##VIDEO ID:iVDiXR-MwQI## e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e e translations booth now I will jump over to the Spanish headset e e e e e e e e e e e e e e good afternoon all my friends in the boardroom um we're not actually opening the meeting but to everybody at the de these buttons to speak you push them and then you speak uh normally um when you push the button it lights up but for some reason it's not lighting up immediately so the moment you push the button the microphone is active and then the moment you push it again the microphone is deactivated but the light will remain on for like 4 seconds we installed some new apparatus today and for some reason that's the side effect I don't understand why but I just want to warn you so you push it it's activated immediately and the light will not yet be on and then you push it again the light will remain on even though it's been deactivated no hot mics so thank you and uh we'll start shortly e so good afternoon everyone and welcome to the first special education committee meeting for the calendar year 20125 I'm scottson L USD board president who chairs this committee before we begin I would like to take a moment to welcome LUSD board member Carla grigo who represents Board District 5 Carla is joining this committee and brings vast knowledge and experience from her time as a special education teacher so welcome board member Grio would you like to say a few words board member Grio yes thank you you so much I'm really excited to be part of this committee I've taught special education for 20 years uh from threey Olds all the way up to 22 year olds uh the special day program setting as well as RSP and I'm thrilled to be here and I'm looking forward to working with everyone on this committee and um yeah and just doing some uh good work for our students uh most importantly and our families uh who are part of this program thank you and we are so happy to have you on our committee so now I'd like to do a short recap of our November the 6th 2024 meeting that was a long time ago so I'm going to refresh your memories we had a presentation from Miss Brenda pensamiento School counseling administrator and Dr James Coons coordinator of moderate severe and LR programs with an update on the diploma with alternate assess assment the diploma with alternate assessment now means that students with severe cognitive disabilities can obtain a diploma following the completion of a California mandated coursework our second presentation came from Miss Erin Yoshida Airman the director of gifted and talented programs Advanced learning options who told us about the gifted and talented education for students with disabilities supporting twice exceptional students and the gate program identifies students who may excel in traditional subjects such as math but who also may excel in the Arts students with this abilities in the gate program are considered twice exceptional and any student can also self-identify as gifted finally our last presentation came from Dr Keith Abrams executive director director student integration Services regarding magnet opportunities for students with disabilities the updates show that the number of students with disabilities in magnet programs has increased and before we begin this meeting I have a few announcements and housekeeping items to share so as we're used to doing we will take public comments towards the end of the meeting and additionally to be in order compliant with the brown act we will not be discussing any items that have not been properly agendized for today's meeting and I'll now hand it off to Mr McLean board Secretariat so he can provide instructions on how to tune in this meeting how to give public comment and other logistical details thank you chair schmon my name is Mike McClean I'm the executive officer of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education that is a lot of words for my um if you ever want to know what's going on in this boardroom or with the committee meetings you can go to lusd.org SLB as in board o as an of and e as an education and on that website you will be initially shown uh a link to the upcoming meetings and then just below that will be a calendar of every event that's going to occur in this boardroom if you click on that event you'll be taken to information about that particular meeting so for example example if you clicked on today's meeting you would be brought to the agenda and the materials associated with the meeting and on the website you can also sign up to speak at the meeting sign ups to speak at any given meeting with the district um is open 24 hours in advance of the meeting itself it often fills up quickly so if we have a 9:00 am. meeting on Tuesday be ready at 9:00 A.M on Monday to sign up because that's when most folks will do it if you want to get a slot we have many opportunities for um public comment and we look forward to seeing you there uh and lastly every meeting that occurs in this room is recorded and saved to our website for all of perpetuity or as long as we have a website so you can always watch a meeting if you missed it on the website by going to the date on which the event occurred and then click on um watch the meeting if you have any questions please email myself or my office thank you Mr McAn and right now miss Lilia Moran compliance coordinator at the vision of special education will guide us through the first presentations she will speak about lausd's efforts in parent and Community engagement opportunities for families of students with disabilities Community engagement is crucial for all things done in our district because we believe that parents hold one of the most critical voices regarding their child's education remember parents are the first teachers in order to know what their needs are we must engage with them but also serve to update them on new information so miss Moran please get us started thank you again my name is Lilia Moran I currently serve as compliance coordinator in the division of special education I'm honored to speak today to the special education committee about this work that I'm very passionate about as we initiate our session I'd like to start off with our objectives for today I'd like to provide you with an overview of our current parent family and Community engagement efforts in special education as well as talk a little bit about our plans for the future in this area first and foremost what drives our work in our office is this mission as we consider and plan for the work to connect with families and engage with them specifically our families of students with disabilities we are driven by this mission to empower and work alongside parents and families of students with and without disabilities by offering meaningful workshops support and resources that encourage active involvement in their children's education we aim to build a strong partnership ship that Fosters open communication and understanding ensuring that parents and families feel confident support it throughout the individualized education or IEP process in all aspects of their children's education I'd like to share a glimpse into the special education virtual parent workshops the division of special education offers virtual parent workshops and we did so after the uh pandemic and initiation to address the need to connect with our families even during a pandemic time so for this school year and over the past couple of years we've provided different workshops in various topics so what I'm sharing with you today are the topics that are part of of our catalog for the 2425 school year we have provided a session on preparing families for the IEP meeting we've also had a session where we talk to families about serving as partners with us in their child's educational journey in addition for this spring semester we have sessions that are around supporting students with extensive support needs and also a session that is going to address education in the least restrictive environment the sessions that we have for this school year are delivered every two months or bonly and our sessions are 75 minutes in length that number might seem a little funny but when we designed our sessions we accounted for 15 minutes of logistics so that we can provide families with an hourong content and thereby allowing families that may in a little later or might need just a reminder on interpretation all of that information is accounted for during our sessions when we design and deliver our sessions we have some accessibility features Incorporated in there we ensure that our sessions have bilingual formats and I like to refer to this as a 50/50 model one of the things that's very important to me that I rely on even as a learner and as a parent is that I can easily connect with the information that is being presented so what we do is we have our presentation with black font for our English-speaking families and then blue font for our Spanish speaking families and this allows them to easily identify the language of their preference and follow along in addition to that we do offer families two opportunities to engage in our sessions we have a morning session and we have an afternoon session our our sessions in the morning take place at 9:00 in the morning and they are done on Tuesdays and our afternoon sessions are conducted at 6:00 p.m or 6:00 in the afternoon and those are done on Thursdays we have American sign language interpretation available at all of our sessions as well and for those families that may miss it or uh were not available or have to leave a little early we do have these sessions recorded and available for them on our website to view at a later time communication communicating these engagement opportunities for families is very important so we do so through a various methods we do have this information available for our families on the division of special education website we also send email notifications to families of students with high eps we also send text messages with information about our upcoming session and we do so at very specific timelines we send a gentle reminder before our session but we also do it the day of we want to be able to provide them a link to be able to instantly join our session so that information is sent about an hour before our sessions begin we also provide this information on our monthly CAC or our community advisory report the division of special education provides monthly updates and that information is included in that report as well and in addition to that we work in close partnership with the office of school family and Community engagement in all of our sessions and information and descriptions of our sessions are sent to them so that they can also assist us in passing that message along what you see here on our screen is actually the catalog that is posted on the division Education website and in that catalog we have easy access to our session so we want our families to easily locate that link and join us on Zoom if that is what they wish to do so on the screen what I'm sharing with you is actually a slide that we use on one of our uh virtual parent workshops we as you can see have the uh black font for our families that use English as their preferred language and then we have the blue font for families that would follow along in Spanish uh during our virtual parent workshops we inform families of the various ways that they're going to engage with us during the session so let me give you a little glimpse of what happens during our sessions for the virtual parent Workshop we use polls that will allow us to get to learn a little bit more about families we also have the chat feature that is available for them and they can easily connect with some of the individuals that are supporting behind the scenes they can also engage with the presenters and they can ask us questions though we do highly encourage families to use the Q&A feature this allows us not only to be able to respond to the questions during the Q&A session but it also allows families to learn from each other because one parent or guardian or visitor to our website I'm sorry webinar might have a question that others can learn from so we have that feature available and then we also have the zoom reactions that we welcome and ask families to engage with us in I mentioned previously that we have this material available for families to locate on our website and so what I've listed here on this screen is the direct link to the division of special education web page and we have a customized URL for families to easily locate us we have our materials posted by title and they can access the recording and the material as well I'd like to speak a little bit about the special education region Ambassador sessions and the engagement opportunities that we provide there this year we are offering three sessions in the special education region Ambassador we have a session that was provided around Behavior Support we have another session that is actually taking place this month it is increasing inclusive practices and then we have our final session taking place during the latter part of this semeer which is going to be on disagreements these are three topics that we will be providing and these are 90 minute sessions uh here too we do have accessibility features that we account for again offering that bilingual model and ensuring that we visit and have an opportunity for families to go in person to every region to uh connect with us the division of special education to connect with our presenters and uh connect with us just regarding the different resources that are available to them this is a hybrid format we communicate with families about the special education region Ambassador much like we do for the division of special education virtual sessions we post this information or this catalog which is pictured here on the screen on the division of special Education website we also do different uh Outreach efforts we connect and include this information in our monthly report with the CAC and again