HUDAK’S BOARD NOTES – SEPTEMBER 2007 UPDATE

REGULAR MEETING ON OCTOBER 4 – Please note that this meeting will not end at noon, as is usually the case. The public hearing on the proposed revisions to the rules for the Administration of the Exceptional Children’s Educational Act (ECEA) will begin at 2 p.m. These rules are very lengthy, and they contain a few controversial aspects, all of which relate to whether they should exactly follow the U.S. Department of Education’s new guidelines for implementation of IDEA 2004 (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) or if they should go "beyond" those specifications. These are some of the questions that the SBE will have to answer when making the final decisions on the rules:

• Whether students with suspected disabilities, in order to become eligible for special education, should receive assessments only in the areas of their suspected disabilities, or full and comprehensive assessments in several domains.
• Whether transition planning (for what special education students will do after high school) should begin at age 14, as is currently in the ECEA rules, or change to age 16.
• Whether the use of short-term objectives on IEPs (Individual Education Plans) should be eliminated. Currently the IEP is required to contain both annual goals and measurable short-term objectives and/or benchmarks (the goal of eliminating these objectives would be to reduce paperwork).

COMMISSIONER’S PLAN FOR CDE – As I mentioned in my last issue, our new Commissioner of Education, Dwight Jones, has a plan that he and Deputy Commissioners Ken Turner and Karen Stroup created to describe how staff intends to organize toward accomplishing the SBE’s strategic plan. The plan, entitled "Forward Thinking," is now available here: http://www.cde.state.co.us/Communications/download/PDF/ForwardThinking.pdf .

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• September 29 – Senator Sue Windels and I, along with Arvada Mayor Ken Fellman, will hold an EDUCATION CONVERSATION town meeting from 10:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. at Arvada City Hall, 8101 Ralston Road, Arvada, to seek public input for the Governor’s P-20 Education Coordinating Council.
• October 3 – SBE Work Session, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

• October 4 – SBE Regular Meeting, beginning at 9 a.m., with hearings on the rules for the Administration of the Summer School Grant Program at 10:30 a.m. and rules for the Administration of the Exceptional Children’s Educational Act at 2:00 p.m.
• October 5 – I will be speaking at approximately 11 a.m. at the State World Languages Advisory Council meeting.
• October 9 – I will be visiting Foster Elementary School in Arvada with the Jeffco Legislative Forum.
• October 18 – CDE Open House, 3:00-5:00 p.m.
• October 19 – I and other SBE members will be presenting a workshop to discuss High School Graduation Guidelines, HB 07-1118, at the CASB Fall Conference.