press star six once you've heard your name please state your name for the record and then you have three minutes to start once the three minutes are over you'll proceed to with your to conclude your remarks and allow for the next speaker to begin we're now ready to call the registered speakers from the list speaker one Amy nsom was here in person I'm here today to thank you for continuing the conversation at your September meeting on lease restrictive environment and cluster programs the statements made by so many of you were so appreciated and I just wanted to come here today to encourage you all to keep going and advocating for all of our students we live in a culture that has always segregated disabled people from non-disabled people and the way CPS uses cluster programs is no different CPS segregates children and discriminates against children based on their disability because it's easier and cheaper for them to do so and like you said last time they do this when they're only 3 years old by forcing them into Blended classrooms or cluster programs instead of allowing them their rightful presence even when the same lbs1 certification is the same for all special education teachers Shifting the culture to be more inclusive and less Prejudice at the school level is just as important as enforcing federal law why do we still have so many administrators and staff adhering to this culture of separate and pretending it's equal parent training was mentioned which is wonderful but professional development for all teachers and staff on disability history how to significantly modify curriculum how to grade a student with an IEP or inclusion strategies seem just as important and really needed as a previous educator I don't recall learning about any of this so not only do some parents not understand what all all of this means but many of Le's my daughters teachers and administ rators have not understood it either and I think it's because of this culture of this student doesn't belong here because they have this diagnosis or can't do X Y and Z I know the Nora project and CPS have joined forces recently allowing for free access to online seminars but is this information reaching the admin and teachers of our schools in a meaningful way the interim director of special education from last fall after just spending a short amount of time visiting Le's School specifically reached out to the nor project for them to work with leby school only to be ignored by our special education District rep so I have to wonder if these resources are not being trickled down to who really needs and wants them Barb con last time mentioned how much her non-disabled daughter benefited from having a disabled brother from leb's therapists to her doctors teachers therapists friends family you name it leby is a positive light in their lives she brightens people's days and causes professionals to dig deeper and become better and more equipped for their work why would we ever want to continue to segregate kids like her from the general population thank you thank you for continuing the conversation thank you so much for your comments our next speaker is Tim e Gleason who is also here in person hi my name is Tim gleon um I have some prepared remarks I want to talk about high school placement and Specialty schools in the new procedural safeguards manual it talks about the word specialty 12 different times and we'll get to that piece my son has an Autism label uh he cannot cross a busy street he's a he's a freshman um he can't tie his shoes and he really can't solve double digit math problem s he has an IQ of 62 I was told by the elementary case manager that he would not even be considered for a specialty school because he has an IQ above 55 however in the dlm guidelines it says typically associated with those individuals who take the dlm but also and I quote typically associated with [Music] um IQ is by no means an absolute requirement and should not be used as a loan determinant so the IQ of 55 and above was the was the language that was used to as restrictive this information is fascinating to me because um the elementary case manager and District representative were kind of pushing this as being the the cut off in fact we got a call from our elementary case manager basically saying he can't be considered for a specialty school we did um we were reticent about that we didn't want him to go to Taft to necessarily walk around with a PA professional all all day um with freshman level curriculum when I spoke to Thea a case manager at Taff she said this wouldn't be a good placement for my son we hired an attorney we proved them wrong and we won our case but it cost me money and the messaging was just really not truthful I was told it was an IEP decision but I was also told I should go to the go CPS uh website which didn't have Northside even as a choice but it is on other families so some special education families have this Choice some do not my elementary case manager said oh yeah you should have used uh gops I never got any guidance from him I never got any guidance from the guidance counselor at the school and in the IEP meeting he said he he will be going to the T freshman center to which the the district rep said no he won't this was in April they really had no clue and their messaging just wasn't coordinated so I asked Chief long odls and the special education Advisory Board to please commit to messaging to your District Representatives the proper language the proper process it seems like the language and the or the lack of process is kind of a scapegoat and we need really good guidelines as parents and special education parents so that this doesn't happen fortunately Gavin's High School experience has gone really well but I think about other families and their experience we're really grateful that we have the wherewithal to untangle this meth but there is not really a clear process and we that's what we're really looking for so I thank you for your time tonight thank you so much for your comments we have no elected officials register registered to speak so this concludes