we continue to S share this information with the school family and Community engagement office as well there's something that happens a little differently at these sessions because this is a hybrid session we have uh the opportunity to connect in person with families and so they're able to ask questions in person they're able to utilize a parking lot to record questions they can connect directly with staff that are available there at the region Ambassador sessions we do have at every single region Ambassador session representatives from our region teams our special education region teams our special education region administrators are there they Avail themselves and their teams to connect with families and answer any questions they may have and similarly we offer families who are joining us online the opportunity to ask questions as well what you see here on the screen are two of the photos that I was able to capture at some of our special education region ambassadors sessions this one was specific to using the firstand strategies uh to support positive behaviors in the home setting the photo off to the left side was actually taken at Brentwood science magnet we had a number of parents there participating and engaging with this strategy and the photo off to the right side is the photo that we were able to capture at Main Street Elementary who who hosts our region East session there are additional special education parent workshops and engagement opportunities for families in the community we have sessions that are led by our instruction team and various teams in the department and this year we have sessions on dyslexia increasing inclusive practices on universal designed for learning the power of play and also diploma information sessions and typically these sessions are about 60 minutes and there's also accessibility features integrated and considered for these sessions as well what I'd like to highlight here is uh something that our divis uh Department of transition services or our dots team actually released for the 2425 school year which was as a result of feedback that we received from our CA and so they asked for us to be able to provide families with more information about various sessions uh locally at school sites and so this is a spreadsheet that's available to families wishing to learn more about transition uh Life After High School these are sessions that are taking place all across the district they're about 60 to 90 minutes in uh duration and they're happening weekly because they're happening all over the district we also have our parent counseling and training sessions this is commonly known as our PCT we offer content in various areas specifically offering families research uh based strategies uh different ways to build relationships at the school site and these happen on a weekly basis they're 2 hours in duration and again we continue to have just different accessibility features in Incorporated in these sessions as well and lastly um we'd like to just share a couple of other ways that we are engaging with our families and also offering some leadership opportunities here is just an example of our latest issue of our parent newsletter there are various things that are included in here but I'd like to highlight that we do have anoun announcements that we highlight and Spotlight some of the work that is taking place in our schools and with our staff and we include just information about parent workshops we also have uh established a partnership with our CAC members uh here is one of the ways that we're providing leadership opportunities this is one of our CAC members and she uh spoke at one of our special education region Ambassador sessions um her work there was very refreshing and just uh really nice to see her in that leadership role to inform families and uh the community about the work of the CAC and lastly we have the information regarding the presentations or training that we do for the CAC that is also available able on our website we have training videos there and we do also have the materials available for parents in the community to see what is taking place and what is the division of special education uh informing parents during those CAC meetings in summary I've shared with you today the way some of the ways that the division of special education engages with parents and families and this is not limited to But it includes us facilitating B monthly virtual parent workshops partnering with the region and Virtual Academy office offices to facilitate hybrid parent workshops also designing and facilitating parent workshops based off of the results that we review in the surveys and our through our collaboration with the CAC in our future we plan on continuing to review those surveys and the feedback we receive there continue our partnership with the office of student family and Community engagement including the region offices uh hopefully build a workg group comprised of interested parents to develop a recording regarding parent workshops that can be shared at parents centers across the district and maintain a workshop calendar in the division of special education so families know of the various opportunities available to them thank you and thank you for that excellent presentation and thank you for clarifying by monthly every two months because that is the most confusing term I can think of I don't know if it's twice a month or every two months so thank you for clarifying that so we're going to have some questions from our committee anyone let's start in the first row and we'll get to the back row also anyone on my right go ahead please am I on yeah okay now I see the light um uh my name is Amy I work within def education I'm really pleased with the overall presentation of the model that's being implemented however within the depth education we're a very unique subset so you had mentioned that you offer workshops are there any specific for our families of De children and um do they include like ASL classes for our families and those families who have deaf children or also those families who are nonverbal or low verbal thank you thank you for your question at the moment we don't have a workshop that is specifically as you described but we are definitely welcome to um connecting and developing something that would be uh for our families just to jump in for a quick second um as the administrator of instruction one of the Departments that I supervise is our def education program and I work very closely with Amy um looking at opportunities for our families is definitely part of our plan as we move into the spring semester so we are in the process of starting to plan and develop those and that's one of the things we'll be bringing forward to our valued committee members um to give us some feedback as well but yes we will be developing and are in development of those opportunities wonderful thank you of course thank you and thank you for that that's why you're part of our committee for bringing that up I appreciate it very much thank you how about to my left questions to my left sure miss green go thank you for your presentation um so I see here the survey there was uh something referencing a survey and then I saw the little infographic of um the newsletter and it says listening sessions I don't know if you have that information but what survey is this when was it done and uh where do we see the results of that survey and then also the listening sessions can you share more about that if it's you or anybody else M grego yes um so prior to you beginning as board member um the division of special ed embarked on a listen and learn campaign uh we engage with various stakeholders throughout the whole District uh one of the stakeholders that we had meetings with was with the CAC um and basically I held focus group meetings with different uh stakeholder groups groups um ask guiding questions we transcribe the results and I'm currently in the process of finalizing the report which will be shared um but that was what that was in reference to we we had focus groups where we we listened to to various stakeholders where they shared feedback and we took down their information so that we can kind of find those emerging themes and and make decisions as we plan for the future of the DSE okay just a followup when do you think will when do you anticipate having the results of this listening session it'll be in February uh mid-February yes thank you so I see no questions yet from the back but if you have questions from the back afterwards Zim will tap me on the shoulder and we'll let you know to my right go ahead Dr oio okay now waiting for the light um on that survey if I can just add um do just I know you still Mr Dr Soo I know you're working on the results but I guess I had a question to um hopefully the diverse cultur and linguistic backgrounds of stud of our parents will be reflected in in the survey results because I know we have you know you know parents from different cultural backgrounds that I know we conduct the workshops in Spanish but I was one of my questions was wondering what about Korean and uh Armenian uh where do those parents have access to the uh the workshops so to answer that question the listening campaign was done in two uh two phases we did uh uh focus groups which where we took in qualitative data but it's a mixed methods type of uh methodology we also did a survey where we captured qualitative and quantitative data and in that survey uh participants were able to select the language that they needed or they they had to use and then that is automatically uh translated as we get the result so there was a opportunity for families from different languages or cultures to participate in the survey but we did get well over 1,200 survey results from from various stakeholders so um but the again the the focus uh group sessions were held we held a total of 31 throughout the region and they were open to uh all parents that were able ble to attend and we we did have uh translation there for those who required it um but the the limit was 20 per focus group session so that we can have a robust conversation so I'll be I be I'd be interested to see um the subgroup of Korean parents what was their feedback just wondering if there's any cultural um I guess specific needs that they may have across different I guess that's what I was referring to the culture or you know K in or you know different as part of the uh surveys it was Anonymous so um there wasn't any demographic type questions for the parents that submitted the survey results um but amongst their responses there may be some caveats or some things that we may capture um so those are things that I'm currently analyzing um but if if there is something that bubbles up that will definitely be something that's included in the actual followup and findings thank you Council for my light there we go Dr stto um as you prepare the report of the results of the listen and learn campaign are you contemplating having that report translated into languages other than Spanish yes we are we definitely want to make sure that it's accessible to all um it is going to be a a forward facing document that we want to share because uh part of the focus group in the listing campaign would be that once we uh collected the data analyzed it uh identified those emerging themes received recommendations from professionals within special education that we would definitely post what our next steps would be and we wanted that to be trans transparent document that would be shared with the stakeholders and L USD as a whole so yes and we will be having more uh questions I want to ask a few and then we can go back asking just so the AUD audience knows there's a little bit of a delay in the light switch so we don't know really when we should start talking just so you know we know how to work the lights thank you so question for slide 13 the slide mentions that LUSD holds inperson workshops for families so how many workshops are available during the school year and where are they held do we know that during the school year uh as it relates to sight 13 for the special education region Ambassador that is a hybrid uh format and so in person we hold them at various location in the regions and they're a set location for the remainder of the year for example in region East we host them at Main Street Elementary for region South we host it at the parent engagement Center in the region South office um and for region North we hold those at glet Hill Elementary and currently due to the circumstance with Brentwood science magnet we are coming up with a different um location to host those there but our first session was held at that location and then we do have a virtual only option for our families for Virtual Academy and options programs excellent because it's important to have them all through the district and I appreciate that so uh on slide 18 how are the parents made aware of the parent parent counseling and training sessions how will parents know that this is happening that's a great question the parent counseling and training which is PCT that is a discussion that we hold during our IEP team meetings it is a service that is offered and so that information is shared with families during the IEP meeting but we post the schedule on our website so any parent that is not necessarily receiving that Serv service in their child's IEP they're still welcome to attend and our presenters Welcome All Families to attend those sessions and I have a following question what strategies are being implemented by the district to reach parents who don't speak English and may not have internet access because I know you mentioned online so I'm concerned because this seems to be one of our most vulnerable Community uh populations and they may need some extra help in getting information so you don't speak English and maybe you don't have internet what would they do if they don't have internet uh we hope that our school sites are posting the information available to families and I'm sure that this