Good evening, everyone, and welcome to the December 8th, 2024 meeting of the school committee, our last meeting of the calendar year. This meeting will be conducted remotely over Zoom.

Attendance by the board members will be remote, and remote attendance shall count towards quorum. The meeting will be broadcast live and recorded by Sharon TV. If you elect to enable your webcam, your image and background may be broadcast with or without sound.

And I would also like to ask if it's possible, if you feel comfortable, and you're speaking tonight, could you please turn on your camera?

So it makes the filming a lot easier of tonight's tonight's meeting.

I'm now going to turn Oh, and I also want to announce that the school committee has reached an agreement with the Sharon Teachers Association for an MOA. So we're very happy about that.

I will now ask Alan to please read the correspondence.

Hi, everybody.

All right.

So this is the correspondence summary.

The school committee has received 10 pieces of correspondence between December 4th, 2024, at 9am and December 18th at 9am. We received two editions of METCO newsletter that highlighted the METCO district updates, the Museum of African American History's Living Legends Gala, and the METCO director's conference.

A community member wrote to express their support for free full day kindergarten.

Several parents wrote to thank the school committee and district for their focus on special education when developing the FY26 operating budget.

A parent wrote to express their concerns regarding the safety of the Sharon public schools football program, and to offer some suggestions for review and improvement of protocols.

The school committee was copied on a letter that a parent wrote to Dr. Patelow with questions about the substance abuse screening program at the middle school. A community member inquired about the status of students who are enrolled in public schools and are living in the state's emergency shelter system. Someone wrote in to express concerns about a proposed tailgate party that may occur next fall, and to express support for increased mental health counseling for students.

And then finally, a parent wrote to express their support for increased administration at the elementary level, and to suggest that the district eliminate the DEI position.

Thank you, Alan.

And since I switched this on the agenda, we will now go to public comments.

And I think, Ms. Crosby, your hand was up first, if I'm not mistaken.

And Adam, will you please keep time? Thank you.

All right.

Sorry.

Sorry, Judy.

Actually, I already mistaken.

I put it up, and then I put it down, and then I raised it again later. So Crystal is ahead of me. Oh, sorry.

Okay. Hi, Crystal.

I'm going to unmute you now. Hi. Thank you.

First, I just wanted to say thank you to all of you who have been listening to all the parents speak about special education and taking your time to listen and learn and respond to our emails.

It's really been quite helpful to many of us. As you know, I have a fourth grader in the Sharon schools, and I'm really pleased that special education will be discussed tonight.

In that discussion, I was hoping we might be able to bring some focus or shed some light on staff retention and how the district can better manage planned long-term leaves of absence.

Such as maternity or medical leave, as these are two areas that have been a contributor to gaps in services for some IEPs. In addition, as we're discussing budget and how things are always tight, I would also love to know the impact that compensatory services and outsourcing has had on our budgets this far. So again, thank you, everyone. We really, really appreciate the time and attention.

Have a great evening. Thank you, Crystal.

Okay.

Judy, do you want to go now?

Thanks.

So I have a few items.

I first did want to thank Dr. Patel and Ellen, I assume it was those two who went and corrected the posting on School Spring for day subs and increased the pay to $110 as it was voted on October 30th. I'm still really confused because I haven't seen any postings since October 30th for the two additional building subs that were approved at the October 30th meeting for the high school, as well as the one additional building sub that was approved at that meeting for the middle school.

And I'm concerned about this because I confirmed today that there were 10 teachers out at the high school plus an additional six staff members.

And there was exactly one sub available.

Her name was Pat and teachers were asked if they could please consider helping Pat as all the students whose teachers weren't there would be going to the auditorium for those classes.

It led to a bunch of questions for me. One, why did the school committee approve the budget to change to hire two additional building subs? And then those positions were never posted, right?

I also have a question because one thing that did change this year is a policy that I think has led to more sick students going to school.

And I think it would be worthwhile to look at teacher absences this year and compare them to prior years, probably maybe not looking at 2020, 2021 when it was, you know, the middle of the pandemic.

