Governor’s Advisory Council For Exceptional Citizens January Minutes, DOE Report To GACEC

The Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens hit the ball running in their first 2015 meeting.  I posted the Exceptional Children Resources Group’s presentation to the GACEC a couple weeks ago, which went over the State Performance Plan/Annual Report for special education compliance monitoring in Fiscal Year 2013.  But there was a lot of discussion at this meeting on items such as Senate Bill 229, the Elementary Secondary Education Act waivers, the Smarter Balanced Assessment, Standards-Based IEPs (without even saying the words) and even the Alternate Route to Teacher Licensure and Certification Program.  Read the minutes and the DOE report to the GACEC below!

 

Governor’s Advisory Council For Exceptional Citizens Looking Out For The Special Needs Of Delaware

In Federal IDEA Regulation, each state must have an advisory council for disabilities.  In Delaware, that council is the Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens, or GACEC.  The group meets eight times a year to discuss issues with citizens for special needs at the George Massey Station building in Dover.  But don’t let that number fool you, because there is a lot of work going way beyond their meetings!

The GACEC has many functions and committees that perform these tasks.  The Policy and Law Committee will go through regulations that might impact the disabled in Delaware and will carefully review any pending or existing regulations or laws in the state.  The Children and Youth Committee will look at different special education practices or services in the communities for children.  The Adult/Transition Services Committee finds ways to make life better for adults with disabilities all over the state.  Another committee called Infant/Early Child Care tackles needs for our tiniest disabled citizens and looks for ways to make their life better as well.

The group has sponsored recent campaigns such as the DelAWARE DisABILITY Hub website, serving adults in transition.  Over the holidays and still continuing over the Winter is the Heart 2 Hugs program, which collects cold weather clothing for homeless children or those in foster care.

They recently met in November and just released their minutes from that meeting.  I really like what I saw.  From their November board minutes:

All public meeting minutes should be this detailed!  As you can see, this group works very hard for the exceptional of Delaware.  They are very thorough and committed to our most vulnerable of citizens!

The group meets again this Tuesday, January 20th at 516 W. Loockerman St. at 6pm in the George V. Massey Building in the executive conference room in downtown Dover.  Come and check it out and learn what goes on behind the scenes in our state for Exceptional Citizens!

To find out more about GACEC, please go to:

http://www.gacec.delaware.gov/