information is reaching to all of our school sites um it is shared with them and we as our special education region teams do their school visits that's something that they connect with families about or schools about ensuring that they have that information that is available to families and that they know that these sessions are held in person yeah parent reps are really important for that when they come to school just to drop something off you catch them right there and explain what's happening right and also there's such a thing called as snail mail so you can also mail something like that to the parents and last one and then I'll go on to Dr Samantha and the back row when you hold inperson meetings in-person meetings how do you know what translation services you're going to need uh one of the many concerns that I do have is uh parents attend these types of um ins services and they cannot be accommodated for their translation needs so how do you know how do you plan ahead of time what translation services you'll need at a location we guarantee to have the Spanish interpretation available and as our region teams are connecting with the school sites and as they know the needs of their Community we hope that families would Express to them through the contact information that's listed that they would require interpretation in another language and anytime that we have received that request we have gone through and honored that request and had that interpretation service available that's great so my hope for you and we need more translation services I know that definitely we need more interpreters but um my hope to you would be to make sure that these sites say hey let us know any special translation needs that you may need because we always have Spanish that's a that's a go but any others that we may need so I I would appreciate if you would make that request of the different regions okay Absol thank you Dr Samantha behind me please go hi everybody um I just want to say thank you for providing such a wealth of resources to families um and the question I have is uh I think it's great that the recorded virtual um parent workshops are available online and I'm wondering if these other programs like the regional ambassadors presentations are also recorded and made available um it just seems like some of these topics would be wonderful for folks to be able to look at if they you know can't find child care you know can't get there for any given reason thank you uh for region Ambassador sessions because the region is the team that is hosting us they host the recordings within their uh region websites but it is something that we are going to be bringing over to our websites to add on to it and regarding the child's care um we uh want to ensure that the activities that we are providing when we do do them in person have something that's tangible and that's something that's special about the special education region Ambassador session that were able to provide a tangible for families and if they do have a little one with them they're able to engage with that during that session okay you can see we're very interested in your topic so I'm going to go to Dr Rivas just a few questions um um Slide Five um the top topics the content that are covered not only on the virtual but also the inperson um are those the same um topics or contents every year or do you change them through the throughout the year we do change them that's a great question Dr Rivas we do change them um Miss grego asked about a survey and so I wanted to let you know that each of our sessions has a survey at the end and so we invite families to give us their feedback so these topics are BAS based off of the feedback that we receive in those sessions and they're also a compilation of comments that we might hear one of our CAC members give us or we might see something shared in the special ed committee so we're grabbing from different pieces and you know families please know that we're listening to any feedback they're giving us and thereby adjusting and including topics of interest for them that's great to know I was just wondering if there was um ever a topic on Mental Health on helping our parents with you know mental health issues how to cope for themselves but also for their students with disabilities or any I'm just wondering if there's ever been a a top a you know topic on the mental health we haven't addressed the mental health topic but thank you for the feedback yeah and um on slide eight uh you mentioned that throughout the presentations you check in and they you know they the participants or the parents are able to do some Zoom reactions um say for instance you know you're you're hoping to get a thumbs up or a smiley face but what if the reactions are very mixed like you have like a the surprise face or or the thumbs down or something what what do you do in those instances where the responses are not sort of you know uni in unison but vary that's a great question ever happened that that has happened actually so what we include in our slides is we have a zoom re action and then we indicate what that reaction represents in context to our question so it's they're a little bit guided but in the event though that we do see mixed reactions that are not already displayed in in in our slides then it makes us think that probably we didn't even ask that correctly or maybe they're not connecting to that question so either way it's information for us and it helps our presenters determine how to proceed and I'm assuming that's also reflected maybe in the questions that they're asking and then you can able to sort of um connect the reaction to some of the questions that they're asking to see where the there may be some confusion or maybe still some information that's that that they need yes I I just wanted to add also that we do have additional staff that monitor the chat the Q&A so if we start to see that there's concern or confusion we have staff that are available to reach out to that parent in a private chat to address whatever questions provide contact information or gather contact information for future followup because we want to make sure that not only are we addressing it in the moment but that we're able to follow up with our families immediately following to address whatever the concern might be that's great okay um and just two more questions you mentioned that there's leadership opportunities for the CAC members uh what sort of opportunities apart from you know U presenting about the cak at different parent workshops what are the opportunities um are there for them well as as you mentioned Dr Ras at the moment our leadership opportunity or one of the leadership opportunities that we have with them is um coming to our in-person sessions connecting with family families allow them to have that parent voice within our presentations um and talk about the work that they're doing and the resources that are available for families so that's what we um are doing this this year and so each year our plan is to continue expanding those leadership opportunities for them great cuz I know they work so hard and they go to the meetings and they have so much information and knowledge and I know I've heard from some members that they would love to connect to the actual parents at different schools to share that information so it would be great to see getting their leadership from from the CAC and then being able to connect with parents and I think that would be great cuz I know they have a lot of information last question Dr M yeah sure so we also um are inviting our our CAC parents to attend ledge Day in May so that they can go and advocate for for special ed bills or laws that are are coming in addition to that we also are inviting them to any District events so that they could set up a table and engage with families that may attend so they can have Outreach and talk about what the CAC does and share resources that uh other parents may not be aware of so that we are really trying to really bolster that relationship with the CAC so that they're out at schools and at events and sharing the message about what the community advisory advis I'm glad that about tabling because you know when our office when we table parents do come around and we try to have all the information so that's I love that tabling at different events that's really great uh last question um how are the workshops and communication strategies designed to accommodate parents who they themselves may have uh either a physical disability or neur or also neurod Divergence um and then how because they may consume the information differently or absorb it differently are there so accommodations for parents who themselves have either a disability or a physical disability or or a neurod Divergence in in our planning process uh what's important for us is to ensure that for those individuals who may have a disability and require some processing time we account for that and plan for that and ensure that the content is accessible for them to see also not overloaded with content for um people who might be over stimulated with a lot of content and ensure that there's pausing to allow for interpretation um to take place so there's certain things that are built in already within our content thank you so much thank you for your presentation appreciate it and now we have a question from our student board member Mr Ari Martin noce the on oh okay um a question I had to make is um in SL 13 you mentioned how there's two options for parents like if they could attend the sessions like either going in person or they want to go online but the question I have is how do you like keep in track of progress like how many parents are attending in person and in online like how can we know like if the parents are like actually know that this is important for them to like attend to the meetings like how do you how do you keep them progress that's a great question question because data is very important and it drives the decisions that we make we have signin rosters so parents who are in person sign in and then families that are online we keep track a record of the attendance of the zoom reports and so the Regents will share that information with us specifically to the topics of special education because the regions host uh in the region Ambassador session there's three path ways for those sessions but we receive the information with the attendance uh for the inperson and online sessions okay thank you thank you Miss Carla GGO yes so in uh regards to the attendance do you what is the participation rate for these workshops both virtually and the ones that are hybrid which are the region Ambassador ones I will say that's a great question miss greo the participation is driven by a couple of different things online um we have typically on average about two to 300 families that are joining us online in person it'll vary by region and also the size of the venue but we have had about 15 parents attend in person all the way to up to 60 uh members or parents or Guardians attending in in person and are they all um I noticed the schedule it looks like it's on weekdays at 9:30 a.m. are they is that the only option that people have for the inperson for the inperson for this school year that is the current option that we have for the region Ambassador session and those are the only ones that are in person right the region Ambassador so are there plans to have these meetings in person um on weekends in the afternoons on evenings um it just seems that when you're in person I've witnessed this with parents when you have a parent meeting like what Dr Rivas was saying how people like to share ideas share their experiences learn from one another it's better done in person so I'm wondering are there plans to have more of these meetings in person and more often we certainly will bring that to our student family and Community engagement Partners who organize those trainings um like Lilia was explaining there are three Pathways we are one of those three Pathways so we will certainly bring that back to them as feedback to consider other opportunities in the way that they're planning those sessions for sure thank you and then in terms of how schools can support participation in this how are schools um aware of these um especially teachers in the special education department have how are they aware of these great opportunities for parents to be involved and how are they encouraged to support family participation in this thank you for that question so one of the things that we have available to employees is a dedicated employees web page in the division of special education we have information information listed there we also share the upcoming sessions or opportunities in our employee newsletter we also make connections with schools and share the catalog so as our special education region teams are administrator at each region and the LR Specialist or our special education Specialist or program specialist are connecting with Schools they're sharing this information they're uh Printing cataloges and sharing with them when they're attending those sessions and as a added bonus if they go drop into the parent Center and give that to them that's just another way that we share this message it'll come on or was it on the whole time there it is um I'm wondering are there any Partnerships with some of our other office offices in the district like the um restorative practices office uh folks who deal with do we partner with them to do any of this work uh for our parents kind of in the same line as what uh Dr Rivas was talking about uh providing workshops on mental health support for the parents as well as for the students that's another great question um and actually brings such a smile to my face because we are firm Believers in Cross collaboration and so when we are hosting sessions we are connecting with the multilingual Multicultural education department they partner with us and they help us provide information regarding the reclassification process when we are