January 4, 2017 at 1:00 PM - Special Population Committee Meeting

Discussion: 

Call to order at 1:00 PM.

Staff:  David Ludwig, Deb Hericks, Wade Fruhling, and Scott Isaacson

Discussion:  Executive Director reviewed the Behavioral Health Committee meeting in  December.  This committee is organizing a system of support for behavioral services across the state.  The committee will take the information they have gathered and share it with outside consultants (HHS, Beacon, etc.) that need to lead our mission of equitable services across the state.  The Behavioral Conference this summer will be on June 9, 2017.  This conference will be geared towards a stakeholders meeting.  They will broadcast this meeting out to Kearney and Scottsbluff area to get appropriate people attending.  There is a need for more mental health providers.  SPED Committee will continue to support but the lead will come from HHS, Beacon, etc. 

Discussion:  ESU 9 Administrator discussed the shortage of Speech Patholgists across the state.  Some ESUs are contracting with an outside company (Global Teletherapy/NCRSA) to compensate for shortage.  Have a service unit coordinate hiring a person to do within state telehealth possibly using retired SLPs.  Schools will need to access through their own ESUs and the ESUs would be the one to contract with the teletherapists.  This would only be an option where there is not enough SLPs. 

Discussion:  Executive Director discussed the timeline for SRS conversion.  Everything is converted to Zend 1 (two versions behind).  They are currently testing and creating a list of issues and who will take care of the issue.  My the end of summer, hoping to have everything converted to Zend 3.  Applying for an AAP grant to help further this process.  SRS Director discussed the Advisory Board and presenting the new site to that Board.  They had a very good response from this group.  The SRS Staff have been creating training videos to be housed on a website for use.  The connection to the ADVISER Dashboard will come with the Zend3 conversion.  Advisory Board has created a list of enhancements that they would like added in conversion to Zend3.  Stuart Clark, ESU 1 will take the committee through a strategic planning process for long term goals. 

Discussion:  The SRS Staf created the procedural manual.  This is the first reading.  Will share this with the ESPD affiliate and the ESU administrators will share with their staff. 

Discussion:  Executive Director will talk with NDE regarding the PEP Grant.  This would hopefully include the IEP Facilitation training that is done in the summer. 

Discussion: 

Final push to complete all remaining issues on AAP to include:  Adding security certificate; finishing up privilege levels.   Still need to build in inter-operability with ADVISER system.  The SRS Director has applied for a new $25,000 grant. 

Discussion: 

Instructor Alert: Reworked the instructor alert tool.  Instructors can choose to be notified whenever a participant completes a test or an entire unit.  Focus on improved usability of website:  Clarity of content and instructions, consistency of forms and site navigation, error messages that give more information, spacing and letter sizing, color contrast, etc.  Before the end of the holiday we had sent out a post card to all school administrators and SPED directors with information about the program.  Initial planning for the next Para conference has started.  They are looking for suggestions on topics for conference. 

Discussion: 

SRS Staff completed the SRS Training Center.  They have categorized list of training documents, video and PDF formats.  Conversion to Zend 1 is mostly completed.  All major pages have been converted to Zend.  Only one minor page is remaining.  Still need to clean up bugs, and update some design elements.  SRS Advisory Board Meeting – December 15.  Demonstrated new Zend Framework pages:  Board seemed very pleased with the progress, Board appreciated Mike’s improvements to the student team pages and District Tab.  Connecting to the ADVISER system is next major priority for the board.  Would also like us to address the list of bugs which has grown large.  Next Steps:  Put finishing touches on AAP website.  Mike is nearly finished already.  Address bugs list: currently around 20 items to address.  All are minor issues, but as a whole they degrade user experience.  Interoperability with State’s ADVISER system.  Convert Code to Zend 3.  This will allow us to take full advantage of everything Zend has to offer. Build Import/Export system for Northwest Public Schools.  Complete backlog of user suggestions from Regional Advisory Board.  Currently around 30 items.  We can address most of these while we are updating code to Zend 3.  Steam line database

Discussion:  Teletherapy - Speech Patholgoists