June meeting: Special Education Parents Advisory Committee

I attended last night's meeting.  The members were abuzz with the success of the current Lose the training Wheels Bike Camp.  As of last night, 15 of the 18 participants are riding and the program director is expecting two more to succeed today.  The participants will each earn a trophy this afternoon.  One of the mom's with a child in the program was at the meeting and she shared her son's excitement with us.

The elections for officers resulted with three officers agreeing to serve another year:  President, Karin Hansard; Treasurer, Vicki Smith; and Secretary, Allison Wuori.  The new Vice Chair will be Heidi Gould.

I volunteered to help with the fall newsletter.

Reports were given by MARESA special education coordinator, Luanne Peterson and MARESA board member Judy Parlato.

Luanne was back from the Asperger training in Escanaba which she said was well-attended and well-received.  Some things in the works at MARESA include the following:

• Crisis intervention training for bus drivers before classes start.  
• Training for para-pros will take place before classes resume in the fall.  
• The Speech Language Pathologists will be meeting this summer to review their guidelines.  
• MARESA is expanding their website.  
• Summer institute will include a program on PEC's (Picture Exchange Communication).  
• New Special Education Coordinators are being hired for Nice, Neguanee and MAPS. 

Next SEPAC meeting will be August 18, 7:00 at MARESA.