host hting sessions around Behavior or other topics we do want to connect with other departments and partner in that work so it's a unified message for families one last thing I think um any opportunities for support groups for parents especially when you have the little ones um and they're just barely getting diagnosed it can be a very challenging time for families do we offer any support for those parents in when they're just learning about their child's eligibility at our level um essentially what we try to account for is the various needs in the various stages of families and so for the Early Education component we do have trainings and presentations available for families um so that they get that information we currently are not developing or hosting a support group but we hope that through the information that we're sharing our school sites then can do that locally but we don't have any Partnerships with any other organizations that could host this do we or are we trying to develop some Partnerships with any organizations that we could direct our families to is that happening for Early Childhood special education and those are my colleagues that will be presenting next they can elaborate more on that but I know that we do have those Partnerships with the regional centers and we actually have that information posted on our website as well and next we have Miss Scott with a question go ahead thank you um our parents surveyed to determine the times that the in-person meetings are held I I know when I worked at a school site the meetings were scheduled during the daytime but I as a parent was at work and wouldn't be able to attend those meetings so who determines the times that you have the meetings and are are the community surveyed to determine when they can attend that's another excellent question thank you that was very important for us as we were designing the schedule for our virtual parent workshops um the year prior we had our survey results and we took a look and one of the questions that we asked was what day and what time works best for you and so the results were um concluded that Tuesdays and Thursdays were days that families found it better they also let us know that they wanted a morning session and an afternoon session and so that is why we strategically chose Tuesdays 9:00 a.m. and Thursdays 6 [Music] pm thank you Dr Samantha oh uh is it on um I just want to second I forgot who just mentioned bringing in outside organizations like the Arla um I just want to second that and say I I think there's so many Regional Center programs like the self-determination program that are are even you know more important for families of older students um to to hear about and I know Regional centers really want to get that information out and um the school district is just such a big space where where that would be a wonderful opportunity for families to learn about those services that their their kids can benefit from now but also post school um to make those connections thank you and thank you and I was just thinking back when I was principal at Cochran every time we had a vote when would we meet half would say in the morning and half would say in the afternoon and so what we decided to do was make one meeting in the morning and one meeting in the afternoon that's the only way you can win because you never can win unless you have both so I I really appreciate any more questions anybody I really appreciate your presentation and I think that you almost learned as much as we do about you as we teach you about what we need to know more about this program and I thinkk you so much I really do thank you so much I appreciate it thank you so much okay here they come uh the next one is uh about Early Childhood special education and I have to admit I see Anna Orel all the time when I visit my early Ed centers and and being a special person in secondary I I kind of miss all that fun stuff in early Ed and I love I love my school visit to early Ed so for our next presentation we will learn about Early Childhood special education from Anna Orel director of Early Childhood special education and in California we have seen expansion efforts for transitional kindergarten and early childhood education programs since some of these programs may be new or steadily growing we must do our best to inform parents about available options so please Enlighten us miss Orel about these important programs good afternoon uh board president Shon and committee members thank you for the opportunity to be here and you're always welcome to our programs you know our kiddos always love you always come yes always engaging with them so we really appreciate you um my name is Anna director of early at special education and here with me are two of my amazing um specialist we have cesa Rodriguez and Jennifer nasimo that will also be here to share a little bit about the wonderful work that we do in ecsc okay um we wanted to start okay um thank you s so we wanted to start sharing first and foremost our um vision statement with you all which is um to maximiz student achievement throughout the provisions of a robust instructional program for all children in the least restrictive environment so what a better way to um show you what our vision statement is then through um a classroom visit so we have a two-minute video that will um highlight two of our Universal transitional kindergarten collaborative programs these are UT kcc's one of them is at haml elementary and the other one is at um limmer Elementary so these utcc uh programs are centered around providing inclusive environments for all of our students so um s if you can please thank you sorry we're having some technical difficulties what part of it is not working the video there was a video oh okay I'll go ask just out of curiosity did did we test the video before we did the PowerPoint let me go make sure they've got it yeah we can come back to it um if you like whatever you choose is fine we can always start the video whenever you tell us to okay um so I'll just move on um so here is um an overview of the programs that we have under ecsc with the respective um administrators for our early start low incident and these are for baby 023 we have our administrator Toby McKay for Head Start integrated we have Stephanie Jones for our preschool kindergarten itinerant teacher better known as peid is our administrator Diana monteo inake and assessment um is Dr Monique rolls for instruction is Jennifer nasimo operations say cesa Rodriguez and for um or informal dispute resolutions IDR and our after school program is Julia wanabi so Cad and Jennifer will share we'll go more into detail about each of the programs and they'll share more information about um you know the wonderful work that happens in each of our programs do we have the video no well we'll keep going till we get it right not a problem okay thank you for your understanding sure um so the next three slides will focus on the language for uh from our individual with disability educational act Ida and the research behind the benefits of our ecsc programs um the first and the last bullet emphasize how ecsc programs effectively support all students um and in the reduction of the impact of their disability as well as um a reduces the needs for long-term special education when children reach school age so um our during last year we had approximately 61% of our students in our collaborative classroom the transition into a general program with resource only so it's it's over um half of our student that transition to a Genet program um because of this so This SL speaks about our part C under idea and it covers children from birth to age3 so these are children who needs um support in their developmental uh growth and this um under um part C of ID a parents qualify for what it's called an individualized family service plan or ifsp and this is amazing because it really emphasizes both the children and family so there's a lot of support and a lot of involvement with families during this um age group we uh provide services that help enhance the child development in their natural environment so um a lot of our programs in SAR will go a little bit more into detail about what that looks like in our um in our school sites this slide speaks about Part B so Part B is um ages um uh 3 to 21 years old and we um work hard in a smooth transition from our part C to A Part B which is a process that ensures children move early um from early intervention services to school age services so we hold meetings before the child turns three those are part C babies and they transition into our part B which is school age um uh group of students is the video ready yes oh the video okay we have the video ready so we want to make sure that we show you the video because it's um I mean you've seen it often but yes our Rose Saves the Day thank you Rose rose [Music] is it hot yes take it off the stove take it off the stove we can put it on a plate now tell your baby it's lunch time good job did you make a tacel for the baby I think he's going to need help eating the TAC that's a good idea do you need a knife for that good [Music] job oh no McKenzie the stove is hot be careful your robot man is going to melt yummy yummy TR to catching yellow fish can count them oh you caught one let's see how many yellow fish we can catch and's see if Paris can catch a yellow fish can you catch a yellow fish you CAU one oh let's see David has one did you catch yellow fish oh how many yellowfish did we catch let's try it uhoh you're slipped out I got what color did you catch oh how many yellow fish did you catch one I got so how many [Music] now so these are two of our utcc programs as mentioned there are inclusive programs um the um the collaborative classrooms they hold 12 uh Genet students with eight um special education students we work closely with our ECE team to um look at our programs and see where uh the school sites will benefit for from uh for one of these programs so um I invite you all to come and visit our programs where um I mean you you you can go to any of of our inclusive programs where they um you will see the um engagement and Interac from the teachers and students okay so um ecsc Support Services we um service approximately 10,000 children a year with 300 of those 350 of those students being um our youngest Learners 0 to three and we support these students in a variety of settings we do inhome natural environment and family support group and Clinics and those are for families where they come into the school sites and they get to engage in um in activities with their child so it's it's very neat to see and these are for 0 to3s we have Head Start agencies across the district Community preschools um Home Hospital Services Elementary School sites and also Early Education Centers um and my team here will will go into a little bit more detail about the programs and um the the services offered in each of those programs okay and with that I'll pass it along to sesa thank you good afternoon everyone uh my name is s Rodriguez and I'm a Early Childhood special education specialist for early uh childhood special ed uh the number that's up there and before I talk about early start low incidence uh programs that's our uh hotline basically that we have uh have open for any questions regarding special uh Early Childhood so uh you'll see that often uh because we want to make sure parents and and our staff know that uh that numbers are available at all times okay yeah so the early start low incidence program is our birth to three and those are our our students that are basically our babies uh the part C that we were talking about earlier uh that group is uh composed of uh so our support group is composed of our credential teachers with eligibilities that support visually impairment the death and heart of hearing and Sol Orthopedic impairment uh our team that supports these children uh consists of two psychiatric social workers two School nurses four educational audiologists 23 teachers with Early Childhood special education credentials and 11 special education assistance um our team creates and supports the individually the individualized family services plan that's basically an IEP for the birth to three-year-old kids uh ifsps basically are are a plan that we create with our families because we want to make sure that our families are are supporting our kids at home as well as well with with what we do in our classrooms um and they also our teams our support teams uh help develop the IEPs for when these kids turn three or right before they turn three so in case they need more services those kids are get to support at 3 years old um we also uh we doing specialized instruction and we do parent trainings for for our children uh for those are specific needs that I was mentioning earlier as well as the five areas that are consisting of child development so we talk about and we support our families with self-regulation social emotional language and literacy cognition physical and health so the services we provide we provide at a natural environment so we go into our homes or our families homes we' done that in the park outside in the community centers because we want to make sure that our families are are comfortable with our supports at all times uh we hold family support groups and Clinics where we do support our families and and different topics uh we do auditory verbal uh verbal therapy and orientation and Mobility Services with our families um once again these are for birth of three uh we do individual ASL American Sign Language and after school pilot ASL classes for our families so we do have those support uh systems in place for our families with these kids at this age and we also do bilingual support including just ASL and spoken languages our next group of uh or Department that we have under ecsc is the Head Start integrated Support Services once again if you guys see the numbers up there for any questions our Head Start integrator program uh Head Start is a Fally funded program uh it's a preschool