public participation we'll now proceed with an update from the deputy chief Ricardo tril from the office of students with disabilities thank you good evening Rich heo Deputy Chief of the office for students with disabilities um can we start the slideshow please and so um starting off with that name uh I'm going to try not to read slides to you as much as I can uh but I think it's important here OSD is the office for students with disabilities the four is very very intentional they're um really trying to remove the stigma from students with disabilities it's an all-encompassing term right to include students with IEPs and with 504s um and so we ask and we this is our our our Mantra this year is when you hear our name misused we're not the office for students with disabilities we are the office for students with disabilities and so please help us in in driving that message home because we think it's really important and how we view our students I will read the mission to you which is the next slide um because I don't know how how much exposure you've had to it but we've been very intentional about thinking about the work that we're doing and so through partnership and empowerment we ensure that every student with the disability experiences success and secures their rightful presence in all academic and social settings and so I love that some of the public comments mentioned rifle presence because that is a term that we're learning together um to build some meaning and we know that that's going to be an iterative process and seeing how that really evolves and and influences all of the work that we do and so there's some several components to this right um partnership and empowerment so this starts with collaboration not just internally within CPS but also with our partners and with our stakeholders uh making sure that students experience success not only academically uh but socially and emotionally um really diving into as I said and experiencing rightful presence and securing that rightful right rightful presence it's about disrupting those barriers that limit student opportunities and so this is our promise for every student um that we seek to ensure that they are successful and we will continue to work tirelessly moving on to our vision and I'll read that also to you our vision is to fully support Educators School leaders and families in securing the rightful presence and success of students with disabilities by dismantling barriers ensuring Equitable access and assuring compliance we provide the resources needed for every student's academic and social success Guided by high quality IEPs and so we're doing that in by a few in a few ways fully supporting Educators School leaders and Families right making sure that we all understand we know that that achieving success means a collaboration among all of these parties securing rightful Presence at success again evolving what that means making sure that we're not saying it's one thing for everybody but it's a very individualized process so that every student experiences success with the resources and supports that they need dismantling those barriers and ensuring Equitable access assuring compliance we know that all of the resources in the world if there's not a good plan behind it are not going to be effective so we want to make sure that we have high quality IEPs and putting the resources behind supporting schools in developing those IEPs and uring that those IEPs are followed through one of the things that we are very proud of is our move towards becoming a much more transparent office and so that QR code that you see on the screens actually works and we we invite you to use them to give us feedback and I'll share some of the metrics that we have around feedback but we want to make sure that we hear all of the voices in the room even The Quiet Ones so that we can take that feedback and improve our practice right and so initial Focus was messaging this to parents we've now expanded this to include our school leaders our Network and central office staff community members um we have added it to we're working on most of them we have most of them now we're working towards having them on all of our signature block so that everybody can access this survey um we share it in our newsletters and at the the end of all or in the middle of here uh OSD presentations and this is also been shared with case managers so please please please give us that feedback we hungry for it so to date we've had over 400 responses as of November 11th um the survey has is featured in depart is featured Department wide so we've spoken to to the survey in our weekly Monday memo to OSD staff our monthly OSD newsletters to OSD staff and AD adjacent departments our social media Outlets our website um OSD presentations we're adding additional language um after the Thanksgiving break will we have simplified Chinese uddu Arabic polish and Ukrainian um and the survey recipients requesting additional support are responded to by individually by OSD staff so looking at some of the results and uh I love that we're sharing this data because it is our our our steps towards transparency even when the news is not what we want to see um so School staff was about 54.5% of this of the respondents so far in central office staff was 35.4% so as we go please note that the survey was launched at the beginning of the year much of the feedback is reflective of previous procedures and Communications um much of the work that we're doing this year is to be responsive um to the feedback and to the critiques that we receive so moving on to the parent sentiments uh the largest critique on the parent side that school staff are not always knowledgeable and that services are not always meeting the needs of their child when you look at the school staff sentiment and school staffs were some of the largest respondents to the surveys the main themes are that they're looking for more training and greater response from OSD principles and school leaders similarly um wanted more General support from OSD um also on a reflection on appeals and response