But it feels like there's a lot of days where you're winding up with nine or 10 teachers missing at the high school.

I know an MOA was entered into today. Julie didn't say what it was about. But my understanding is it is about having teachers who teach four agree to substitute once per cycle at the high school.

That's great, but it's not going to solve your problem mathematically.

Thank you. Thank you.

I see. I'm sorry if I'm calling you out of order.

I'm just going to take them as I see them. So Seema, do you want to go next?

Sure.

Thank you for the presentation that's going to happen today.

I I've spoken before, so some of you may remember, I have a son in kindergarten who has Down syndrome at the DLP program at Cottage.

I'm hoping that the presentation today will shed some light on the training or education that's provided to the instructional assistants since they really act as extensions of the special education teacher.

My son's IAA is with him all day. She's responsible for modifying his instruction when he's in the general education classroom, helping him when he's having some challenging behaviors.

And just recently she was out and his one to one was his special education teacher during that time. The communication that I received from the special education teacher was just so different to what I had received previously.

And also most notable was that Cameron's behavior was much different with this teacher.

And I believe it's because all the time that he was running out of the classroom or using bad words, he was trying to express that he wasn't really understanding what was going on in the school environment.

And when he had somebody who was able to change his instruction or or help him understand things better, all of a sudden now his behavior is better.

So I really think that it would be helpful for the instructional assistants to receive some guidance.

And I'd be interested to hear about what what the current methods are and if there's any plans to improve that or change it in any way.

Thank you.

Thank you, Seema.

And I'm now going to talk to Allison.

Did you get that on me? Okay, good.

Yes. Thank you so much for your time.

I just wanted to thank the committee for the attention to special education right now. My son, Benny, is six and in the SOAR program at Heights.

And I just really appreciate the conversation about special ed. I'm hoping that we hear more about efforts, as others have said, to hire and retain excellent staff, especially retaining once we have them. As his teacher last year, who was excellent, is now doing the exact same job job in Stoughton.

So, you know, that's kind of concerning.

Like we have a lot of focus on hiring, but then how do we keep people here once we have them is really important.

So I'm hoping the committee can talk on that and also a little bit on the structure of the SOAR program and other subseparate classrooms that will help keep students in district as opposed to having to go out of district for school. So thank you so much.

Thank you very much, Allison.

Donna, can you, Donna, can you tell us your last name?

Sure.

My name is Donna Wadman.

I have two children on IEPs at Cottage.

I want to be, I'm very grateful for all the support that my children receive and thank you for this time during the school committee meeting.

But I do have some concerns about the consistency of the support they received.

My child went without services for a number of weeks last spring.

This is affected, she got some compensatory services that were retroactive, but she was unable to progress.

And I pay for private tutoring.

This is a financial burden because I'm a single mother.

I have two children.

They, I had to play for private testing as well before my daughter or before my child got services for a significant learning disability.

I am hoping that we can hear plans to provide evidence-based interventions and also be pleased to hear how we can support children prior to their failing.

As you know, my experience is that my child's self-esteem has suffered through like the ups and downs of this process.

Thank you. Thank you so much, Donna.

Ben.

Hi, thank you. I appreciate as well that we're taking time to talk about special education and Sharon.

I have a little bit more, you know, niche of an issue that I'm requesting some information on. First, I would like to know if there has ever been any data tracking conducted to determine the success rate of the LEAP program.

And if there has, why has that not been published?

And if it hasn't, why not? And also, what are we doing to ensure that if we're going to have a language-based program paid for through the town that we have the most effective program that we can have? The other question I have is about what's used in the school for reading remediation, the Wilson system.

And I would like there to be some questions asked today about what the school district's position is on whether or not they agree with the program, their written guidelines for implementation of fidelity.

And if they don't, why are we using a system that we are not implementing with fidelity?

So those are my main two questions for today.

And I appreciate the school committee's time. Thank you. Thank you, Ben. All right.

Julie, you're muted.

Hi.

Okay.

Thank you for all the commenters.

And since we don't seem to have any more comments, we're going to move on to our student representative.

