September 2020
Dear Families,
Welcome back! We hope you had a chance to relax and regroup this summer! The Wayland SEPAC (Special Education Parent Advisory Council) has been busy and we have a number of exciting updates for you as we head into the new year. Please note that this email is coming to you through the district list, which is not the SEPAC email list. We invite you to email us at waylandsepac@gmail.com to join our official list.
We’re excited that we were able to set up a SEPAC Gift Fund through the Town – thank you to Karyn Vostok Jones and Gayle Gledhill from SEPAC and Susan Bottan and Karen Mantey from WPS for their work to make that happen. More information on how to donate to support the SEPAC is below. Please keep reading for news from our board members!
As always, we welcome your questions, ideas, concerns, and feedback and look forward to seeing you soon!
Best regards,
Anne-Louise Klaus & Colleen Morneweck
Wayland SEPAC Co-Chairs
September/October Calendar Highlights*
Janeka Melanson, Events & Programming Chair
– Weekly Zoom check-ins are ongoing. Email us at waylandsepac@gmail.com for the link to these meetings. The check-ins are generally on Wednesdays at 7:30 pm.
– Back to School Zoom Social – Wednesday, 9/23 at 7:30 pm – Join us to catch up after the summer and to meet other parents/guardians. We’re planning to spend some of the time in breakout rooms by school/program.
– Presentation: “Executive Functioning in Remote Learning” – Thursday, October 8th at 7 pm – Elise Wulff (MEd, Program Manager at Aspire) will be speaking about how to support your child’s executive functioning during this time of remote and hybrid learning
– Presentation & Q&A: “Back to School 2020: Advocating for your
Student’s Special Education Rights During Covid-19”– Wednesday, October 14th at 7 pm – co-hosted with Weston SEPAC – Lawyers Lillian Wong and Allison Boscarine from Wong & Boscarine LLC will catch us up on our special education rights during this time – what’s changed since the spring, what’s stayed the same – There will be time for Q&A.
– Official Meetings for the year are on Thursdays at 7 pm: 10/1, 12/3,
2/11, 4/8, and 6/3 on Zoom for now.
*For the full fall schedule, please see the attached calendar. For details, email waylandsepac@gmail.com, go to our website waylandsepac.com or follow us on FB, Twitter, or Instagram. The links are on the website. Dates and times are subject to change.
Community Resources
Julie Kannel, Community Resources Chair
I’d like to welcome everyone to the start of a new school year! We are looking to expand our resource list with helpful references, directly from Wayland parents, who have used the providers and have had beneficial results for their children. The current resource list is available on our website at https://waylandsepac.com/resources/ . We are planning to send out an email twice a year to help remind parents to share a wonderful resource they may have recently used. Please take a look at our “Wayland SEPAC Parents” Facebook page, and you can let us know your resource there, or you can email the SEPAC at waylandsepac@gmail.com with the information.
School/Program Liaisons
Erin Newton, Liaison Chair
Wayland SEPAC is excited to start the new school year with volunteers serving as SEPAC parent liaisons for each of the schools in the district. Over the summer, these SEPAC parent liaisons connected with school principals or directors in order to begin the collaborative work of sharing SEPAC updates with the schools and communicating the questions and/or concerns of SEPAC parents. As the school year begins, the building-based SEPAC parent liaisons will continue to update the school communities with information about SEPAC resources, workshops, speakers, events and meetings. We are still in need of a Liaison(s) for the METCO program and for Out of District parents/guardians. Please contact me by emailing waylandsepac@gmail.com if you’re interested in helping out in one of these roles.
SEPAC Gift Fund
Gayle Gledhill, Treasurer
Wayland SEPAC is now ready to start taking donations. Donations are tax deductible. Any donations will go toward programs and events to help our parents and guardians of children on IEPs and 504s to be better equipped to help their children. Beyond this, funds may also be used in the future to support special education efforts in the district. Checks may be made out to SEPAC Gift Account – WPS and sent to: SEPAC / Attn.: Colleen Morneweck, Co-Chair / 17 Knollwood Lane / Wayland, MA 01778. No child comes with a handbook, and some need more than others. Your support makes the work of the Wayland SEPAC possible.
Technology
Lisa Bagley, Technology Chair
As of last spring, Wayland SEPAC can be found online at www.waylandsepac.com. Our website serves as a home for all SEPAC information including Resources, events and past emails and posts. We also have a new District News page to help you keep up as things develop. You can sign up for our e-mail list on the website as well as find links to our Facebook group, Instagram and Twitter accounts. Please check it out and follow us for continually updated information.
We hope to continue work this year on a survey to send out to special education families to help identify needs as well as understand what works well and what could be improved within the district. As WPS is up for a DESE review this year, we anticipate there being an opportunity for discussion and feedback at that time as well. The schedule is currently unclear due to Covid.
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