IEP Changes Coming Next Year: What You Need to Know
Wed., Apr 16, 2008

Brian Touchette- Delaware Department of Education, Exceptional Children & Early Childhood Education

About 75 attendees including around 18 teachers, 1 principal, 1 BSD School Board member, many parents and staff.

Brian introduced the new IEP forms that will be in use within a year. It is the DOE plan for all new IEPs going forward to use the new forms so that within a year all IEP teams will have met and used the new form. There are no plans to rewrite an existing IEP on the new form - only to create new IEPs using the new form.

Student Rights under IDEA and Section 504
Wed., Feb.13, 2008

Mr. Charles Weiner, Esq. - an attorney in private practice.
Ms. Fran Fletcher - from Special Education Partnership for the Amicable Resolution of Conflict (SPARC)

About 35 attendees, including parents and BSD staff - including Superintendent Jim Scanlon.

Coping with the Crisis in Child Mental Health

Dr Doug Tynan Ph.D., ABPP, A.I. duPont Hospital for Children Division of Pediatric Behavioral Health

Alex Rittberg opened with a few PTA annoucements.
The PTA had given Waggie dog biscuits to all the principals who have dogs. Waggies are natural dog biscuits made by a small startup in Wilmington run by young adults with cognitive disabilities. More details on www.waggies.org. Principals without dogs were given gourmet jelly beans.
Alex asked how people heard about the meeting - BSNPTA email, PIC email, Flyers via US Postal service, word of mouth.

Dr Tynan gave two presentations and gave out one handout.

Making Sure the Curriculum is Accessible to All Students

Mark Holodick, Concord High School Principal
Beth Mineo and Marvin Williams, Delaware Assistive Technology Initiative
Lynne Robinson, Executive Director of Paws for People

Dealing with Bad Behavior! Successful Strategies for Parents and Teachers

Dr Douglas DiRaddio PhD, BSD School Psychologist
Dr Kristen Herzel PhD, private practice

The following resolution was passed unanimously by the Brandywine School Board on October 20, 2006:

WHEREAS, the Brandywine School District Board of Education is dedicated to embracing, challenging, and inspiring students of every race, with and without limited English proficiency, with Individualized Education Plans, from each socio-economic level/status, and of all academic achievement levels;

WHEREAS, all students are able to make academic growth when provided high quality instruction, staff support, and sufficient time regardless of race, limited English proficiency, disability and socio-economic level/status;

The topic of our October meeting was "What does the Future Hold - Post Secondary options for Students with Disabilities?"

The panelists were:
Mark Chamberlin - from the Delaware Department of Education
Jan Abrams - from the Department of Labor
Joyce Kaufmann - from the Brandywine School District
Liz Murray - from the University of Delaware
Cory Nourie - from the University of Delaware
Gary Berg - from Brandywine School District
Lauren Padgett - from Lucasworks
Beverly Stewart - from Back to Basics Learning Dynamics.

The topic of our September meeting was Back to School Success Strategies: Help our students get back in the groove and find the right way to organize and study.

The meeting consisted of the following board of panelists:

District's special education criticized
Brandywine pupils segregated, teachers need training, report says

From The Wilmington News Journal
By Edward L. Kenney
05/02/2006

Even though 19-year-old Elizabeth Nolan has Down syndrome, she is holding down two part-time jobs since her mom pulled her out of a special education program for 18- to 21-year-olds in the Brandywine School District.

But her mom, Mary Ann Nolan, of Wilmington, said her daughter could have been doing even better.

Dr W. Douglas Tynan, PhD, ABPP from A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children gave a great presentation on Behavior - see below for more.
Dr Tynan also recommended these websites as useful resources:

• Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning (CSEFEL): http://csefel.uiuc.edu
• Incredible Years: http://www.incredibleyears.com
• Triple P Parenting: http://www.triplep.net. He called attention to Top 10 for Parents in particular.