This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Laura Hess is the Executive Director of Special Education for the St. Vrain Valley School District. She was kind enough to meet with me on October 26, 2017, to answer some questions that were submitted by parents in the St. Vrain Valley community. Prior to meeting with Hess, the Longmont Observer sent her the list questions for her to look over. I then conducted an interview with her to learn her answers. The following is a transcription of those questions and her reply.
- In regards to President Trump's Executive Order #13777, which will review the Letter of Guidance for possible elimination, what is St. Vrain's stance on the issue? How will the children of St. Vrain Valley, whom have a 504 plan be affected? How many students have 504 plans? How does this affect the draft of future 504 plans?
- I don't directly oversee 504s. That is actually my counterpart Brian. But I can speak to just how we do things in St. Vrain's, and that's that we service kids. So whatever kids need, we meet them where they're at and we make sure they get whatever they need. So the legal aspect, we will meet them where they're at. In terms of total numbers, I don't know off the top of my head because it just isn't data I keep in my office. But I'm sure Brian would be happy to follow up.
After the interview, St. Vrain Valley School District followed up with the numbers of 504 plans being 953 in the district as of current numbers. Also, if you would like to refresh your memory on the Letter of Guidance you can read this article by Christi Yoder.
2. Are there currently any parent support groups available in the district? What are they? How does one join or get in touch with these groups? If there is not a group, how do you suggest going forward to forming one? How can parents and educators work together to do what is right and needed for all students in the special ed program? Could volunteer paras help during major transition periods?
- In terms of support, we really work with other community entities in advertising what's out there for parents. So the Autism Society for Boulder County offers a variety of groups out of their entity. From there we offer parent nights here so parents can come and there is an education piece around that, that's listed on the district website. We do four throughout the year. Last year, I sent out a parent survey to see what high needs parents have. We don't always have high turn out for those nights, so I am looking for better ideas to how to get parents involved, but there has not been a lot of turnout. That's something I'd like to see improve.
- We offer transition specialty nights for students that are in that transition 18-21 year old range. Last night we held one and it had 19 parents attend.
- The state offers guidelines around SEAC [Special Education Advisory Council] workshops and that is really parent directed; so I've had a few parents come to me expressing some interest. I will definitely walk alongside, but through the SEAC rules and regulations I'm not allowed to be the direct contact or planner of that. I can support in any way, but we just haven't had a huge parent group that wants to take that on. There is a little bit of work involved and our parents are busy with their families are participating in school events and things like that. So it just hasn't taken off here yet but I'm definitely open and willing to do that. Support groups, I can help plan or loan space to, we can look at that and I can try and help them find resources, but without parents coming to me and saying we need a support group for this I'm kind of left without. I don't want to create groups that parents are not going to attend. I want to make sure and so that's one of the things I'm working with the Autism Society of Boulder on is trying to plan out some various levels of support groups because they're working the same piece and they don't seem to have a ton of parent attendance as well.
3. What do you have in place to help parents navigate the special ed school system from general ed classes, IEPs, 504s, other services, or to whom to contact?
- Parents should always start with their home school, their neighborhood school or where your child attends for any of those types of questions. In terms of trying to receive services or questions around the IEP [Individualized Education Program], if your child has an IEP and looking to explore some different opportunities that's where your case manager really comes into play. I've had parents call and say, "What do I do if I want to get my child involved in a sport?" Well contact your case manager and they can help make that transition or talk to the coach or whatever that looks like, or intramural. So I direct parents directly back to the school because that's the team that knows your child and then we start there if there's other questions that go beyond the school team or looking for the future, looking towards transition I am happy or any of the area coordinators are happy to sit with parents and meet with them to answer their specific questions.
4. How do you ensure that all schools in the district consistently implement policy?
- We follow the IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act] guidelines and we follow CDE. CDE has a few regulations in place in terms of looking at, we have to do rubrics, every district has to self-monitor and so we follow that process through CDE [Colorado Department of Education]. We have met hundred percent compliancy for the last few years. That's compliancy, in terms of school teams following through with IEPs I assume positive intent of all of our school teams and that they are doing that. If parents feel differently I encourage parents to contact the school directly and schedule a meeting to talk about their concerns. If it needs to go beyond it, like I said we have a huge layer of support here at the district office to provide support. When new teachers come in, we had a great group of new teachers this year, they all have an instructional coach assigned to them to help support them through how St. Vrain delivers services and what that looks like. If you're directly out of college or you haven't written an IEP in a while we're here to support you with that. We have a district office team that supports compliancy directly and so it's like a 24-7 helpline almost but it's real individuals, so you can call through the district and say, "I'm trying to figure this out and can you help me problem solve?" We have lots of support here that teams can reach out to but we follow the guidelines.
5. What kind of oversight programs are in place?
- We provide those services but again those school teams have reached out for various reasons, "So I have a student who needs this level curriculum and I'm having a problem figuring out what I should do?" we have an instructional team that will go out and help support that. We don't go in and monitor buildings because building special ed teams, we hire strong people and we want the best for them and I want to make sure that they are always feeling supported out of our office this is not meant to be a compliancy check on if you're delivering all of the services.
6. What services do you offer at the high school level to ensure that students with disabilities have the skills needed to transition out of school?
- Some of our high schools offer a functional curriculum, some of them offer an executive functioning curriculum. Really every year look at all of the kids coming to us and try to see, okay there's a group of them that have a need an instructional functional curriculum. So we're going to make sure that we have a class period for this and then we structure all of that around that. Then we make sure that we follow through and align students based on their needs.
7. Do you consider, follow, or address dietary concerns and the effects of diet on children with learning disabilities? If yes, what actions are taken? If no, do you think this an important step and is this something that will be introduced to the district?
- So I have seen some of the research, but really anything along the lines of dietary concerns is a parent decision.
8. Are there certain schools in the district geared toward certain disabilities? Can you list them and their specialty?
- All of our schools meet all of our student needs unless your child needs a higher level of service. Then we have center-based programs for our significant support needs and our Autism center-based programs. All of our high schools have all of the center-based programs that you would have seen throughout or elementary and middle school.
St. Vrain followed up with a list of schools with center-based programs. If your child needs a specific program, that decision will be made with your IEP team. The schools with these programs are:
- Altona Middle School
- Blue Mountain Elementary
- Rocky Mountain Elementary
- Thunder Valley K-8
- Timberline PK-8
- Longmont Estates Elementary
- Prairie Ridge Elementary
- Niwot Elementary
- All high schools (Erie HS, Frederick HS, Longmont HS, Lyons Middle/Senior, Mead HS, Niwot HS, Silver Creek HS, Skyline HS)
- Life Skills ACE at Mainstreet School
9. In your SVVSD Special Education Overview and Philosophy letter to parents, you mention that increased communication with parents is a goal this year. What are you doing to ensure that special ed staff are communicating better with parents? Is there an action plan in place for talking to parents? How often should special ed staff be communicating with parents and in what ways?
- So that letter was really about my communication with parents and the steps that I'm taking out of my office; to make sure that parents are aware of parent nights or of any resources that come my way, things along those lines. Last year I think I sent out only two newsletters. This year I'm going to send out four to parents. That piece of the communication was really directly from me to parents. In terms of school staff working with parents it's always brought up in our conversations as we meet, always a reminder as school teams meet. I and the area coordinators go to team meetings and we make sure that that's always the focus of the conversation.
I would like to thank Laura Hess and Matthew Wiggens for meeting with me and discussing the special education branch of the St. Vrain Valley School District. If you have further questions please feel free to contact Laura Hess at hess_laura