that which can lead to more negative feedback so one of the things that we we take a lot of feedback from is our appeals process for additional positions and that's reflected here and central office staff wants greater support in filling positions so our community members timate again for the in hence the invitation for more responses um it was our smallest response um so far the the responses are positive um you know we're working really hard at building and maintaining the Community Partnerships and so we really invite you to provide that feedback um so that we can grow and learn and be responsive to your needs high point of success uh with the mayor's office for persons with disabilities the diverse learner fund we've had a large number of applications uh families have this opportunity for a one-time Grant um with some funds I think they have opportunity for up to two of their family members to receive um no strings attached funding to support students with disabilities we've done some rebranding as well so now you see our parent universities and our uh our support our parent support team is now called the parent support Specialists so you'll see the Flyers there the we have services available for children experiencing difficulties one pager that outlines special education process to current and potential parents and students and so we're really excited about the work that our parent support Specialists do um and look to expand that work so wanted to talk about some of our communication Pathways so we have a new OSD Monday memo to OSD staff as you heard referenced earlier we have an updated and reformat OSD monthly newsletter we have new professional learning and training newsletter for OSD staff special education EAS C's and itinerant teachers we have an updated OSD itinerate web page and we're working hard at mapping and updating all of the OSD web pages including new sidebars so every OSD web page to include a helpline a survey and the newsletter so key shifts and priorities these are these are the three um summarized priorities for our strategy so equ equable access and rightful presence and again evolving what that means growing together building capacity for inclusive instruction that's where we find most of our students are in inclusive settings want to make sure that the teachers that are in those settings are prepared and that we're supporting them and also following up on that support to support the implementation of the strategies that we're teaching and then shared leadership with families and communities so what this looks like is leading with instruction really shifting from a reactive to a proactive approach to supporting our schools and supporting our families partnership with stakeholders doing this with and not to and obviously as you're hoping you're seeing something today is the the efforts towards transparency and naming what what we're working on naming what needs to be improved all right I'll read to you a little bit again so this is our working definition of rightful presence a Justice centered approach rightful presence is a transformative framework that actively challenges systems of inequity by dismantling the traditional guest host dynamic in classrooms rightful presence moves Beyond in inclusion by focusing on reshaping environments to ensure Justice equity and meaningful belonging for all students especially those with disabilities I tend to focus a lot on the guest host mentality and just trying to disrupt that Dynamic right because when when you're a guest that that welcome and that invitation can always be rescinded that is not how we see the the supports and the place for our students with disabilities so this year we've worked on also increasing School leader communication and so we have done several updates and put in school leader updates and webinars on safety care contract updates contractual requirements IEP procedures city-wide resources um and budget guidance and we've expanded training for school staff uh we have a new professional learning catalog which topics which include lre this restrictive environment positive students beh behaviors specially designed instruction evidence-based practices assist of technology and augmentative alternative communication I best practices and the Sea training with staia mentioned earlier and so updates with our partners our CTU negotiations are ongoing uh we engaged our SEIU Partners to review documents related to the updated contract for Seas we've worked collaboratively to make adjustments to documents for school leaders um we've presented to webinar webinars to principles on toileting guidance um FAQs role of seas in schools contractual updates and then the sea IEP participation form which is also what was mentioned earlier additionally we are working with our talent Partners to recruit and fill key roles so we have many positions with historic vacancies that are now filled we still see ongoing challenges to Staffing related service providers we're leveraging a $5 million Grant uh the Team One in part partnership with the talent Department to recruit and retain rsps um addressing School level issues with students not receiving I IEP mandated services and making sure and working with school teams to complete breaking service and notice of non- implantation letters and conduct compensatory education meetings we've been working in supporting uh cluster classrooms with behavior strategies student placement instructional support PA professional training um and our team does extensive classroom visits that concludes my update thank you Deputy uh tral for your this excellent uh overview of where you're going would like to ask the committee members if you have any questions or comments um I first of all I want to say thank you for emphasizing that all of these four students with CBR anything else this is apologies um so thank you for emphasizing the four uh this is what we do this is why we're here and it's a very big um motivation for all of us to continue to do what we have to do for those students um I do have one question the grant when does it