program that promotes School Readiness for children that are three and five from lowincome families throughout the district uh and we support them in Education Health mental Health Nutrition social and other types of services our head Head Start integrated programs they provide a high quality non-public agency special education staff and District staff that support at all times in our classrooms uh and they support children that that are eligible and their families LD has also partnered with various Head Start agencies and we offer collaborative preschool programs so just like the video you guys saw with a utcc we have a handful of those PCC head starts at different uh Elementary campuses where we have the Head Start staff uh that works collaboratively with our uh L USD staff and they create an inclusive opportunity for all our students in those programs so we support over 593 Head Start classes uh for approximately 1,200 children we offer also pre-referral intervention for children who may need the support but not necessar the assessments uh so basically they don't have an IP but we feel that there there might be a need there by somebody that tells us in that classroom so we support them uh we also also offer Behavior Support prior to any referral uh or during the referral process or at the actual IEP we also provide consultative Behavioral Services for children that do not qualify for special education supports or access or they accessing our District programs so number again and the next uh Department within ecsc is the preschool kindergarten itinerant Support Services which is basically pit if you guys have heard that before so our pit Services those are in in itinerate special education teachers so like RSP like uh Miss Greg was saying uh there are RSP teachers basically for our preschool students uh and they serve uh our district G education preschool classroom so they might be in gender gauging classroom and we go in there and provide the support uh we go to early Ed centers as well uh we go to community preschools um they're not necessarily in District campuses but we go service them if the kid has an IP uh and we also go in into student homes um it's a direct service so basically the P teacher provides support for that individual child based on the IEP uh we provide home instruction and Home Hospital support for those kids that are not elig that are not ready to be in our class classrooms for any medical conditions uh we provide preschool behavior intervention consultation so Bic which probably you guys have heard of before for our preschool setting and also uh we case manage IEPs the next group is the intake assessment and support services so our intake teams uh usually get approximately 600 referrals a month every single month of the year uh for unenrolled preschool students so these are the kids that are about to turn three have turn three um they usually when they come from the regional center those are the part C to Part B kids those are kids that actually are are receiving regional service uh supports and then they start getting uh ready to become three so that's when we start uh supporting them to do the transition um or they come from the early start program that I mentioned earlier for those birth to three students uh we also get them from the direct referrals when parents call our number um doctors call our number or uh people from the community call our number to uh ask us for support for a student that is not enrolled for a child is not enrolled and they're looking for assessments uh those are about the 600 that we get uh with both uh sets of kids um we usually start the referral process at 2 years and 9 months so we get them ready by the time they turn three then we uh get them into our programs and they qualify depending know the IPS um we have 40 assessment teams located throughout the district uh at 10 assessment sites uh the teams can be comprised of a special ucation teacher um social workers a psychologist a language and speech pathologist uh occupational therapist physical therapist and special education assistants so we try to do the SE transition for our kids to make sure that once the kids um are turning three we do assess and they're ready on day one a lot of our kids actually start school on their third birthday um and those are the uh the kids that we Tred to get before so the part C to Part B those kids that are coming from the regional center um but sometimes we do get those other kids that the parents call after they turn three but we TR uh we we do assess them um the part seat kids they come from the regional center and we do start the process at at 2 years and 8 months and this will give us sufficient time to assess it by the time they turn three uh the part B kids uh the part B Services I'm sorry those are the ones that after they turn three so those kids we do a complete assessment to determine if a child's in need of services and then we focus on eligibility to see if they qualify based on need and then if they continue to qualify we do offer or identify an appropriate program and services uh and then we obviously present it at the I okay my colleague thank thank you Sor all right so now we get to talk about when our babies are actually in our preschool programs and um it's very very exciting all right we have about 635 preschool programs and um The Happy part is that 282 of them are inclusive programs what we call collaborative programs right so the first part of the slide has the different types of collaborative programs and that's what we would consider more of our least restrictive environment um for student students we've got um utk CC's which is universal transitional kindergarten all of them are CC's all of them are collaborative programs but there's different settings right there's at our early Ed centers you know we have what we call our eec pcc's right at our head starts we have pre collaboratives at our um Elementary sites we will have California state preschools and um we also have a few preschool for all learner collaborative programs as well so those are all of our wonderful opportunities for our students to be with um typically developing peers right and the good news that Anna said about that earlier is that about 61% of our students last year that were in these collaborative programs were able to transition over to jened with resource once they got over to kindergarten okay we have our preschool for all Learners which is you know just a wonderful program it's Pal's right it's our pal program um I'm glad that you have exper with our with our youngest ones and we have our preschool comprehensive program which are the students who need a little bit more support so that would be considered our more most restrictive and that program focuses on six main goals and it's very short it's intended to be short so that we can get our kids over to Pals and other programs so for our categorical programs we have visual impairment we have deaf education programs um formerly dhh but I know that it's now deaf Ed um I saw the last one and um and then we have our after school early childhood programs as well okay so what does it look like inside of our classrooms right we are um we have a lot of exciting transitions um with our programs so we used to have the California learning found learning foundations and now we have the California preschool transitional kindergarten learning foundations right and that just came out last summer so it's called the ptk LF because we love our acronyms right um so that we um our our staff is all getting used to creative curriculum is the adopted curriculum for all of our preschool programs right in gen Ed early Ed centers and for ours as well and we um modify that using developmentally appropriate practice and then we measure our progress using the drdp 2015 the desired results developmental profile it's not an assessment as much as a measuring tool right The Familiar adults with the students get to just measure them on about 43 different measures on um six different domains the drdp is also changing next year it's going to be the drdp 2025 rolled out for next year all right so with our staff we have um students can enter our programs um anytime they turn three right so because they're turned three all year long our programs are constantly growing so with that we need the support of our instructional coaches our program Specialists who are absolutely worth their weight in gold and they provide technical support they provide instructional support to all of these 635 programs right professional development is offered to teachers to paraprofessionals there's parent workshops that are going on um anytime all throughout the they're after school they're during school we have Saturday programs um and so as the students turn from an ifsp which is the family service plan into an IEP we have our um dedicated operational program Specialists that provide the Continuum of program placements for all of these students and they're they're doing at least they're doing many many placements daily we also support extended school year so that's esy and that's during winter spring and summer all right so what kind of PD do we offer I'm glad you asked all right we support um creative curriculum again that's changing that's the main curriculum that's going on and so we our instructional coaches our um program Specialists support creative curriculum professional development for all of our for all of our staff um we support also with Learning Foundation and with a curriculum Frameworks we want to keep Universal Design for Learning as part of the conversation because we want to make sure that our diverse Learners have diverse ways that they can express their learning right um we work closely with the behavior teams you know in the regions as well as outside behavior um professional development such as UCLA so that we can address the social and emotional needs of the staff of the classroom management and then of individual class uh students as well so when it comes time to transition to kindergarten we also support with really considering the least restrictive environment that our students are going to be able to thrive in okay okay after school early childhood programs so the after school programs Ser provide service for preschool students um eligible for special ed and support services right the program consists of families and students meeting twice a week about 90 minutes it targets speech and language as well as social social emotional development so it works through the curriculum and um it's designed really for maximum collaboration between the families and the support providers you know to make sure that everybody is um it's just family involvement is just so key you know with with our students and so we just want to make sure that we've got the best best situation possible informal dispute resolution AKA IDR um we have a dedicated administrator who works with the parents to identify their issues and concerns and resolve them quickly and informally the um our particular one is just for students who are not yet enrolled in our programs and so we'll get um cases from intake from our pit team from our head start team anybody who's not enrolled thank you Jan and SAR um so we've come to the last slide and we wanted to provide this resource um available to all the link there will take you directly to to our special education website but if you um search ecsc or early child special education it will take you to a page where there is tons of resources for families there's lesson plans for families they can access through our website there's a lot of great information they can access through there and also like sad mentioned there is her phone number where families call for any support that is needed um if they need to get assess um they can come in through our through our hotline and we definitely take their information and um reach out to them and start U the process of assessing them so um this is accessible to all and we just want to thank you for your time listening to um our presentation and at this time we'll take questions yes um I just blown away for all the things that you do for our for our little kids it's just amazing I don't think the public has any idea how much we do for our little kids it's really just fantastic I'm very touched I appreciate it very much questions I'm going to start with the left this time and I know Miss grigo has a question aha go ahead I do um but first thank you for the presentation and yes the little ones always bring smiles to our faces they're just lovable warm and fussy yeah they're just lovable and I was I visited an eec this week uh Hooper and they do have um an inclusion classroom and I was able to speak to the teacher and um it was beautiful to see how both teachers collaborated and it was you couldn't see you couldn't tell who was in the program and who wasn't um the special ed teacher seem to be very happy with uh the you know being able to do this work with the jenet teacher um however she did say that it was you know she needs some more supports it used to be that special programs would have a specific budget right for their needs their very specific needs that's no longer there so she did mention like you know sometimes we want some specific things for our kids that are beneficial to the kids in the program but also can be used by the gened um population so that is something and then of course it comes out of the general fund and that becomes challenging for the principal or the director to be able to provide um those things so that's something that is a need I think um for our eec teachers um in in the special ed but some questions um that I had one of them I saw that um there's an NPA uh which one is it that has uh various folks um which one is it the Head Start Head so I wanted to no why is there and I'm assuming that's an assistant who is from a non nonpublic is that what that is or what was that uh it said NPA I'm looking for it I oh here it is the Head Start integrated program it says it has