Minutes of SEPAC General Meeting

October 7, 2006

Town Hall Meeting Room

 

Attendees from Steering Committee:  Barbara Closs, Ellen Cavanagh, Wendy Feddersen, Maria Kaufmann, Sue Tokay, Janet Zimmerman

 

Minutes of Meeting

 

Lunch was served.  Several guests were present from Framingham, Dracut and the Pentucket Regional schools were present as well as Suzanne Gervais, President of MASSPAC.

 

  1. Treasurer’s Report.  Becky Gordon was not present, but sent a report:

 

Original balance:  $547.11

Lions Donation being held:  $ 1,000

 

Guess-timate of the fundraiser results:  $814.00 net, including donations

 

Which means we will have Approximately $ 1, 360 in our account once I finish paying out the fundraiser expenses.

 

  1. APPLE Project

 

This PAC training project, which is jointly sponsored by the Federation for Children with Special Needs, UMASS and Children’s Hospital, was discussed.  Several individuals have expressed an interest in being involved in the project.  The major commitment is a three-day training that most likely will take place in May, 2007.  Information was passed out about the program

 

  1. FOCUS Groups

 

The format of the upcoming focus groups “Chats with Charles” was discussed.  Maria Kaufmann and Janet Zimmerman are the organizers of the HES Chat on 10/11; Debbie MacKenzie, Becky Gordon and Jayne Rowe are the organizers of the Bromfield Chat on 10/17.

 

The idea of having ongoing conversation over the course of the year was also discussed, in addition to the chats being done initially closer to the beginning of the year.  The Steering Committee was in favor of this idea.

 

  1. Autism Awareness Training

 

The status of this training was not known.  Sue Tokay will look into it.  $1,000 currently sits in the SEPAC account, donated by the Lions, for this training.

 

  1. Current Budget Discussions

 

Barbara Closs read a letter to the editor she had written about the Harvard Post’s coverage of budget discussion at a recent joint boards meeting.  The gist of the letter was that Harvard should learn not to blame all special ed woes on the out-of-district tuitions of a couple of kids.  The Steering Committee had some suggestions and was supportive of the letter.

 

  1. Goals for Year—on the agenda but not discussed—no time
  2.