I'm just trying to unmute her right now. Her name is Isha Agarwal and welcome.

Hi. Thank you so much. I'm going to be giving the update today from the student advisory committee.

There continues to be a lot of excitement at Sharon High School. We have student council spirit activities this week with spirit themed clothing days, winter wonderland on Friday morning before school with hot chocolate and card making for friends and teachers, and musical performances for our amazing choir and orchestra.

Our theater company has at an excellent performance weekend for newsies.

Our music department hosted an amazing winter concert this past Monday evening, and our select choir shared the spirit of the holidays with musical concerts around town to raise money for their upcoming NYC trip. Sports teams kicked off their seasons with thrills in basketball, wrestling, and track. Speech and debate will head into their winter break after a big competition this weekend with 24 competitors at the Holly Festival at Natick High School.

The math team competed today in a competition at the Greater Boston Math League. Tryouts for Little Women are underway.

Various clubs and groups have had bake sales, clothing, and toy drives to help with people to help people that need a little extra help around the holidays.

Radio Club is having a concert tomorrow night in partnership with Care for Kiddos to raise money for children in need. The Red Cross Club is supporting the Red Cross Blood Drive this Saturday, December 21st in Grays Chapel in Foxborough, and club members will be volunteering at the Dedham Food Pantry tonight. Sharon High School teachers also participated in Eagle Feathers, adopting a family need for a gift program.

Students ran class meetings during the half day with spirit building activities and a presentation of a five dollar Dunkin card for every single student at Sharon High School, thanks to an administrative assistant who secured a donation for the Sharon High School.

Additionally, Principal Keenan is finalizing the club application process during which 130 clubs submitted paperwork for approval.

The information will be posted to students and families this week on Schoology and new clubs will be finalized soon as well. The application process includes submitting an approval form with a mission statement, an advisor, statement of meeting dates and times, and club leaders.

Additionally, clubs will determine tier status. For example, tier one and two clubs are often affiliated with a national or international organization and have various additional requirements to continue to meet continued status, such as strict attendance or competitions.

While tier three clubs are student initiated and may be non-curriculum related activities which create a safe environment for students to deepen their exposure in an interest or passion by sharing with others.

Regardless of status, clubs are an enriching and valuable aspect of our school community.

The process has been a tedious one, but we expect it will be simpler next year now that the process has been established.

From the Student Advisory Committee, we wish the school committee members and members of the community a healthy and happy new year. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, Isha.

That was great.

And thank you for letting us know all of that stuff.

Now I will turn the speaker update to Peter, who will be delivering the superintendent update.

Yeah, I do not have any formal kind of presentation updates with us having back to back to back meetings, but just want to, you know, wish everyone, all of our students, families and staff, an awesome December break and happy holidays to everyone who's celebrating Christmas, celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, and other festivities with their families and friends. And especially want the students to get some rest. They've been, again, a real spirited fall and a great start to the school year, especially with our high school leaders, but also our little ones really are kind of back to back to normal and really thriving and contributing to the school. So just that I'm going to turn it over to Jessica Murphy for our student services update. And I'll be back with the next steps with budget later in the meeting.

Great.

Thank you.

So for those of you who don't know me, I'm Jessica Murphy.

I'm the director of student services.

This is my sixth year in Sharon, and I'm going to apologize in advance.

I have a killer sign as a name.

I'm a killer sinus infection.

So I might not be my perky best. But if I have not yet met you, certainly feel free to reach out. But I did want to start by saying how amazing all of our staff are from our instructional assistants to our related service providers, our special education teachers at all levels.

Everyone is always working with your babies and your children in mind. And when I think about special education, again, for those of you who don't know me, I am also a special ed parent.

I had four children on IEP. Well, I still have the children, but only one's on an IEP. And so I've sat on both sides of the table.

And I honestly think of special ed as what I'd want done for my own child is what I try to emanate forward for your children.

And that's really important for me, because whether we agree or not, it is always about your children.

And I do appreciate the feedback.

And I can't appreciate parents' frustration with some of the staffing situations that we've had this year. So first and foremost, I want to reiterate for everybody that all students are general education students.

