Dear Parents of FJSPED Students,
We hope that this letter finds you well as we continue to navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic and school closures.
This letter is written to discuss the provision of special education and related services for your child during mandated school closure. Our plan for providing instruction and related services to students with disabilities has two priorities:
- to focus on the health, safety, and welfare of our students and their families.
- to make good faith efforts to provide appropriate, accommodated, and accessible services to students with disabilities in light of the current circumstances.
With these priorities in mind, during the coming days, your child’s case manager will be reaching out to you to discuss a proposed, individualized plan for providing remote learning for your child during our Remote Learning Days. We encourage you to engage in conversations about the following areas:
1. How are things going for you, your child(ren) and others in your household during this pandemic?
Please let your child’s case manager know if there are new circumstances that may impact your child’s ability to attend to his/her remote learning assignments. Some examples include: how your child has responded to the previously provided remote learning opportunities, a family member who is ill, a family member who lost their job, your child is providing supervision for siblings while you work, etc. We ask these questions so that we can put your child’s learning in the coming weeks into context.
2. What specialized services and supports are necessary for your child as they learn at home?
Your child’s case manager will discuss the plan of support for your child and how that may look different while students are at home. Collaboration between parents and our school team is going to be a big part of making an appropriate plan.
3. What’s coming up for your child that we need to schedule or reschedule or discuss?
For some of you, we have open evaluations. Others have an annual review yet to be held this year. Now that our schedules have changed (and so have yours), we will discuss how we can manage open evaluations, annual reviews, etc. that have yet to be completed.
During the continued school closure, we want to work together with families to create remote learning plans for students with IEP’s. Should you have any questions or concerns in the meantime, please do not hesitate to reach out to your student’s case manager.
Thank you,
Jera Pieper
Director of Special Education
