This is the place to talk about all things Delaware DOE and the State Board of Education! Are they over-staffed? Are they doing a good or bad job? Should our State Board of Education be appointed or publicly elected? Are there policies in line with district and charter school policies? No topic is off the table! I’m going to include Governor Markell issues in this as well, good or bad, since he is the driving force for most of the education in Delaware. Discuss!
The Season Of Myths 
incompetent/unaccountable.
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I want to discuss DOE and more specifically the Spec Ed department headed by Maryann Mitchokowski. I had the honor to serve on the U of D Blueprint for Autism education committee. It was a grueling sometimes painful process. Mostly because parents were viewed as being there for selfish reasons. We had to constantly state that we were participating for all parents and kids. We were also up against the “same old way no good reason” of some from the state DOE. While legislation stemming from the Blueprint has been passed and some still working its way through the Legislature, we face an uphill battle. SB 92 & 93 are current pieces of legislation that I am following this year. I happened to run into Maryann at Wawa recently and asked her about the bills. She still seemed to be under the impression that these would be very limited to specific disabilities versus what had been duscussed at the blueprint meetings. I made sure to remind her that while we were there for our specific disability, we should ensure that the legislation and any services forming from it would be as inclusive as possible. Autism is usually comorbid and thus services must be designed to cover many types of issues and learning disabilities. Hopefully that short conversation reassured her that we are all working together to promote positive changes in special education for all children. We all have to speak with the same voice. So if you run into Maryann or leguslators make sure you bring up these bills and make sure they know how important they are for special education in DE. Ok sorry Kevin this probably be under legislation too!
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