There are no special education students.

All students are first and foremost, general ed students.

Joey might have an IEP at Cottage Street School, but he is a Cottage Street student who happens to have an IEP. And it's really important to think about special education a little bit differently, that special education is a service.

It's not a place. And the purpose of the service is to support the learners in successfully achieving a general education.

The whole purpose of special education is not to be needed anymore, that we've given students with disabilities the skills and knowledge that they need in order to access the general curriculum.

So a little bit about the student services department.

It is actually comprised of many departments, special education, the early childhood center, counseling, nursing, section 504 combinations under Americans with Disabilities Act. I also approve and review all homeschool applications.

And I am one of the homeless liaisons, as well as the foster care point of contact.

That all being said, special education is the bulk of the work that I do. And I am so very fortunate to have great teams, as I said earlier, working for me and with me, not for me. I wanted to share a little bit about my role. It's an umbrella role. So, you know, I provide general oversight of special education and provide consultation collaboration to all sorts of stakeholders, whether it be parents, staff.

I even work with students, staff, I even work with students, staff, and staff, and staff. I even work with students.

I am responsible for IDEA and ADA compliance.

And that might include FERPA student record requests.

I participate in all of our mediations.

And if we were to have a BSA hearing, I would participate in that. I work with the staff and district and oversee any program development.

I work collaboratively with the other administrators in my department to identify professional development that is appropriate for not only the special ed teachers and related service providers, but as well as the IAs. It is a big machine.

So it is something that we need to continue to work on and develop.

So crisis intervention, crisis intervention, if there's an issue or a situation that impacts many or even a single student.

I often participate in the crisis teams or provide consultation.

And I do a lot of staff, student, and family support.

There's nothing greater that gives me joy than walking through the high school or the middle school and one of the students knows my name. And it tells me that I've interacted with them and made even just a little bit of an impact.

And so that's really important to me. I do all the grant development, which includes, per special education, which includes the IDEA grant, as well as the preschool entitlement grant.

And when it is available, the special education, which we hopefully should be getting again this year.

I do all of our contracted services for special education.

I oversee staffing in conjunction with the buildings.

I individually do all of our circuit breaker filings for our state reimbursement.

I develop the budget.

And I also provide supervision and evaluation for the special ed leadership.

But I really couldn't do it alone.

So I did want to introduce you to the special education leadership team.

Stacia Lamond is the director of the Early Childhood Center.

She oversees all of the day-to-day action down with our littlest eagles, as well as facilitating the team meetings and eligibility for our students first entering in a special ed starting at age three.

Katrin O'Kath.

Katrin O'Kath.

Katrin O'Kath has had several positions in the district since starting.

She is currently the special education administrator between the Cottage Street School and the East Elementary School.

She facilitates the team meetings and works closely with both those staffs.

Mark Crean at Heights Elementary.

Oh, I put elementary schools. Mark's only in one school. He's the assistant principal and special education coordinator.

So he has a dual role.

But the bulk of his job is working with the special education team and the special education process.

At Sharon Mill School, Liz DeShane is our special education coordinator.

Again, she has many of the same aspects and facets that Katrin and Mark do.

And Brian White is her counterpart at Sharon High School.

He oversees services and staffing and compliance for grades nine through 12 through age 22. And last but not least is Mariel Winterstein.

She is our assistant director for out of district. And she is also a special education administrator.

And she oversees all of the out of district placements.

I'm not going to go through all of the pieces of their responsibility.

But as you can see, it is many.

Includes also the general oversight of special education programs and services at their particular site.

They are responsible for signing the IEPs as the local education authority or the LEA.

So they're committing the resources on behalf of the district.

They chair team meetings, initials, and re-evales.

They do all the paperwork associated with it.

They're responsible for compliance, supervision, and evaluation.

And they work with the principal at their building to do all of the hiring under site-based management, even for district-wide programming.

Hiring is done at the site level.

I am often the second tier of that.

And if I'm available because we do so much hiring, I do also participate in interviews when available.

