Statement to School Committee

Good Evening,

I am Melissa Paciulli, the Special Education Parent Advisory Council, Co- President. I am here representing the SEPAC Board and would like to take this time to relate our preliminary response to the PCG (Public Consulting Group, Center for Resource Management) and CPI (Crisis Prevention Institute) assessments presented to the School Committee tonight. We have only had access to the reports for 48 hours, and so these comments should be viewed as only a preliminary, partial response.

The current SEPAC Board was established on April 12th, 2010 at a general meeting. The Board had been inactive for some time and many parents were brought together at this meeting, in part due to the Special Education Survey that had gone out to the Special Education Community and the impact of potential findings on their children’s lives. Concerns were raised and general interest was incited in the Special Education parental community resulting in parental involvement and attendance.
At this meeting several issues were raised regarding the PCG and CPI assessments that were currently being conducted by the Administration. The concerns raised at that time from parents attending were:

• Questions were too generic.
  • There were no questions that might determine race or class factors.
• There was not enough time given from when the survey was sent out to the deadline for submission.
• The questions do not differentiate between teachers, paras and administrators. Therefore, yes or no questions were hard to answer as it may be yes for one category but no for another.
• Some questions were such that it’s unlikely parents would have knowledge about it so hard to answer.
• A few comments that the survey was simply not professional.
• Some people did not get the missing survey questions by mail.
• Could the concerns raised regarding the PCG survey, influence the CPI assessment in terms of involvement?
• If this survey was considered invalid, then there would be nothing to go on at all and the Administration would be back to square one in terms of a general assessment.

Additional comments at subsequent meetings:

• Translation concerns and access to other populations, such as Chinese, Vietnamese etc.
• What is the purpose of the question regarding “moving to the district”. – Did you move here for Special Education Services?
• Will these findings influence funding for Special Education Services?
• Some parents were not unhappy with the Survey, but felt that this could provide some useful information.

Following this meeting, PCG agreed to conduct a focus group facilitated by PCG to meet with the SEPAC Board who were charged with collecting additional input from the Special Education community, to further outline the additional issues, concerns and input that SEPAC received from parents.

The focus group was held for approximately 3 hours, in the Town Hall and findings from this were reportedly integrated into the PCG final report. There were concerns regarding the focus group as well and these included:

• Concerns about collecting other parents information and presenting the information
• Time and access to the entire SE community. Approximately one week to gather additional feedback from parents.

Given that a focus group was conducted for the PCG review, SEPAC pursued this option with the Administration after an initial conversation with CPI, indicated that they had not completed their final report and anticipated completion at the end of May. There was in anticipation that the SEPAC Board, now established could play a role in the de-escalation and restraint assessment. However, while they recognized our concern of “a lack of parental involvement in this process”, the Administration indicated that the CPI assessment was limited on scope and was intended to determine if the school is appropriately following CPI requirements and recommendations, as well as being in compliance with DESE guidelines and the state. They did not feel that a parent survey or supplemental group was consistent with the scope of the work they contracted CPI to do. In addition, it was stated that they were unsure of how parent input would impact the district's compliance with procedures and alignment with the CPI program which is used with both general education and special education students. Parents with children that experience this intervention are notified in the event a restraint is administered to their child. It is critical that parents be provided an opportunity to provide feedback on this process.

Overall, there have been significant discussions regarding this assessment and if it would be linked with funding related issues in the District. In addition the SEPAC Board would like to formally voice concerns regarding the Crisis Prevention Institute assessment and a lack of prior parental approval of observations and review of student records, parental involvement in the assessment and a lack of transparency in the contracting process for both assessments. SEPAC has voiced these concerns to the Administration and anticipates that the Administration will uphold their voiced assurances of collaboration in the future.

Again, there have been multiple discussions surrounding these findings. At this time the SEPAC Board will review these reports in depth and provide a formal statement regarding the findings in both the CPI and PCG reports at the next School Committee meeting.

Thank you for your time,
Melissa Paciulli
SEPAC Co-President