Letter of Concern to NLCS Board about Parkview Elementary

 This has been Emailed to the North Lawrance Community Schools Board and the State of Indiana Deparment of Special Education as a Letter of concern for the students at Parkview Elementary.  

Dear: North Lawrence Community School Board

The responsibility to ensure students are receiving a Free and Appropriate Public Education is entrusted to you by the families in your school district. Concerns are being voiced by families and community members for the educational needs of students with disabilities in your district. 

1. Reports of Parkview Elementary being short staff in the special education classrooms. Resulting in One Special education teacher covering two self contained classrooms.  

This is concerning as it impacts the students ability  to access meaningful learning from a qualified teacher ( 511 IAC 7-36-2 Special education program personnel and 511 IAC 7-36-11 Caseload ) . Without a qualified teacher and a reasonable caseload our concern would be that the students' education would not be appropriate. 

 

2. We have received reports of students in the self contained special education classrooms at Parkview Elementary not receiving specials such as art and music class like their peers in general education classes are receiving. This is concerning to us as the Students in self contained classrooms still have their rights under Least Restrictive Environment as outlined in 511 IAC 7-42-10 Least restrictive environment and delivery of special education and related services

(b) The public agency must do the following: (1) Take steps to make available to students with disabilities the variety of educational programs and services that are made available to nondisabled students served by the public agency, including the following: (A) Vocational education. (B) Art. (C) Music. (D) Industrial arts. (E) Consumer and homemaking education. (F) Field trips. (G) Convocations.

In Conclusion community members within your district have concerns and there is a need to work on building trust and communication with the special education families. We request that North Lawrence Community Schools take Immediate corrective actions and our recommendations are:

1. Hiring of Licensed teaching staff to bring staffing levels to an appropriate level for the caseload in special education services. 

2. Ensure all students with disabilities have equal access to special classes as outlined in 511 IAC 7-42-10

3. Development of a parent advisory council, committee, task force, or group. As outlined in 511 IAC 7-36-1 Parent and community participation.  

4. The creation of a Parent Liaison position within the NLCS special education department to work on strengthening  Parent / School relationships. 

Sincerely 

Patrick Underwood

Board President / Lead Special Education Advocate 

Community Inclusion Ambassadors Inc.

Phone: 812-329-0216   Email: PatrickU@ourcia.org

Back to School Fundriser

 

As school starts back our advocates are actively brushing up on special education policy both federal ( IDEA) and State of Indiana ( Article 7).  We know that families will be having questions and concerns within our monitoring area and we offer no-cost advocate assistance as they are available.  

Back to school also marks our need to get ready for our last family activities of 2021 along with  our Monthly Family Activities we are working on two more special activities. Bringing back To Cute Too Spoke our sensory friendly halloween activity and for our fourth consecutive year Sensory Santa in early December. These activities are made possible by our community partners and by community members that help with donations.  

This year we are setting a goal of raising $4,000 by the end of november to help ensure we meet expected costs of the activities and to help have a start on our program budget for 2022. This will allow us to hit the ground running with activities and increase our community outreach in 2022. 

Our goal for the August 14ths Monthly Family Activity is to have raised $250. If we can meet this goal Patrick our board president and lead advocate will take a cake to the face at the August Family Activity and  post the video on our facebook page.

Donate online at: paypal.com/us/fundraiser/charity/3998069 

Cancled August Family Activity

 

Our June Activity is in the books.

 

Our June Activity is in the books and we are starting to work on planning for our July Activity. The July Activity will be the last Saturday in July ( July 31st) We will be announcing the location and time in the next few days once we are sure we can use the location.

We would like to give a special thank you to: Old National Bank, Walmart Paoli, Amazon SDF8, Paoli Friends Church, River's Edge Fellowship Church and community members for their support and help in making activities like this possible in our area.

If you would like to learn of way to help please visit: https://www.ourcia.org/p/donations.html