They provide student and crisis support and intervention.

A bulk of their job is family support and outreach, staff support.

They work with the outside agencies.

And at the elementary level, they also help support the 504 process.

And that's similar for the assistant director for out-of-district placements.

As has been shared in previous presentations about the budget, one of the budget requests that I have put in is to include a special education clerk.

You know, when talking to our amazing special ed leadership team, they approximate that they spend about a third of their time doing paperwork, which is taking time away from supporting programs, students, and families.

So the idea behind the special education clerk would be to streamline that a little bit and not have them doing all of it.

And we'd have a process to have the clerk send out all of that information and free them up so that they can be of better support to their staff.

I think it's a really essential piece that we're missing.

So a little bit about special education by the numbers. So, um, uh, Jesse has created, um, a new website or page, I guess, um, the radar, um, and I forget what radar stands for.

So I apologize.

Um, um, profiles where they, um, compile information from our SIMS reporting, which is our state reporting, um, EPUMS, I'm not sure what that stands for, but many of our, um, state reports, and then they compile all of that. So, um, the numbers that they, they publish, um, are as close as they can get based on whatever date they, they accumulate those numbers.

Um, well, if you recall last spring, I presented, um, numbers from the DESE site based on, um, the percentage of students with disabilities in each building.

I couldn't get that off of the DESE website for this presentation because it has not been updated since May. So it would be the same numbers.

But I did want to share that, um, I hand ran, if you will, the numbers, um, through our, um, ESPED program.

And as of December 15th, we currently had 669 students with IEPs that are either, um, accepted, partially accepted or rejected, but it's 669 eligible students, which is approximately 18.5% of our student population.

Um, Julie, could you unmute Andrea Pinoa so that she can speak a little bit later on this slide?

Thank you. Um, so, um, I, I know in previous school communities, um, several parents brought up, um, the, um, PCG report of 2020.

Um, the project ran, it actually started, um, or was starting right when I started, I started July 1 of 2019. I apologize.

I have a typo there. It was not 2109.

Um, and went all the way to February 2020.

The report was finalized and issued two weeks prior to the COVID closure and presented to the school committee.

So the closure and the hybrid year impacted our ability to make any substantive changes immediately.

Um, the PCG report is now almost five years old. Um, so I would venture to say that if we engaged either with PCG again or another, um, agency to do a full program evaluation.

And one thing I'd be remiss if I didn't share, the PCG report was not a special education report.

When it was initially started, it was meant to review just special ed programs.

But when I started in Sharon, I started doing my, um, my entry plan and interviewing, um, families and staff asking the same questions, um, of everybody.

And it was really clear to me that MTSS was something that we should look at. While that's not special education, as long as we were, um, doing this, um, district evaluation, that we should go all the way to the beginning of where interventions start.

So I want to be clear that it is, um, a district-wide, um, program eval, not just special education.

Many of the recommendations have been already implemented and have been for a while. Um, and I apologize for not sharing that information in previous, um, presentations.

You know, when you're thinking about what to present to people, I really try to pick what is, um, the most pertinent for people.

So, um, on our district website, um, under the student services page, there is a tab for elementary, middle school, and one for high school.

Um, with a program description for every program that we have with an exit and entrance criteria, um, on it.

Um, we've worked to improve and provide consistent and equitable training for teachers.

For example, approximately 40 teachers attended the Wilson three-day training since September 2022.

A majority of the staff did attend during the 22-23 school year. New hires are offered, um, to attend the Wilson three-day upon starting.

Um, two years ago, we purchased WordlyWise.

It's a vocabulary program that helps support, um, reading comprehension for all special ed staff to use at their grade levels.

And we've also added many, um, online materials.

Um, and it doesn't mean that we put a child in front of an iPad and say, have at it. Um, while it's not an exhaustive list, we have added IXL, um, MobiMax, ReadLive, which is the digital version of Read Naturally, which has expanded, reading A to Z, and we increased our Lexia licenses.

Um, and one of my very favorite things to do is my time that I spend with the CPAC.

Um, I meet with the executive board, um, monthly.

