After posing questions live to King at the Albany CC forum 10/24, sending FOUR follow up emails with no response,

I made a public video ( http://youtu.be/WsvJydvx120 ) and sent this message, December 12, 2013. I finally received a response December 13, 2013. From: Meredith Gavin <meredithjogavin@gmail.com> Date: December 12, 2013, 6:40:13 PM EST To:commissioner@mail.nysed.gov, RegentTisch@mail.nysed.gov, RegentBottar@mail.nysed.gov, RegentBennett@mail.nysed.gov, RegentYoung@mail.nysed.gov, RegentNorwood@mail.nysed.gov, Regentcottrell@mail.nysed.gov, RegentDawson@mail.nysed.gov, RegentChapey@mail.nysed.gov, RegentPhillips@mail.nysed.gov, Regenttallon@mail.nysed.gov, RegentTilles@mail.nysed.gov, RegentBendit@mail.nysed.gov, RegentRosa@mail.nysed.gov, RegentCea@mail.nysed.gov, RegentJackson@mail.nysed.gov, RegentCashin@mail.nysed.gov, RegentBrown@mail.nysed.gov, info@ldaamerica.org, speced@mail.nysed.gov Subject: Re: Special Education with Common Core Hello All~ Because only ONE of you has actually responded to me, I have created a public video. http://youtu.be/WsvJydvx120 ~ "A Message to NYS Commissioner King from a Parent of a Special Needs Child" Ignoring the special ed community is not helping your cause. The grade level test should be optional NOT required, and the local district and parents should decide what is best for the child. I am so tired of this! Always ~ after the fact. By the way stop using the terms "challenging" and "to be clear" and "I want to be clear" ~ nothing is clear about any of this because there is no faith left in you or the majority of the BoR. Regards~ Meredith Gavin North Greenbush, NY ~~~~ From: "Suzanne Bolling" <SBOLLING@MAIL.NYSED.GOV> Date: December 13, 2013, 5:33:06 PM EST To: <meredithjogavin@gmail.com> Subject: Questions regarding Students with Disabilities Dear Ms. Gavin, My name is Suzanne Bolling and I work for the Commissioner's Office as the Executive Coordinator of Special Education. I want to apologize for not responding to your request sooner, I have complied the information and hope it answers your questions. 1. What Special Education Professional with ample experience had any part of the Math or ELA CCLS documentation? The development of the Common Core State Standards included the participation of two main groups that were established by the Council of Chief State School Officers to write

and review the standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics. These groups were a K-12 Workgroup and a Validation Committee. The K-12 Committee was comprised of individuals representing multiple stakeholders and a range of expertise and experience in assessment, curriculum design, cognitive development, early childhood, early numeracy, child development, English-language acquisition and elementary, middle, and postsecondary education (Dr. Gina Biancarosa, is a special education professor from the University of Oregon served on the K-12 Committee). The Validation Committee members were selected because they had experience in the development or implementation of national or international standards in education or have a demonstrated record of exceptional or unique expertise in English language arts, mathematics, or a related field, such as special education, English language learners, assessments, or curriculum development. This information was obtained from the Common Core State Standards webpage at http://www.corestandards.org/resources/process As part of the public forums across the state, we have heard from parents of children with special needs and other parents that Common Core's emphasize critical thinking, reading challenging texts, opportunities for students to write with evidence drawn from texts, and math questions that require students to demonstrate their mathematical reasoning through real world application may be particularly challenging for students with disabilities. The Department believes that children with disabilities must have access to the same learning opportunities as their peers. In order to help students achieve their full potential, students with disabilities require the proper learning supports, accommodations and specially designed instruction to access, participate, and progress in the general curriculum. The curriculum must be delivered using an instructional method designed to meet the needs of the student so that the challenging content is delivered in such a way as to build their knowledge, skills, and confidence. We do acknowledge and agree that more instructional resources specifically for students with disabilities, including video examples of instruction, and more resources and information for parents of students with disabilities need to be made available and we are moving forward to do so. 2. Why are children who are delayed in reading, a year or two behind their peers and have IEPs, REQUIRED to take the same level test and are not offered a different assessment (NOT the alternative portfolio assessment)? The federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act requires all students requires states to test all students annually in grades 3 through 8 and once in high school in the areas of reading, mathematics, and science. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) requires states to use assessments to identify students with disabilities and track their progress according to individualized learning goals. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) allow states to administer an alternate assessment to students with severe cognitive disabilities. The Board of Regents has directed the Department staff to put together a waiver request

to the federal government that would allow school districts to administer the state test at the students instructional level rather than his or her chronological age, where the grade level assessment would not be appropriate to measure his or her learning. Essentially this would allow a school district to offer the grade 3 state assessment to a student, even if he or she were in 5th grade, if the grade 3 test would reflect where the student was in his or her learning. We hope to have more information on this proposal in the near future and I will be sure to reach out to you with further details when available. Please contact me if you have any questions, and again, I apologize for the time it took me to respond to your information request. Thank you. ~~~~~

These are my initial top layer thoughts ~ I asked specifically about the NYS online documentation. The "NYS" piece was taken out and got lost in all the exchanges. It's in a couple of them. She only addressed the CCLS as a whole. Soooo ONE person represents the entire sped community for the US? I don't love that idea. Here is her bio http://ctl.uoregon.edu/node/1001 I don't see any actually public classroom experience as a teacher. That concerns me. She's linked to Carnegie and seems to love policy writing. Why am I contacting someone in Oregon about NY? And she validated this hot mess? I have never once said that SWD (students with disabilities) shouldn't have the same opportunities!! My repeated concern over and over is that they are REQUIRED to take their grade level test, it's NOT optional. There are more effective ways to measure children like my son, who only test well with his mods and accommodation and AT HIS READING LEVEL! (I have many problems with the tests; this is my main concern right now) The ridiculous thing about all of this is King keeps saying this is controlled at the district level...fine... So why can't the district, along w myself, decide what is best for my child when it comes to the assessments? That's why I need to see what this waiver is going to say. The woman who emailed point blank admits that they now recognize more needs to be done for SWD after hearing from people at the forums. Wait..what?!?? B/c I'm a skeptic, I read, that as SWD didn't matter as much so we rolled it out and just hoped no one would notice that we didn't think of SWD. How come this wasn't thought t of by the professionals who rolled this out? I need to see that waiver. I want to know all the determining factors of how this is going to be decided for the 2% and the consequences. I have to learn more about the validation committee. I know two of the people speaking at the HVCC CC forum this upcoming Wednesday, 12/18, were on that committee so I am hoping for good info.