Here is the agenda for tonight’s meeting:

“COMMUNITY ADVISORY COMMITTEE
AGENDA
DATE: October 2, 2012
TIME: 7:00 – 9:00 p.m.
PLACE: Dent Center – Board Room

1. Call to Order 7:00

2. Introductions (7:02 – 7:05)
Please notify the audience during introductions if you are recording the meeting
Please let us know if this is your first time attending a CAC meeting

3. Adoption of Minutes – September 4, 2012 (7:05 – 7:10)

4. Presentation – Presence Telecare (7:10 – 7:25)

5. FCMAT Transportation Report Discussion – Carolyn Patton will answer Q&As (7:25 – 7:55)

6. Chairperson’s Report – CAC Goal Planning: Lorrie Davis (7:55 – 8:00)

7. Old Business (8:00 – 8:15)

7.1 Assistant Superintendent’s Report – Felicia Stuckey-Smith

7.2 Board of Education Report – Lynne Dennler and/or Gary Eberhart

7.3 Board of Education Comments – Denise Lambert and Audra McDonald

7.4 Parent Advisory Committee Report – Tricia Tamura-Li and Dorothy Weisenberger

7.5 Budget Advisory Committee Report – Tricia Tamura-Li

7.6 Equity Advisory Team – Dorothy Weisenberger

NETWORKING BREAK

8. New Business (8:25 – 8:45)

8.1 Nurses’ Report

8.2 QIAT Committee – Christian Patz

8.3 Extended School Year – Samantha Espinosa

8.4 Parent Liaison – Hilary Shen

8.5 Sub-Committee Updates

Parent & Community Education Committee – Julie Nibblett

Membership & Publicity Committee – Vi Ibarra

Legislative Committee – Denise Lambert

Blog Committee – Autumn Green

9. Public Comment (8:45 – 8:55)
Public comment is an opportunity to share concerns and comments with the CAC. In the interest of time, speakers are limited to three (3) minutes each with a total of fifteen (15) minutes for all speakers. Please respect student and personnel privacy. CAC members and district staff may not be able to respond to individual concerns in this forum, but will take your contact information and follow-up with you.

10. Information Items/Announcements/Adjournment (8:55 – 9:00)

DON’T FORGET – - BRING A FRIEND TO THE MEETING!!”

Live blog:

7:25 p.m. Unfortunately, I missed the candidate’s forum before tonight’s meeting. Hopefully, the CAC blog will provide a recap.

The CAC adopted its Sept. 4 minutes.

7:30 p.m. The CAC is now watching an interactive online demo of Presence Telecare, which provides virtual speech language pathogist services. The district is considering using this for some students, due to the shortage of speech language pathologists. The company reps passed out Answers to Frequently Asked Questions.

Here is the intro: “PresenceLearning is the leading provider of live online speech therapy services (also known as ‘telepractice’) for K-12 students. We offer schools anytime, anywhere access to a nationwide network of highly qualified speech-language pathologists (SLPs), who work directly with students via web-based videoconferencing and evidence-based therapeutic activities.”

Reps said the online SLPs would participate in IEPs online and would also try to work with the teacher and participate in staff development. It is not a program. It is not software. It is all live.

NOV. 5 UPDATE: Here is a link to FCMAT’s Ocean View school district transportation report, which states on page 18 that the district transports about 25 percent of its special ed students: http://wwwstatic.kern.org/gems/fcmat/OceanViewSDfinalreport942.pdf
When I perused this report briefly, I didn’t see any recommendations regarding clustering or any assertions that this is a much higher rate of transporting special education students than “most” districts in the state.

NOV. 15 UPDATE: The CAC blog has posted an update with details from FCMAT about the vague assertions made in the Transportation Review: http://bit.ly/QgPOBE

Mt. Diablo district Superintendent Steven Lawrence has decided to hold meetings with parents in various feeder patterns of the district. Although trustees have not publicly discussed this idea, board candidate Brian Lawrence told me the superintendent informed him the meetings would replace former Parent Advisory Council meetings, which were not well-attended.

Board President Sherry Whitmarsh told me that she has been working with the superintendent on this idea. However, neither the superintendent nor Whitmarsh made any announcement about it during the last board meeting and there has been no districtwide communication from the district about the meetings.

Since questions are arising in comments on this blog about the purpose of the meetings, I am posting a letter I received from a Diablo View Middle School parent about the meeting in the that school’s feeder pattern:

“Oct. 2, 2012

Good Morning

Our superintendent, Dr. Steven Lawrence, will be holding four feeder pattern meetings throughout the year. The purpose of the meetings are:

To increase the opportunities that he has to speak with a broader group of parents.

To address concerns that parents on our leadership teams (PTA, PFC, School Site Council, ELAC) have around district issues.

To provide a more comfortable setting to have parents and the superintendent to have a conversation in.

Improve overall district communication.

The first of these meetings will be on Wednesday, October 3rd at the Pine Hollow Library at 7:00 p.m. Subsequent dates are December 5th, February 13th and May 1st. Besides Diablo View and Pine Hollow, additional schools in our feeder pattern are Ayers El, Mt. Diablo El, Highlands El and Siverwood El.

Patti Bannister”

Do you think the district should let the entire community know the times, dates and locations for all feeder pattern meetings?

7:10 P.M. UPDATE: Board President Sherry Whitmarsh has clarified that the feeder pattern meetings were the superintendent’s idea, which she supported. They are not board meetings and she does not expect to attend most of them, although she said she would likely attend the Ygnacio Valley HS meeting, since she lives in that feeder pattern.

OCT. 11 UPDATE: After calling Northgate High, I have found out that the Northgate feeder pattern meeting is at 7 p.m. tonight in the Northgate staff lounge at 425 Castle Rock Road in Walnut Creek. Unfortunately for some parents, this conflicts with a concurrent meeting at 7 p.m. in the Little Theater for juniors and their parents.

Here is a link to video of Superintendent Steven Lawrence telling the school board about his decision to hold feeder pattern meetings: http://qik.com/video/54936052