Um, and so, Andrea, I'm going to turn it over to you to talk a little bit about what you guys are doing, because you're doing some amazing things, and the work that we all do together.

Oh, thank you. Andrea Panone, Thank you. Andrea Panone, It's our privilege to be able to work with families and our amazing staff and administrators.

Um, yeah, so as Jessica mentioned, and for those of you that don't know me, my name is Andrea Panone.

I'm the president of CPAC.

I have, um, two children with IEPs.

Um, one is now a 12th grader and about to graduate.

So I guess that technically makes me a veteran, uh, and an eighth grader. Um, and one of the things that we like to do is work with families.

So we do meet also with Jessica and individually with families and as a group, we really try to reach out to families and make sure that they are empowered.

So when you go to your IEP meeting, you're not bamboozled by all the acronyms.

You know what your, um, your rights are and how the school system works.

You're not, um, going into it blind. So I really encourage you to reach out to us. We have coffees that we offer, uh, in the mornings for those families that the evening times are a little bit, you know, hectic, getting dinner and homework and getting the kids to bed. Um, it can be challenging when you have young families.

So, um, January 17th from nine to 1030, you can find us in Cobb Corner having coffee and catching up and sharing, uh, information with each other. And if you can't make that, we also have our 504 training coming up in January on the 28th, uh, which is really important.

Whether you have an IEP and maybe your child might need a 504 in the future, or you currently have a 504, or you're thinking that maybe your child might need one. Um, I encourage you to, you know, put that on your calendar and, um, February 24th, we're going to be having our basic rights, um, presentation.

So that one, I would say of the three, definitely put that on your calendar.

Um, I, I look forward to seeing you reach out to us, whether it's by email, we have a website.

Um, you can find us on the, um, student services webpage, uh, or just Google us. And we're always ready to help, you know, you individually with your student and empower you, um, to be able to make decisions, uh, at the table to help your students reach their potential.

Great.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much. And one of the, um, roles of the, um, special education parents advisory council is to advise, um, and consult with me around, um, budget, um, and, um, other, um, um, I just lost my train of thought.

I'm sorry.

Um, other, um, programmatic and, um, um, um, development.

And, and, you know, I, I share a tremendous amount of information with the CVAC, but also, um, in working with them, they are a tremendous resource.

Um, and they often share with me, not sharing anyone's names, but, you know, concerns that parents have brought to them. So that, cause sometimes people, I think are uncomfortable to reach out.

Um, it's a little daunting to reach out to the director of student services.

I swear I don't bite.

Um, but, you know, they're a great resource.

And I would encourage families who have not, um, joined or attended anything that CPAC has offered to look into it. Their meetings are all posted on the district calendar.

Um, I, I put them in every, um, summer once CPAC gives it to me. And I do send out, um, to all families with IEPs, um, the, the parent professional development, if you will, offerings that CPAC does.

Um, so sometimes people are confused when they get an email from me. Our new mailing system makes it a little more confusing, um, when it's a CPAC, um, offering.

Um, but they are a great resource.

Thank you, Andrea, for sharing.

Um, so I want to talk a little bit about our continuum of services.

Um, again, when I'm thinking about putting together a presentation, I, I do a lot of things with broad strokes because I'm, I'm talking to many different stakeholders.

I'm talking to parents.

I'm talking to staff that we have. I'm talking to members of the community.

Maybe sometimes my parents are watching.

I'm not sure.

Um, but so looking at our continuum of services, our goal is always to provide services in the least restrictive environment, which is the law, um, the LRE.

So we provide services within the classroom and sometimes out of the classroom in a hybrid of both. Um, and that could be OT, could be in the class or out of the class or a combination of both. We do also have some programs that are self-contained classrooms where all of the academics are done within their classroom, special ed classroom.

And, um, students join their, um, partner general ed class because they are part of a general ed class.

Every single student is assigned a general ed class as well. Um, and the goal is for them to be attending specials.

Um, anything that they can access within the general ed classroom, we want them to participate in. Um, and so the collaboration between regular ed and special ed is ongoing to, to help support those students.