high quality n NPA special ed staff so can you elaborate on who that is and yeah so the NPA staff at the head starts are are speech pathologist oh okay so yeah we hire speech pathologist to go into our programs because they're not in our district campuses so L unified slps are not there we contract them out for the NPA per so it would be an NPA going in as an SLP because it's Head Start that's the reason why we contract them okay and then um the other thing it says offers in the Head Start integrated program offers Behavior Support prior to referral there's a couple of lines here a consultative Behavior Support can you describe what that looks like like what does that Behavior Support look like yeah so we have our our staff from ecsc which our District staff that they go in and uh they do trainings for our Head Start GE partners because we're talking about's for example like a kid that does not have an IP so the we we're there supporting the classroom itself so we do trainings for the staff uh we also do uh consultative support in terms of the our teacher our support staff going in there and working with their GE teacher to support that specific need that they may have for a specific child or group of children that do not have an IEP but it's ongoing trainings and basically Hands-On support with the teacher to support the the GE student in that regards I see and do the teachers have to request that support yeah but because we're there all the time also um sometimes we do recommend it and we do we're working together because we're supporting those those classrooms as it is because it might be a kid with an IP in there so if we see for example like a a GE kid on the side that might need something extra we do recommend that uh our support or we offer our support to the GE staff to see if they're interested in us helping the child out but at the same time we do ongoing support for the entire classroom uh staff uh so then that's where we usually ask questions of like do you have an individual need or is there a child that needs something extra that we could come and help so yeah okay and then and pit I haven't seen to many pit teachers in a long time so I'm wondering how is that program is it I mean has have there been reductions do a lot of schools get them and or are there not too many schools with pit teachers yeah so pit are basically uh like I was saying earlier an RSP teacher that roams around throughout different schools so right now we have between 30 and 35 uh p teachers um and we have close to 400 Elementary campuses as long as as long as uh with the eecs and also the community classrooms the community preschools so maybe that's why you haven't seen them that much because there's only about 30 to 35 covering a huge yes wow yeah that's a huge huge gap between the the the ratio is really high um and then uh let's see I do have some more questions but I'll I'll stop for a minute and come back thank you so much thank you Miss GGO to my right SP Parts hi I am um I'm actually working be at the transition manager between part C and Part B within the de education program it took me a long time to remember which was part C and which was part B Part B of the older kids so it has been an enlightening and amazing experience seeing that because usually I work with much older kids is I have a lot to say from a deed perspective first I want to say thanks to do uh to Scott schmon back in 2122 he passed the resolution for equity and death education and one of the things that came out of that was the default for any child with any hearing difference would automatically be put into a into a multimodal uh lost my train of thought so they would be automatically introduced the multimodal approach meaning ASL and spoken English previously all English was the default as a result thank to Toby McCay because she's been awesome she got on it so part C has been fabulous what we are seeing now in the Part B part is more and more families want the multimodal the ASL which is fantastic for our death students because their disability is really not intellectual but lack of language assess so where are the PCC program that do that reverse mainstreaming that perhaps they could be 12 hearing students eight death students with all communicating through ASL to provide that really that udl Universal Design learning because then it that environment is accessible for that I know that we're working on restructuring and rebuilding but I do want to put it out there I know the answer so there isn't one but we're going to work on creating one um one thing that's really important at any level is accessibility the video is really adorable super cute captions that is like the number one thing with accessibility we need to be looking at anything that goes out into the public or shared within our sphere is it udl for the grownups in the room because that was not what would udl is I had my interpreters here who are not always following me around which is too bad because I like having them with me another component is that you said that you offer avt that's Audi verbal therapy for those who who do not know and that is intensive listening uh therapy to teach de children how to hear that's K and oxymoron because they can only hear as well as their technology one thing would be great if that is on your team is that we have the opposite or the supplement which will be the ASL therapist because our deaf children again language access is what is limited many of them the parents are choosing I don't know if I said this already but many parents are choosing the multimodal approach they want ASL and they want English where the ASL support for the children who need to catch up with their hearing peers with the language maybe I should let you answer some of those questions well we we um so appreciate you and your questions and the feedback definitely something that we uh we're wearing back we're currently working with our administrator Toby McKay and she's um reaching out to different um um agencies to kind of promote that as well and to bring um some of those res resources into our campuses so we are definitely looking a little bit more deeper into that so we appreciate you and your feedback I have plenty of feedback we welcome it by Alicia thank you thank you let me go to the back uh for a moment to get some questions from Dr Marie gani thank you for the presentation um we kind of bookend services for students so they start with you and transition with us and we prepare them for um moving on out of the district um thank you for the work that you do you start them on the path I'd like to know a little bit uh about the conversations um when students are um or children are moving from the ifsp into an IEP moving from Regional Center service to district and uh is there any thought to pairing up those families that have gone through through the school system um whose kids are transitioning or have transitioned so that the younger parents know the path and what to expect moving forward thank you so much we um that's a great addition or it could actually already be going on I know that our program Specialists pair with our intake department and as parents are exploring their different options for least restrictive more restrictive different settings the program Specialists will take them on tours to different schools like their um offer of Faith School their school of residence and the program Specialists and the instructional coaches have such great rapport with the staff with the administration and everything they're they are friends with the families as well and so if it's not already happening which it probably is like that that all already is happening but I think your question is can we pair up a new family with families that are already in the system to try to help them to support the transition yeah so often we hear at the end um Regional Center Services hasn't done anything for me since they were three years old and then they go through their schooling they drop that service and we're helping them pick that back up but if they know to maintain and keep that type of service all throughout students are better off and they have an advantage than others that that lose it yeah so also reminding them that they can reach out to the regional Ser Center all the time thanks we we do have um we do have staff members at each of the regional centers who serve as leaon and support families in accessing um or district and kind of support in the transition from part C to Part B so we do offer that support as well thank you Miss Scott thank you I had a question um that transitions between slides four and five so on slide four it says that the rationale reduces the need for long-term special education when children reach school age do you have data that represents the number of students that actually Ed exit special education services at some point throughout their educational career because they participated in early childhood special education um I'm sure we can pull some data I'm sure there's um information that we can definitely pull we haven't done so yet but there is um a way for us to pull that information that would be great um because it ties into if 61% of the kids in the CC transition to General Ed with RSP services then it would stand to reason that if they're getting the proper supports that they should eventually be able to exit special education services if we're meeting our goals and doing our job so um I'd love to hear some feedback about how we're accomplishing those goals not just continuing to add additional services but actually helping children that to grow in a way that they can be in the ultimate least restrictive environment which would be general education um my other question was on slide 17 oh I that one actually someone else took care of um on slide 25 the after school early childhood programs so in that it's sounds like it's a it's an opportunity for families for the entire families to support each other is this something that's offered or required um oh required the short answer yes I'm sorry can you repeat that it is required that is awesome because I think families like Dr MC leani was saying they need those opportunities to be role models for each other the children need PE models and and those parents having that understanding and support of how they can support others dovetailing with being able to extend how we are supporting not just the students the families and the communities yeah so one thing that you would see in our ACP programs is um during part of the um 90 minute block they have the opportunity to visit um or to have a a separate meeting conversation with the speech pathologist where they get a lot of support and resources and feedback as to how to work with their child how to support their child at home while the child might be engaging in in play in the other area they they separate all parents and they kind of support one another and get feedback from our um speech pathologist thank you so much Dr Samantha hi there um I just wanted to ask another question about the peit program um it seems like a great service to be able to stay at your home local preschool or community school and and receive the special education service I'm wondering how families find out about the availability of this service um if they have to ask about it or it's something that is typically offered in the ifsp process or or transition process yes so it is an IP team decision um so they do um during that meeting they have conversations um they review all the assessments that all the providers have completed for each child they determine what's the best setting whether it's PE services or whether it's a special day program um or speech only so that's determined by the IEP team so just to follow up um in order for a family to kind of be informed about this the team would have to tell them that they think the child is eligible or I me they share the different options that are available to families during those meetings so they are aware of the different opportunities that we offer and then from there again it's just based on whatever the um assessment results um bring to the table that determine what the child um needs so just to clarify peit is part of our Continuum of options that are discussed at IEPs for students that are of the age so it just like we would do for any other student where we would address all of the options within the Continuum and then it becomes an IEP team decision which of course includes the family as part of that team to review the data that's presented review everybody's experience with the student hopefully the student is participating to some degree as we're trying to do even with our earliest youngest Learners um and then a decision is made as to where that student would best be served within the Continuum so it's part of that process okay we'll move back to the front to my right Dr Ras uh thank you for the presentation I definitely learned a lot um it really helped me as I'm sitting here my visits to my schools and you know the regional now I'm like now I can see the whole sort of process and how that is so this has been very Illuminating to me so I do appreciate your presentation um what was on let's see on page nine um your slide nine I just my question was how many students are in this program um in the early start low incidents program how many students are being served by the two psws the two nurses the 23 teachers currently there's approximately 300 students that are in our early start program um and I guess you know there were some questions on the pit you was mentioned that 400 schools are being served by the 35 teachers do we know how many students um that that is equal to or per peit yeah so it it it arranges um um anywhere from five students to 20 students so it varies throughout the year because we're always assessing students so the number May fluctuate throughout the year as far as the number of students that they serve in for for pit services and there's 35 uh pit teachers so um are you hiring more as