close because I know they've been moving the date yeah I need to follow up with you on the day I don't have the Friday is that Friday is that the end dat thank you for knowing that I'm happy to talk about that hi this is Rachel um first I just want to um thank you so much for office for people with disability and also M community service brought up our top girls in being to distribute 5 million St students with disabilities us to um increase opportunities and the relationship between um the me for people with disability the chico public school off for students with disability so um yes we can correct the application CL are Friday um November 15 um as of today we have um over 15,000 applications and um 10,000 of those are unique household which is absolutely incredible um if T to be able to give me which is over um 8,000 students with Chicago who meet income guid and um provide some kind of documentation of their disil 500 um for up to two stud with so if anybody watching really know please enourage people wwd.com but um I would say that on you were able to share the information with others gr that's what we saw huge spak in application so what you really want to thank you for your partnership with the work that you CH the team to thank you so much appreciate that if I could say um so looking at the survey and I really appreciate you sharing the results of the survey I think that's important um looking at the sentiment of school staff it seemed like one of the things they they most disagreed on was receiving adequate training and that's why I I think it's heartening to hear the results of the um uh contract with SEIU for seas that they're going to be receiving more training and just the investment that uh your department is putting into training for both seas and teachers because it seems like that's that's an essential thing that we're missing right now so I'm happy to hear you know what what's happening thank you for that also one other thing um that I'm also happy to hear the the updates to the website I and I checked out the website and with the sidebar more useful information is being displayed there and I think that that's like that's one of those easy fixes right where a lot of this stuff is is going to take time to see the impact but parents gave feedback about the website being difficult to navigate the the the fix is you know being implemented so so I'm happy to see that come right away appreciate that yeah yeah um so I would just say I think we glossed over it a little bit but the parent Guardian feedback there were only 28 parents that responded to the survey and I know we've been talking a lot about systemically how to resolve the distance between OSD and CPS to the parent and and student parent guardian and student at that IEP team table and 504 table and the information is just not reaching there this is a great survey it's an opportunity to give your feedback about the office of student for students with disabilities and only 28 families filled it out so a couple of things to help with that there was the um parent involvement Specialists which are now the parent support specialist support Specialists sent an email out today with some good resources in it but for example they did not include tonight's meeting and that would have been a good place to include that survey and I appreciate that it's the survey is shared with case managers I really think it should be on every case manager signature line so fam see that we'd like it in the nooc as well embedded in the NOC if possible but we've talked a lot about how to get that um how to get the survey in the hands of the most important people the families of the students with disabilities appreci and then I just would have one comment too I know we've talked about this too the website is great but there are still old Pages out there so I found an old uh Home Hospital policy that was going off of and it was from 2021 and it's since been updated so I know that's a really big problem with it and whatnot but if there's any way to search the old oneoff Google Docs that are out there and kill them that would be great yeah that that is a constant struggle and I appreciate that so please when you see them name them and and actually you know our partners in CTU are here as well work talk about how do we we obviously can't mandate signature lines with our with our union membership but certainly we can encourage and support in that so we'll definitely do that um yeah actually so I guess I don't have any original thoughts because I'm just first I wanted to say um Echo what you said about um emphasizing the office for students with disabilities that's been a big thing with a lot of our our members and so I just really want to say that we really appreciate that and we love that people are taking the time to make those Corrections and to to use that um in a way because uh it's really valuable to to people so um and then I also want to talk about the the parent um um I was just kind of thinking of some suggestions like maybe report card pickup having that available um I know report card pickup is only first and third but then at semester maybe when it goes home with the um I AP progress report um and then also too I I think uh in in contacts with with between teachers and parents if we could maybe some way figure that out um whether it's putting that line in there you know I guess that is something we can talk about but also just any Communications that go home you know um if we could have like something like that special so that you know parents can see that on a regular basis and try and encourage parents to uh to give feedback and then whenever we have things like you know lots of schools have you know parent nights and all kinds of nights and everything kind of trying to be deliberate about try trying to get get that involvement in there so 100% And that is absolutely our our motivation as you know with the renaming comes a lot of branding work that now is done so now that that's done our our plan is to push forward and have a lot more frequent and a lot different channels to to