And our most restrictive is out of district placements is not an easy decision to make.

I can tell you as a parent, it was not an easy decision to make to send one of my twins to an out of district placement.

Um, but unfortunately our public school district could not provide what he needed. So going through that grieving process as a parent, while it was the right thing for him, really gave me an insight about what it feels like for families that, that don't speak this language.

I, I speak this language, um, every day. Um, and I still felt very emotional and, um, very distraught about some of the things that went on for, for my own child. Um, and, but my job was to advocate for him.

So, you know, all my district didn't always agree with me.

Again, it's my child and that's my job is to advocate for, for them.

Um, and, which is why I appreciate, um, when parents, even when they're upset with me or, um, frustrated with the, um, the system that I do appreciate is because of the love that you have for your children.

And that is not a, a, a personal thing.

Um, but I will say that most of our specialized programs are partial inclusion programs, if not full inclusion programs.

So students only spend part of their day, um, separated from their general ed peers.

Um, this is, sorry, I just got distracted.

My dog's crying about something.

Um, this is our early childhood and elementary programs and middle school programs.

Um, the early childhood center works with all disabilities starting at age three.

We have some students that started age three and are with us for the next 19 years because they require services up until the day before their 22nd birthday.

Um, so when they come in as their little Liz Eagles, we get them ready to fly when they're ready to go.

The SOAR program is for students with autism spectrum disorders and related disabilities.

Um, you, it isn't necessary to have an ASD diagnosis, um, in order to be recommended for SOAR.

Um, it is an ABA-based, um, discrete trial program for students K to five, um, within the district.

And that's at heights.

Um, our TBL, our team-based learning program is for mental health disorders, mental, uh, emotional impairments, and externalizing behaviors.

And we do have it at all three levels.

Um, K to five is at heights, six to eight, obviously at the middle school, and nine to 12 is at Sharon High School.

And I am pleased to announce that, um, well, I'm sad to announce that our high school TBL teacher, um, resigned and ended her tenure here about two weeks ago.

But we, um, have already hired an amazing new teacher and he will be starting, I believe, right after, um, the new year. So we're very excited for Tom to come on board.

Um, the Bridges program is, um, a feeder program.

These are in no particular order, so I apologize.

Um, it is for, um, students coming out of, um, typically out of the SOAR program at Heights and the DLP program at Cottage.

Um, they're coming into that bridge and we're building their skills.

It's got two levels, um, a more self-contained group and, uh, a more, um, uh, included, um, mainstream group.

Um, but again, it's for students with, um, ASC and related disabilities, intellectual payments, and global delays. Grade 6 to 8.

And our LEAP program is for students with language-based disabilities.

It does start in grade 2 and go through grade 5.

And it is, um, a partial inclusion program.

The students in the elementary program spend, um, their, um, they get replacement ELA and math, um, if needed, in the LEAP classroom.

And then they are included in their general ed classroom with support for science, social studies, and all of their, um, um, specials.

Um, we, it changes a little bit, um, at, well, a lot.

Um, once you hit the middle school, it becomes a full inclusion program where the students are in co-taught classes.

Um, the grade level LEAP teacher is in, um, at least three of the four, um, content areas.

Um, and they also, um, receive a specialized ACT lab with their LEAP teacher that focuses on their goals.

Some students also still receive multisensory explicit, um, reading instruction.

Um, and so that would also be built in their schedule.

And we just, um, went all the way up to grade 12 starting last year or the year before.

Um, when I, um, started here, the first cohort of students was in grade eight.

So we added, um, a section each year, um, going, um, as that cohort went up. Um, and this year we only have, um, a, a couple of students in grades or a few students in grade 11 and 12. So we've combined them with one LEAP teacher. And the DLP is for students with intellectual impairments and global delays, um, grades K to five, and that's at cottage.

And there is, um, I'll, I'll be honest, there is a thin line between the decision for SOAR and DLP. Um, it's, it's, it's really, um, looking at the, the individual student's profile as to which type of instruction would be best for them. Um, and at the high school, um, we have their counterparts to the younger grades.

