What does SEAC do, anyway?

Good question! It turns out, I didn’t really know either…Nothing like volunteering to be on a committee I really didn’t understand. Oh well, I’ll learn. And you can learn with me.

First off, HDSB is required by law to have a Special Education Advisory Committee and this is what SEAC is designed to do:

• Make recommendations to the board to make sure they establish, develop and deliver Special Education programs and services to anyone who needs them.

As members of Autism Ontario and parents of kids with Autism or Aspergers, we need to remember that these programs need to help all types of students with special needs, not just ASD. I’ll get into that more when I talk about the role of the SEAC rep.

• Be part of the group that reviews the Board’s Special Education Plan. This happens annually.
• Review the Board’s annual budget for Special Education.
• Review the Board’s financial statements for Special Education.

We also need to remember that SEAC looks at Special Education as a whole and how the system is functioning in general. In other words, we can bring items forward from the membership that are systematic, not personal (I know, I know – it’s very personal, we’re talking about making sure your child gets the best education possible here) or on a case by case basis.

For those of you who took time out of your schedule to attend a Coffee Chat or offer feedback on suggestions for autism education, we’re suggesting that the CLCs revisit that list with a systematic approach in mind. We’d like to see them take that list and share with the membership in the form of a survey so you can pick the top three educational priorities for this year that can go to SEAC. As I mentioned, special education has a big job to do in helping kids with many different exceptionalities so we want to come to the table with our most important requests. We think it’s better to ask for one or two things to show a collaborative and sharing nature with the other organizations and increase our odds of getting the most important item being approved.

What do you think?