you know the number of students as they need as approaches correct yes and and my last well two more questions my other question had to do with the after school program um um I wanted to learn more so is this after school program also part of the IP they they're identified in the IP that they uh will be you know in they are in need of an after school program with the whole families correct yes do you know how many families are being served right now throughout the day must be a lot about 250 250 correct okay 250 and I had another question here one um yeah my question is how does it how you know do your you and um your offices ensure that the timely processing of 600 monthly referrals to maintain simless transitions between part C to to Part B uh so we have 10 different teams across the district um and um among those teams there are 600 referrals that we receive from Regional centers um we also offer Saturday opportunities where we uh bring in the multi disip AR team to hold IEPs or assessments as well to ensure that we're meeting in timelines I'm sure you know there's always you know falling behind but you know so you have those teams that are great um my other question how are Partnerships with Head Start and and other Early Education agencies enhancing the inclusion um of students with General Ed and what lessons have emerged from these collaborations how do we work so that the students are when they transition they can be included in you know General Ed is there yeah so working with Le uh with Head Starts uh have allowed us to work with Leo the uh County of educ of Education uh so those guys uh uh in the Head Start programs they have just a GE teacher with just GE students and then you know throughout the uh the school year we assess kids that might be at risk or they have a need and then we assess so with that partnership we have actually have uh developed uh and created those PCC programs that our elementary campuses that we work with Head Start directly so they they now at that point Head Start brings in their teachers into our classrooms uh also uh with Head Start and now working with Leo Leo has a set of coaches that has that has started uh coaching our classrooms as well that they go into our E's because what we want is inclusive programs right and those inclusive programs we want them to work well so not only is L District staff so supporting in these inclusive programs but now we have the Leo team that has supported in those Head Start classes uh for years and years and with experience coming in now providing that support to our classrooms these are Leo coaches yes got it okay okay great that's great thank you so much as my last question okay let me ask just a couple um on the overview for slide 22 it says technical support to to 642 early educa early childhood special special education programs at elementary schools and Early Education Centers is this currently enough to meet the needs of 10,000 children question part one uh and is there a wait list and if so how many parents are on that weight list and you have an estimate on how much staff would be needed to make this dream come true wonderful question um so we we do have how many coaches 27 we have 27 coaches sorry 17 Co 17 coaches and um seven Specialists program Specialists 11 program specialist 11 sorry my math is incorrect um so we have a program Specialists and instructional coaches that um are divided amongst the entire regions and um they visit the programs daily to kind of provide that uh technical both Technical and instructional support um in order to be able to to reach all programs we do offer um many opportunities for professional development to ensure that we provide those um supports if we um aren't able to necessarily be on a daily basis at the at the school sites we do have opportunities for professional developments every two Tuesdays of the month we offer those professional developments as well as um Saturday professional developments um around Behavior we do survey teachers to see what what their needs might be to ensure that we are meeting their needs and um plan and uh and carry out the professional development based on their um specific needs as far as how many um yeah that would be a tough answer to I hear you and this is kind of related to miss Scott's question because of the law concerning the least restrictive environment is there a time when students in Early Education must be moved towards general student population I mean when does it usually start happening when they start moving onward to Jen Ed any idea it's really a decision of the IEP team you know just to best meet their needs I mean we have great conversations with least restrictive environment Specialists um and offer a lot of professional development for it depending on their goals depending on so many different things as you know it's um it's constantly a conversation I hear you I hear you any more questions to my right one more go ahead oh all you want go ahead Dr reev that's all you want I forgot one last one um this was on in regards to the informal dispute resolution just what are the common concerns that are raised from the um the IDR process and how does the district as address systemic issues based on the feedback or the cases that come before you so most of the concerns um that we've noticed some of the trends that we've noticed is placement student placement so one of the things that we do the our administrator is to ensure that she uh educate the families on the different programs that we have the different options we also do program visits uh with families that so they can see firsthand our programs and um and then we determine the best placement for them through that process and it's just having those conversations with families and making sure that they are visiting programs and um again just understand ing that it's um whatever the BET to meet the needs of the child um the best um program option for them go ahead nine to add on to that question um from Dr Rivas is it that parents are uh Desiring a particular program for their student um that is leading to the the dispute resolution process um is there one program that is more um enive than others than others yes um yes it could be um that could be an option where they specifically want a particular program um but again because it is an IP team decision and um know if it's a child that is transitioning that it's in a pal program for example um and parent is requesting the child to remain in the pal program but the teacher and the team deems that the child is ready to go into maybe a utcc program program a least restrictive environment um and that's a conversation that is held during those IEP meetings and you know a parent might want to stay in the pal program so then again it's a matter of um showing the parent the programs and making them aware of the options that we have out there for them thank you any further questions go ahead Carla so in terms of that I now I want to jump on that um what happens after that so you you mentioned it's a team decision the parent is part of the team so in this particular instance it's the district who has a different opinion than the parent and even after taking them on tours they still want the parent wants that so the team has not reached uh consensus or um are in agreement so what happens next uh so parents have the option to go to the process for that matter if there if a decision is not made but I think we've been very successful with our families and just making sure that we educate them again and we show them our programs we visit the programs I think we've been extremely successful in ensuring that um you know the the best program is is is um determined for their child okay and then you mentioned the professional development and I I mean the teachers use creative curriculum and there's a lot that they they need to know right so when does this professional development happen you mentioned Saturdays is one option for them and so it is it optional for the teachers to attend these these uh PDS on Saturday and if it is optional then how do we guarantee that everybody is prepared and trained in these particular uh curriculum you are correct yes so mainly we do offer on Saturdays because during with our special day programs it's very difficult to release the teachers you know during the school day based on the needs of the students and the routines and schedules that you know they have in the classroom Saturday is our main St but we do keep track of teachers that have attended have not attended you know for different reasons and then we do offer during the week um makeup sessions and is it at night virtually when when does it happen during the week with the smaller number because it there's 635 programs 635 teachers plus you know 200 something collaborative teachers which is the gened teachers that you know may participate as well that's a lot of teachers um but that's why Saturdays are our Main's day but then smaller numbers would get substitutes you know we would get release time for during the day professional development and something to keep in mind too is the instructional coaches and the program Specialists really visiting the programs on a regular basis the coaching that they receive I mean the PD is very important but it goes along with coaching where we come to them you know and really just try to meet the needs as much as possible there in the setting okay because I know K12 you know we have a Tuesday right that we get to oh we have Tuesdays you do get Bank you also get your bank Tuesday oh but the E's I thought they didn't get a a chance to do a Tuesday PD that my understanding is that they have to find the time when the kids are napping to do PD one-on-one no so our ECS are also doing the Tuesday's early dismissals and they are also invited to participate in our in our bank Tuesday meetings okay that's good to know so like Jennifer mentioned um our program specialist and our coaches they do provide individualized um supports to school sites so if there is a need for a School site to review the creative curriculum or um um preschool learning foundations and our team does go in there and they do provide uh professional development just for the team at the school site so we we're very handson and we do provide those individualized supports for the for the teachers when needed we make sure that every single teacher is trained on the drdp it when or or um the creative curriculum or the preschool learning foundations so whenever we get a new set of teachers we plan professional development specifically for them so that we can review the the um all of our um documents so just to clarify all eecs get a bank Tuesday they release the kids and they are able to participate in a correct that is correct all right it thank you think that was it thank you so much well thank you Miss Orel and team members I'm telling you like I told Miss Moran we learn lots from you but you also learn lots from us and we give you plenty of good ideas and I thank you so much thank you for being here thank you okay now to everyone thank you division of special education District staff and external representatives and those watching us in person at home special thanks to our division leaders for their tremendous work and support in getting the materials ready for our meeting and the team that also translate them thank you team for translating I hope everyone had a restful holiday break it feels good to be back and working for the benefit of our communities especially our special education students and families and I'll say again I I just I just can't believe how much we do for our special ed kids it's just very heartwarming so our next meeting will be Wednesday March the 5th at 300 p.m. and with that Mr McLean let's move on to public comment let's get to it Mr David tolkovsky I see you're out there come on down you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin and then after Mr toosi we have a number of folks who are calling in remotely who will call begin calling in next and the timer needs to be set timer's just about to reset okay thank you to you and your staff and to the committee uh a couple things it would be nice to have an explanation why the district cut 400 special ed Vice principles at the end of last year uh when there is no budget crisis of any sort uh and what was trying to be what was the goal of that secondly I appreciate the presentation well done there's a ninth circuit court case that the board of EDS saw only the lawyer fees in closed session but if I invite everyone to read that ninth Circuit Court decision where three judges said something problematic about early Ed special ed and parent involvement and rights as well as the district court judge there's some Shades of Gray there also uh this week the GAO the federal agency put out a report on the head starts in the United States on in the last month of the Biden Administration uh take a look at that I think we do have strong programs in the district Head Start as not part of La UniFi they have perhaps better hours longer hours but we need to find a way to migrate a lot of that into the district also the support services that early Ed special ed need from nurses psychologists and others has to be augmented in a budget that is now fairly strong the governor again has put extra money into to education in including a collab so there is a program called the children youth Behavioral Health Initiative which has billions of dollars in it and the district became eligible for that in January of 24 so 13 months ago uh approximately $100 million of reimbursement that would come every 45 days has not been uh utilized which would free up some of the costs in the general fund and finally it would be great to have an org chart of special ed it would be great to have uh the due process costs how many tens or 20s or 30 millions of dollars are going into settlements it would be good to have a progress report on the uh overidentification of African-American males into uh the severely emotionally disturbed