Rise, um, is where the, some of the students from Bridges go.

Um, and they are on a regular MCAS, um, diploma track.

Um, and some of the students from Bridges go to Pathways, um, which is for students that take or participate in the MCAS alternative, um, assessment.

Um, and again, it really depends on what track the students are on.

Um, the networks program is for students with emotional impairments and more internalizing behaviors.

Um, and I, oh, I talked about TBL, um, on the last side, but I forgot to mention that we do have it.

No, I didn't mention that we have it at the high school. Sorry.

Um, for students, once they've hit their chronological end of 12th grade, if they need more, um, post-secondary support, we have post-1, which is for students generally coming out of the Pathways program, um, that we're on an MCAS alt program.

And post-2, um, we started about four, four years ago, um, is for students who have already met their graduation requirements, but still need, um, additional post-secondary, um, training and supports and, um, instruction.

But again, all the programs have program descriptions with their entrance and exit criteria, and it can be found at the student services page of the website. So staffing shortages, it is, um, a terrible time that we're in an education for staffing, um, which for me, I've, I've done this job for 20 plus years.

And I was a teacher before that, as well as a team chair.

Um, I've never seen anything like it. And it is a national issue.

It's not an excuse.

It is just what is.

Um, so, um, I, I put a link on it, but, um, there's an art that, well, there's many articles, but, um, about 70% of the surveyed schools nationally report special education, um, vacancies in the 23, 24 school year.

According to the national center for education statistics.

What's interesting is that Massachusetts does not report.

I don't know why they just.

Don't.

Um, but I am part of, um, several, um, job likes with other directors, as well as being on a list server with about 250 directors statewide.

And they're all experiencing the same thing.

Again, I, I share this so that, um, it's an understanding that it is an educational crisis that we're in.

Um, many of you might know that the, um, the U S commission on civil rights, um, has initiated an investigation to the federal response to the special education teacher shortages.

Um, um, um, according to the council for exceptional children and the council administrators of special education, which are two, um, professional groups, um, for educators.

Um, about half of the special education teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching, which is heartbreaking.

Um, I've been in special education as a teacher.

I was, uh, a one-to-one paraprofessional first in 1993. I became a teacher in 99, 1994 in an out-of-district school.

Um, and when I first came into education, you could not get a job because there were so many teachers coming through teacher education programs.

Um, and, um, there was not a lot of people retiring.

Um, so, um, it's just an interesting, um, perspective in, in reflecting back on my age and how long I've been in this career.

But, um, in looking at chair and public school specifically, we absolutely started the year understaffed.

Um, we had many positions unfilled, um, certainly not lack of trying.

I have to shout out to the principals and the special ed administrators and, um, say, share at the ECC.

The amount of, um, interviewing that went on this summer was astronomic.

Um, and for a variety of reasons, it's difficult to fail.

We were short IAs in the SOAR program, DLP, and at EAST and at the high school, all of which have been failed.

Um, we were unable to get a long-term sub for the SOAR program for grades two to five.

Um, uh, Selena Kelly, the teacher, I did talk to her yesterday.

She is coming back, um, right after, um, school, um, the new break.

So we're excited to have her back.

Um, we did have difficulty getting a long-term sub for the DLP program K to two. Um, and, um, as well as a retirement for a 0.8 speech and language pathologists.

Again, all of which have been filled either by direct hires or, um, unfortunately, we've had to, um, work with some staffing agencies.

We've gotten amazing people from the staffing agencies, but it is different because, um, it is not hiring our own staff.

Um, and then in October of 2024, we needed, um, a long-term sub for the Learning Center at Cottage Street.

So the steps that we've taken to fill these open positions, we've posted on the district website as well as School Spring, which is, um, the, um, the employment, um, clearinghouse, if you will, for education nationally.

Um, we also post simultaneously on Indeed.

Um, we do get a lot of applications to there.

We, we post on LinkedIn.

Um, I personally do outreach through my own personal organization, professional organizations, as well as, um, um, previous colleagues and, um, pretty much anyone.