First SEPAC meeting a success
With more than two dozen people in attendance, I'd say the first planning meeting of the Mashpee Special Ed Parents Advisory Council was a great success.
It's been a long time coming -- there hasn't been a PAC in Mashpee in several years. There are a lot of reasons why, but most of them come down to the school district's insistence in meddling in it. Which is, in point of fact, not keeping with either the spirit or the letter of the law. Towns in Mass. have to have them, and they *have* to remain independent of the schools to which they're supposed to advise.
We were expecting a bunch of horror stories from folks; nothing brings people together like tragedy and misfortune, it seems, but I always also really pleased to see parents who *aren't* having a lot of problems with the special ed department also get involved, simply because it'll help balance out the perspectives that we all share with each other.
We formed off three different committees, each tasked with elements of getting the PAC up and running. I'm working on the operations committee while Bonnie is chairing the programming committee, and I think that's perfect: She's awesome at coordinating parent training, which is one of that group's mandates.
Anyway, I'm hoping we can maintain momentum going forward and attract new parents to the group so we can really turn this into something important and sustainable for the future growth of the town. Lord knows it's overdue.