Autism Commission Housing Sub-Committee Meeting Minutes

Autism Commission Housing Sub-Committee Meeting Minutes July 18, 2016, 2:00pm-4:00pm 500 Harrison Ave, Boston, MA

Carolyn Kain, Executive Director of the Autism Commission called the meeting to order at 2:10pm. Ms. Kain stated that the meeting was subject to the Open meeting Law and that the Sub-Committee members present would need to vote to approve the remote participation of others because of their geographic location. The other members in attendance were Sarah Geldart, Tere Ramos, Julie Kelley and Cindie Neilson, who all voted to approve remote participation. Julia Landau participated by phone.

Tere Ramos stated that there needed to be accountability of school districts on language access issues. She mentioned that there are issues with translating the N1 form for IEPs.

Julie Kelley stated that applying for MassHealth and Mass Common Health is challenging for families. She talked about the importance of children with ASD receiving intensive services at an early age but that many families do not know about the laws and the rights of their children. She mentioned that the Autism Resource Center was looking at how to dedicate funding to educating parents.

The group discussed the need to make things easier for families and they needed to develop solid recommendations to ensure that we are doing things right to reach families and to hold schools accountable.

Sarah Geldart said that the 240 grant allocation allows DESE to direct funds to lowers performing school district. Julie Kelley said that that Lawrence, Southbridge, Holyoke and a couple of schools in Boston are in receivership and that give DESE greater control for those schools.

Sarah Geldart talked about the reorganization of DESE, and that compliance monitoring and PQA were now under Cheung and Russell.

Julia Landau said there needs to be 2 sets of recommendations: collecting data and coordinated program reviews and then regarding complaints to PQA and BSEA complaints. Carolyn Kain said that she has experienced a change in PQA where they had been much more willing to be involved and resolve complaints in the past but that in recent years PQA would tell parents that they needed to file a complaint with the BSEA. Carolyn said that PQA should be working on the issue of compliance and the failure of districts to provide services that were included in an IEP versus a complaint process with the BSEA that involves a dispute or disagreement.

Julia said that in the coordinated program reviews DESE selected IEPs for review but that may not capture problems occurring within a school district and individual complains for parents contacting DESE because of compliance issues. Tere Ramos said that PQA has an affirmative duty to make sure there is meaningful access to its services for parents, and that they needed to conduct policy reviews and provide guidance to districts. The issue of technical advisories and policy guidance being issued by DESE does not ensure that information is making it to the school personnel and that many times parents are given false information because school personnel did not receive the training on current information.

Julie Kelley talked about the Autism IEP Act and that it states “shall” with regard to what IEP Teams are required to address for students with autism but that many parents don’t know about the law, and that she has seen cases where disability determination is being done at the Team level. The members discussed the need for accurate diagnoses for children with ASD and how for some children they are being categorized with a communication delay. She talked about how IEP Teams are basing diagnosis of autism on evaluations, that there is no “medical” test for autism, and that the diagnosis of autism educationally is different from a medical diagnosis.

Tere Ramos said that DESE’s language access plan is 6 years old and that it was supposed to be redone every two years.

Cindie Nielsen mentioned that ELL issues are another cost for out-of-district placements in addition to the tuition cost because out of district programs do not have teachers certified in ELL. Julia Landau said that part of the sub-committee’s focus also needed to be the inclusion of students with autism.

Julie Kelley said that paraprofessionals are not being utilized properly. Sara Geldart said that under the 274 grants training for paraprofessionals for working with students with disabilities is a priority. Sarah said there was a state-wide professional development day for paraprofessionals. She also talked about the autism endorsement for teachers and how DESE was looking to expand that to general education teachers after completing their survey on that issue on June 30th. Sarah said that DESE is expecting to receive proposals on teacher training coursework for the endorsement.

Julie Kelley said that they needed to have training for teachers and paraprofessionals similar to “Operation House Call” for medical students to better understand autism, its impact on children and their families.

The sub-committee discussed the fact that when children age out of early intervention at age 3 there are no “stay put” rights to the services they were receiving from early education and private insurance when a child enters the public school system, that some parents were choosing to keep their kids out of the public schools to receive more intensive services from their medical insurance for ABA services. Families do not want a drop or dilution of the services that their child was receiving simply because they turn age three and the school district offers them less services than their child was receiving. This conversation then turned to the issue of funding for school districts. Julie Kelley said that specialized programming like the NECC partnership programs are not eligible for reimbursement under the circuit breaker law and the sub-committee needed to look at this issue and possible advocate for a change in the law. Julie mentioned that enabling school districts to have specialized programs in district allows children to go to school in their neighborhoods and to be included with general education students of their community.

The sub-committee members decided not to meet in August and that they would reconvene in September. Carolyn Kain said that she would email the members with a date and time for the next meeting. There being no further business, upon motion duly made, seconded and approved, Ms. Kain adjourned the meeting at 4:05pm.