and as our young student board member was asking for numbers if there are 40,000 6-y olds in the district of which 6,000 are special ed why don't we have that many three-year-olds it'll be lower but why aren't we inventorying zero to four and getting growth of numbers and what is the budget thank you for your time the budget is the entire District's budget it is not the segregated funds of special ed appreciate your time Mr toski okay Carl J Peterson I see you're on the line Carl Peterson please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Carl Peterson yeah hello hi okay I was glad to reive the updated agenda showing that M Grio has been added to this committee her experience as a special education teacher will bring a valuable voice to these proceedings now the only person missing is a representative from the community advisory committee under state law the purpose of the CAC is to advise the district on special education policy given that this is the board of board's special education committee shouldn't appr presentation from the CAC being part of each meeting's Agenda One of the subjects on today's agenda was parent and Community engagement opportunities for families and students with disabilities like most committee presentations this was given by a district staffer because committee members were allowed to ask questions District leadership will Pat themselves on the back feeling that they could count it as another example of Engagement but was it there's a wide variety of experiences represented on that that day this presents an opportunity real engagement but how much input did the committee have in deciding what they want to hear from The District staff instead of District leadership controlling the narrative what of the committee members gave presentations on what their experiences have been could some questions be submitted advance so District staff could present informed answers one example of the problem with how District approaches engagement is the embassador program outlined by Miss today the CAC has set up the apparent ambass Bor program that involved extensive training the district hijacked the name and set up their own program once again controlling how information is provided to parents it would also be nice to see this committee take on a more proactive role in setting the special education agenda instead of forcing two committee presentations into the meeting maybe time should be set aside for discussing issues that are currently experienced by stakeholders recommendations could then be forwarded to the board that would improve the delivery of services thank you thank you for your time Reggie herd Reggie herd I see you're on the line please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Reggie herd I see you've unmuted yourself Mr herd please go ahead you have two minutes to speak once you begin okay yes this is Reggie herd I'm a par professional um working in the South Bay my my feet are on the ground with some of this uh utk program and inclusive I'm a resource um assistant I want to say that the um the approved salary for our superintendent of $440,000 is um child abuse child neglect and I'll tell you why we um have seeing just in this meeting that we only have 35 teachers for 400 schools um in programs that we're trying to mandate and Implement without funding um we have seen um our children's uh special ed programs cut and children thrown into classes of General Ed teachers and even some of our sped teachers that are not prepared um for you know the these type of students um to be mixed like this which is a good idea I'm all for inclusion but you guys don't have the funds to um make it and what's really happening is we're we're not having the assessments we're behind on IEPs that's the reality of all this beautiful stuff that you guys want to create with the programs um I just want to say that in 2021 there was a plan to spend $3,000 on each student not $3,000 on a suit for our superintendent I really believe that you're asking us to get those donations from our parents and staff but we should be asking for donations from um the superintendent and any staff making an absorbent amount of money with an expense account that's not folded into his salary that's abuse and that's where the donations and the money should be coming from um the the push for enrollment and attendance is ridiculous when the kids do come to school um we don't have um adequate water fountains still we don't have every school is not accounted for um all the air conditioning and after the fires all the filters we run out we're running around we're depend you're depending on us we're depending on you the state gave us more money but it's abusive thank you very for money towards a salary appreciate your time thank you sir thank you I appreciate you all right Jenna noes are you there Jenna noes please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Jenna noise I see you're with us Jenna please press star six to unmute yourself okay can you hear me I sure can please go ahead okay great so I am a TT Executive Board member representing Valley Hill Council aison Elementary and mount gleon Middle School in region north I also am a former special ed teacher with Burbank Unified School District and currently have a son on na and another in Gate I know that in January and Fe School budgets are being prepared and I want my principles to have a choice to have campus police to work alongside with administrative staff students bis and mental health personnel to make a positive change especially in our schools that have higher incidents of substance abuse and violence many schools have begun being fully inclusive and many more will follow but without the appropriate support have you thought about the students who may be targeted because of their differences how are they going to get extra support when somebody decides to challenge them or when a violent Outburst happens in the classroom you can only do so much with the very limited resources and liability concerns with teachers and administrators that have to step in and break things up in the lusc budget development manual for 2025 26 under school resource the general fund school program supports the inst instructional program and basic operation of schools these resources include core positions such as admin teachers counselors clerical staff and under number three it states centrally administered resources and services such as school police School custodians and gardeners and also under the Department of Education guiding principles for creating safe inclusive supportive and fair School climate they encourage school officials to make decisions regarding whether to place school-based police in schools only after seeking and receiving significant Community input so my suggestion is to give a survey to the principales which I already made one but let them ask the school Community I know firsthand about these challenges my son who is on an IEP is currently a victim of bullying and we can see how limited the staff is in having the right tools available to counter the harassment so let's keep all of our children safe even if they're not on iats or do the district want more lawsuits thank you thank you for your time Karina Lopez I see you signed up to speak remotely Karina Lopez and I see you're online with us lope Lopez hello hello hello hi good afternoon good afternoon to everyone my name is Karina Lopez and hello Mr Scott I'm sorry I can't pronounce your last name but um I am calling because when it has to do with special education many times I've been in a regular meeting with the district I've been there with you in regards to the necessity to add to the to add uh interpreters with license just like you have at the district at bodry and it is necessary because at the schools is not the same thing and I'm sorry that for me that I'm saying this but sometimes they have a conflict of interest and we need to add the number of interpreters that are licensed especially with the academic experience just like the department has demonstrated the same Department that Mr katarino Aras would guide and it's important that Miss Miss Ras had promises during her campaign and we continue to think that this will happen it is very important that the school security uh recently there was a student that suffered uh he had s symptoms of fanil uh he consumed this inside the school inside a high school and he was a special needs student and we asked for more safety that has to do with school police and add the number of interpreters that have our license that have educational experience thank you hi good afternoon my name is Maria Daisy Ortiz I'm a mother where uh my daughter had an IEP she's had she had she has dyslexia and I agree with my colleague Kina lus and this is what I want to reinforce we want these Board of this board of education knowing that this is a special education committee we would like for you to create a resolution where all schools that have students with IP we want these IP meetings to have interpreters but with a translations unit with only nine interpreters is not enough because there's there's a lack of a second uh uh there's a lack of the language and the second largest District another point is we would like for all the schools that have special Necessities for the for the parents to receive training based on the Necessities that their children are going through so that they can have resources and tools so that when they come to the class and when they attend the IEP meetings it is very important also for well now that there have been new requirements for the students that have IEP English learner and especially if they have dyslexia well as the previous person said we expect that all the schools have trainings and that's not happening this is why there should be something that has to be in writing black and white like a resolution and interpretation with parent meeting like annual meetings Title One meetings because the translations unit is not equipped and there is no trans simultaneous in interpretation in these meetings thank you Mr Scott I hope that your presidency makes difference within parent involvement that is all right the attorney that has a the student that has attorney is the parent thank you time Nelly Mendes Nelly Mendes you're signed up to speak remotely I do not have you signed in in front of me and you're not in the room all right Maria Torres Maria to Torres you're not in the room I don't see you you are signed up to speak remotely but you're also not signed in vetan meon signed in to speak remotely not here Sophie Ryan signed up to speak remotely not here Rael Diaz is online uh Miss Diaz please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin Raquel Diaz Rael I see you're online with us please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin Raquel Diaz okay Miss Diaz last chance okay we'll go to the next caller and return to Miss Diaz um Lucas cook Lucas cook has signed up to speak remotely but he is not here here areli Caba I see you are online please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin arel Caba Caba are you on the line with us please press star six to unmute yourself and you have two minutes to speak once you begin we can hear you hello hi hello hi good afternoon my name isi thank you for this opportunity thank you for allowing me to express my worry same I am I am very worried for the lack of interpreters in my case it hasn't been one occasion it's been many occasions where where basically there's conflict of interest unfortunately we don't count with an interpretation Department that is forced with that is equipped with more interpreters believe me that IEP isn't is such an important document for our students and for us as parents and we don't have a welle equipped interpreter if we don't have a well equipped interpreters we can't have the services that honestly the child needs as a as parents we don't have a voice without a good interpreter therefore please pay attention to this and I would like this is just uh I would like for you to bring the school personnel as interpreters interpreters so that they can also do interpretation for you guys as well and believe me that this is this is where you will find out and I know you do your best but there's no justice for a secretary to be to be added inclusively they even say they're not prepared to take on this role therefore please it is very important that you add more Personnel in interpretation department or translations Department I would appreciate this very much and this is I have many many more worries but I think as of now this is so sad that parents are being lied to basically that that they're giving an interpretation that is not correct very much for your okay we'll go back to Raquel Diaz Miss Diaz please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin Raquel Diaz hi good afternoon I am a mother of two children with special education one of my daughters has dyslexia and before anything I thank you for the help that you have provided us with the ID program thank you so much but I would also like for you to send us more information on how to help students from home so that we are able to so that we are able to support them even further and in that way you know be more happy because I know that it is something that is a little bit sad it's a little frustrating at times because they work a little bit slow but what's important is that we are able to um have success just like my daughter and myself as well and to be Happ happy and content but I would also like for you to provide or send more books or how to help her or help them with their so that we are able to help them with the ID program because writing and reading is help is helpful and how we can better help them thank you thank you for your time we have one more person listed as Jordan uh Jordan I I don't see you online with us uh and I do not see a Jordan room you signed up to speak remotely so that concludes public comment that also concludes the meeting thanks everybody