The Examiner U-46 News FeedDist. U-46 Board hears CAC committee report By Seth Hancock
The specialized student services committee of School District U-46’s Citizen’s Advisory Council (CAC) gave an update to the Board of Education at its meeting on Monday, June 17.
Rebecca Miller and Sarah Thompson, co-chairs of the committee, presented the report. For the 2018-2019 school year, the committee’s work was focused on offering three different presentations that took place at area libraries.
“The specialized student services committee, our work this year was much as it has been the last couple of years,” Miller said. “We settled into a great pattern. We found a great way to continue offering the families of our district the resources and connecting them with experts that would help them with their questions.”
The first presentation took place in October at Elgin’s Gail Borden Library titled “SSI, SSDI, HFS, DHS, PUNS-Understanding the Alphabet Soup for your child.” The presentations focus was on providing information on benefits, state and federal, that are available for families with special education students.
Miller said the program was a repeat and has become popular, and this past year’s event garnered 106 attendees.
The second presentation came in February at Streamwood’s Poplar Creek Public Library which had 27 attendees. The report stated the presentation “provided information on how to help special needs children understand their disabilities, but also maximize their abilities, self-advocate and build self-confidence.”
The third event, regarding family and community relationships, took place in March at Gail Borden Library but garnered the fewest attendees at 16. Regarding the event, the report stated: “This interactive presentation discussed how family and sibling relationships can have some of the most challenging dynamics but are the most important for a special needs child as parents need those relationships to be strong when they are unable to be there.”
Thompson said that the third presentation was hurt by the cold winter which forced the committee to push the event to a later date from the original schedule.
Regarding all three events, Miller said: “These three topics… we’ve put these together this past year as a three-legged stool. If you think about the things that you need as a parent to have your child be ready for the future you need financial information which was our first presenter covered that, you need them to be self-advocates which was our second presenter and our third presenter was family relationships and community relationships.”
Both Miller and Thompson said that hosting the presentations at libraries has been helpful, and they plan to do the same this upcoming school year.
For the 2019-2020 school year, the committee plans to hold two or three presentations including a repeat of this last year’s presentation because of its popularity. Thompson said that will take place on Tuesday, Oct. 15 at Gail Borden.
“We want to be proactive…. We’ve decided we’re going to do a fall program and a winter program and schedule it with a cancellation date,” Thompson said.
Thompson also said the committee wants to develop a way to increase membership within its committee during the upcoming school year.
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