push that message out there hi ni um a lot of the comments have already been said but I just wanted to sort of circle back on um uh and I don't know where this would follow in here but coming coming off of Mr Gleason's uh public comment and something that I'm seeing a lot because my kids go to a school that also has a huge um Blended preschool program is um the transition and it sounds like from eth grade to high school is an issue as well um but from prek to kindergarten um as you know Blended classrooms as a matter of uh fact have a full gened and a full uh lbs1 as well as a full-time sea in addition to any seas that may be required outside of that by a child's IEP um and uh we are finding that um just kids are are going to kindergarten with not enough supports because they're doing so well in a classroom of 20 kids with two full-time teachers and one maybe two three seas um and they're doing great and then they go to a classroom of maybe 28 kindergarteners and you know um and and I don't know what the answer is there but I'm just uh just seeing so many parents struggle from prek to K with like but they did great in prek and then as you know it's so hard it's like well we need to collect data and then by the time we get a job posted and maybe this child needs sea support like there has to be I feel like some more intentional way to document like how often that child in prek was accessing that sea support even if it wasn't dedicated to them or you know how often did the lbs1 need to work with that you know so we can sort of project a little forward because it's so hard to fill positions mid year or get them you know so anyway so I don't know exactly what the answer is there but um and then you know I'm very also concerned about the transition from uh eth grade to uh High School not only because I have a seventh grader but um but because I know it's gone over through a lot of iterations and and former uh board member uh fii who was um a big part of trying to get um parents some similar experience to to other uh eth grade families with using gocps having some choice although it sounds like that might not be available to all uh families so so getting some clear guidelines um for those transition periods of prek Tok and 8th to 9th um I don't know where that falls in the um like if there's anything coming up that you could sneak peek us or what yeah I I so just to say I I had the priv privilege of being a high school and an elementary principal and transitions are just hard for for all students not just students with disabilities um so it's clearly a place where we need to put some focus on I think we don't have all of the answers today I think two of the things that we're focusing on I think are leading us to those answers and one of them is focusing on high quality IEPs and really thinking about what does transition look like for students as the exit programs I think the other side is really beefing up and leading the the lead that we're taking with our office ofad meeting with instruction and really making sure that we understand what high quality co- teaching looks like and what those supports look like to your point of tracking what that looks like in the interactions so that we know what's successful and we know how to successfully transition students from one setting to to another um and yes absolutely heard the feedback on on the gocps that is something that we're actually working with the office of access enrollment to solve because we know that there is a disconnect for our students with disabilities and accessing gocps um I want say thank you to both Tim and to Amy I unfortunately I couldn't be here for the September meeting um I also have an autistic child who is a freshman so I hear you so loud and clear it it was very even for this is my third child through that process and even when you are familiar with the system when you have a kid who needs a particular set of supports it's very different and you sometimes are looking for things that you know are supposed to be there and all of a sudden they're not right um and I feel that another disconnect that we have in the go CPS is for a students who are living in transitional situations um students who are in transitional situations are not are being accounted as transitional or not I'm not saying all the time but a lot of the times they're not accounted as transitional and the response from CPS has been it says here that this is your address and that's an address so we need to do much much better on that area uh for every student um Tim and Amy I I have been where you both are um these conversations will continue to happen these conversations are conversations that we are so grateful for for parents that come forward and tell us um I I've also had a kid that was in the in the wrong placement of the classroom and that was painful um we're here to continue this conversations uh we're just not bringing you over so that you can tell us we and I speak for the entire table we are here to support you we have your back thank you so much and thank you Chief thank you thank you I would just say again to Echo that thank you for the public comments today because we as ad Advocates have been talking about exactly this right we're talking about the full Continuum of L and how to access it that it's not all cluster if you have this label that it's not all um your neighborhood school and especially if you're transitioning from elementary school to high school like look at where we are now with Bond occupational it's such an amazing opportunity and if it's appropriate for the students individualized needs then it has to be considered so we're talking about just you know training an opportunity for school teams but there are procedural pieces of that as well that are making it very difficult to access and I think Tim kind of highlighted that too you might even have a team that's in agreement but don't does not know how to access a CPS specialty school in gocps if you aren't coming out of 8th grade in a cluster you don't get to pick a high school for cluster but there might be a lot of