pages: CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-11-28.pdf, 3
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CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities | 2018-11-28 | 3 | ITEM 2-A COMMISSION ON DISABILITY MEETING MINUTES Wednesday, November 28, 2018, 6:30 PM Victoria Forester: So prior to this position being open I was doing a favor for Kerstin Zazo who is the Chief Student Support Officer and I was bringing, it was a kind of a consultant to work on the strategic plan for Alameda Unified. And so I came and facilitated the plan and we began in February of that year. And then the position was posted and I became director in July. So I've worked on this plan for a little over a year. You can see that the stakeholders were varied in our plan, we had parents, and community members, and Gen Ed teachers, and psychologists, support providers, and special ed teachers, and certainly site administrators, and district administrators. You'll notice my name isn't up there because I was the consultant that was facilitating the work. Victoria Forester: The history of our work, often times school districts who are having difficulties in some fiscal area will ask for FCMAT to come in. That's Fiscal Crisis Management Assistance Team. Usually they study two departments within the district, the Business Department and the Department of Special Education. And in Alameda's case it was the Department of Special Education. So FCMAT comes in, and they study everything about special education from a deficit model, they're looking at things that don't work. They're not going to comment on things that are working well. Victoria Forester: Many school districts who pay for FCMAT to come in, they take the report, they report on it to the board, and they put it in a white binder on their shelf. And as an ex-school principal, those are kind of our trophies, those white binders. And they never get read. Alameda chose not to do that. And the board asked us to create a planning team and to address the issues within the FCMAT report. And so this team was put together by Kerstin Zazo. And actually parents and teachers and staff had to apply to be a part of this team. And we engaged in 10 sessions more than 20 hours of work to create the strategic plan. And the School Board charged us with very clearly that we needed to define a service delivery model for students with special needs that is facilitated by high quality teachers, supported through active engagement in the least restrictive learning environment and monitored by multiple measures of student achievement. And so board said, put together a team and address this, this is your charge. Victoria Forester: And so tonight, I am going to share with you some highlights from this special education strategic plan. I am going to show you the actual plan, and then I will share with you briefly the next steps in the work that we're engaging in this year. Special ed program beliefs. It took at least four sessions, not complete sessions, but four times we kept coming back to our program beliefs. And I won't read them to you. You can take a look at them. They're pretty strong program beliefs, they talk quite heavily about integration, about equity for students with disabilities, and about training, particularly of our staff and teachers and principals. Victoria Forester: Our mission is an amazing mission and it begins with the mission of the Special Education program and yet you could take that out, and you could say the mission of the Alameda unified school district, because it's that chunky and that wonderful in partnership with families and the community is to support, prepare and empower our diverse learners in a least restrictive most inclusive environment that is safe, culturally responsive and academically rigorous, and that is taught and supported by highly trained professionals so that each student can participate meaningfully and excel as contributing members of our community. Again, that should be for every student. And it certainly is in Alameda Unified, that's what we are working toward. So I'm not going 03/13/19 Page 3 of 32 | CommissiononPersonswithDisabilities/2018-11-28.pdf |