students who are going into that cluster setting in the high school setting where they weren't or vice versa we've also talked a lot about reintegration for students who might be in a therapeutic dat school placement setting and how incredibly difficult it is to reintegrate back into a neighborhood School setting and so on so we really appreciate the effort we've been talking about it in a general way but it's so much easier to hear from families and you know we don't want anyone to have to go through that but it helps so much to hear public comment directly from families absolutely I will add to that as well we actually H had a tour yesterday where a parent I you know just overheard them speaking to the one of my staff members giving the tour saying well my my case manager told me that I have to have my IEP meeting for this type but then the counselor said no no no I just have to go to C go CPS I just have to put the school I want and go CPS but when I went and go CPS Von wasn't a choice so what am I you know what am I doing wrong there was two people in the same school you know telling one parent to do something different and my case manager hadn't ever heard if we were on gocps right and we we are on gocps right but for some families right so from every top down I haven't as a school leader had that training yet on what go CPS looks like for my school because it's very different than what it looks like for a selective enrollment School a neighborhood School a choice program um you know all these different things so I think the training is needed all around once the system is kind of uh figured out uh all the way absolutely and uh it it it's just so confus it's so confusing for every parent um seventh grader myself starting this process already and um you know when when counselors are the ones typically guiding parents in high school choice they also have to be in on the conversation and no more our counselor's case managers right in most settings so uh I I think we have to be training multiple people within in every school on go CPS so if the people giving the parents the information don't really you know have a clear guidance on it's gonna be really hard for the parents to understand um we're all a little bit confused um but figuring it out uh together and go ahead sorry no I saying not the only ones that are a little bit confused we we know that there's challenges there I mean some of it is a procedure you're absolutely right Christine some of it is a technical it should feel the same for every parent when they log in whether they're going to a to a specialty school or selective enrollment or a neighborhood school that process should seem familiar and similar and that's exactly what we're working towards so I appreciate the and really thank you for the comments because we we know that we know it's painful out there parents of four children myself been through it four times so understand understand the need for the ship and I I also thought um when everyone was speaking about the parents giving feedback because I know even you know within my building I have over 200 parents guardians of students with disabilities sure I I don't know how many filled it out but I sent that out in my you know principal um Communications when when I first received the survey um giving to the leaders again to include in in emails would be a great uh Next Step but also um I you know we hold over 400 IEP meetings in a school year and often parents are waiting for their IEP meeting maybe in the main office or they're in the meeting waiting for all the rsps to get there maybe like QR codes to be placed right that you could just scan it while you're while you're waiting for the team to get together what you know those kind of things um I you know at least in my building have some good opportunities to just have that out there um for people to access I love that maybe a postcard even that they can take with them apprciate yes than you could for your new website look and also here's our survey on the back um yep I see a little card in my future exactly yeah I did want to piggyback on um the what you mentioned Christine about how there may be kids who are not in a cluster setting throughout their K to8 career who um may be appropriate especially because we have K to eight schools right so I I find It's Not Unusual for kids with complex disabilities who started in kindergarten or pre a blended and then stayed at the school um and the school really works to accommodate the child because they are that's their home that's their home and their school through 8th grade whereas maybe maybe or not they might fit whatever profile I know that we're working on profiles and checklists and I don't know what exactly we're calling them for cluster placement um where that might be a an appropriate fit um for high school so and then you don't sometimes you don't have your IP meeting till the spring so you know um you know so you're not changing lres until so I don't know what the answer is for high school but how to reach um those families that may may be interested in high school because go CPS closes November so I don't know that's a logistical nightmare sorry to put that on you guys but it's you know yeah appreci answer is not to have all the IEPs in three months for school and that's and and can't do it and Nicole named it it's a logistical nightmare you can't cram them all in a time that's not the solution yeah I one more question too um it was really great to hear the SEIU updates and especially the role around the Sea and the Sea being available and helping principles understand that it's important for them to be available and Families know that they can invite the seea to the IEP meeting um my son you know in his early Elementary had amazing seas and they were so valuable how do you plan to inform all of those people families and admin you know that this is something that we want to hold as a priority and of the contract updates they they informed us already how about families I'm not sure I didn't see anything but we had great presentations actually the summer in our leadership Institute and uh webinars um and I thank you for those they very very helpful and they were also offered at different times which was really great because then we didn't have to just watch the recording we could you know kind of make it fit with our schedule so I I really appreciate that appreciate it and I don't have the full schedule but it it's on the list and so you're telling me you're not getting enough of it so we'll we'll work at I haven't seen anything on it from so we're thinking so all of it right we just want to always bring back that family piece absolutely because if you are trained on the admin level and you're trained at the teacher level and you're trained on the family piece we can all work together and it's much more efficient so I guess we would love to hear how will families be informed that they can ask that their sea can come to an IEP meeting because that's the most important piece yeah well I mean I think the first answer is all of these mediums that we're developing making sure that that message gets out there and so in the newsletters in the little card that we're going to put out there all all of those different channels making sure that we get that message out there if that was a Miss on our part we'll absolutely correct that that be on the and the training or the parent involvement specialist trainings too should be mentioned at the Fab tomorrow sounds good and then in general too I know and and I'm done but um so there are policies that odlss has that are up for public comment if if these meetings for whatever regularity that these meetings happen if we could mention them here as well and just bring them up so that families know that they can provide public comment if there is anything up like you just mentioned home and heal yeah that one just closed but yeah the Home Hospital was up for public comment and then I think that a lot of people would be interested to hear about Transportation but we understand that transportation is not here and I understand that it's a different department but right now the only students being transported our students with disabilities so if we could get some I'll just and I don't know that you would have the answers are not but a lot of people are expressing that they have not received Financial incentive program stien checks yet and in past years we've asked like what is the schedule and is there a different process is there a different way for families to access that and just give feedback that families are also confused by the change of you may not be eligible for the stipend if you have a route available to you and then just to share feedback that we have a lot of family in set our still two hours and over on their ride times students that don't have what they require to Access Transportation um so we did hear the Board of Ed presentation but it was um this would be a good place to get feedback from families too on how transportation is really going versus what's reported um sorry what just one more thing um on the subject of Transportation um and going back to what team mentioned he knows how to do this and he's actively advocating for his child and there are other parents who don't have the ability to do it because of time restraints or commitments or language even and we shouldn't make it this hard I I am like Tim I'm constantly on top of things I am one of the parents who still hasn't received a check and whenever I reach out no answers um so just now that I've had a kid go through the college application process I used to hear from other parents in CPS that um if you do the high the go CPS application the college application seems somewhat easy and I am sad to say that it truly felt so much easier than doing I was doing my eighth grader application for go CPS at the same time that my son was doing his college applications and wow we I know we can do better and there's a lot of um open ends here but uh we're gonna get there if thank you for I don't even know what I'm saying just the transparency piece is very big for everyone to know exactly where we stand appreciate that I would like to recognize Debbie Pope who is uh The Other Board member who is joining us virtually maybe she she has a question for you maybe she could come off mute I just wanted to uh say thank you to everyone I uh will be the board leaon to this uh group and I'm very much looking forward to dialoguing with all of you and with parents and meeting people around the city and hearing their concerns I tremendously appreciate that Mary Fay left me some big shoes to step into and that I uh will have a lot of learning to do for those of you who may not know who I am I am a retired High School bilingual teacher I've had inclusion teachers work with me in my class and I've co-taught with inclusion teachers so I've had a wide variety of students with disabilities in my classes and have worked with the special education teachers and also on my own to scaffold and provide you know the most hospitable and helpful learning environment possible for those students and I'm excited to be here and working with you I'm sorry that the meeting ended up being scheduled when I was out of town for a family situation but I certainly will be with you in person in the future well I have a grandson who has autism he is in Chicago public schools and I've helped my daughter navigate so many of these challenges that um have been talked about tonight so I would like to thank the committee for their insights and their help and the deputy as we move toward the office for students with disabilities um thank you so much if you are interested in continuing engagement with us or have questions or comments or suggestions please email us at B OAC C cps.edu if you know any people who couldn't attend this meeting this evening but would like to engage us please contact the board at 773-553-1000 thank you all for joining do we have any information on um our uh working groups and when that's I know usually we discuss that in this section but okay next that's we'll try to get it for you if you okay great thank you for