Commission on Disability & Employment

January 9, 2019: 9:00 AM
45 Commerce Dr, Augusta Frances Perkins Room

State Workforce Board COMMISSION ON DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT January 9, 2019 9:00 AM " 12:00 PM Central Maine Commerce Center 45 Commerce Drive, Augusta Frances Perkins Room Call in: 877-455-0244, Conference code: 9218175360 AGENDA 9:00 Welcome, Introductions 9:15 Follow up on Employment First and CDE Recommendations DOE Guest: Roberta Lucas, Ed.D., Federal Program Coordinator Maine Department of Education 10:00 State & Legislative updates 10:30 Break 10:45 Review and approve November meetings minutes, membership vote 11:00 Review and approve annual report draft, plan for 2019 12:00 Adjourn Next Meeting: March 20, 2019 9:00 12:00 Central Maine Commerce Center Frances Perkins Room

COMMISSION ON DISABILITY AND EMPLOYMENT MEETING MINUTES

01/09/2019

Present: Jennifer Kimble, (Chair), Peaches Bass, Karen Fraser, Libby Stone-Sterling, Gayla Dwyer, (Phone), Renee Doble, (Phone), Donald Rice, (Phone), Jeanie Coltart, (Phone)

Special Guest: Roberta Lucas, Ed.D., Special Services Federal Program Coordinator for the Maine Department of Education

Staff: Cheryl Moran (Phone)

Welcome, Introductions Jennifer Kimble opened the regular meeting at 9:02am and asked members and guests to introduce themselves and their affiliations.

Follow up on Employment First and CDE Recommendations DOE Guest: Roberta Lucas, Ed.D., Federal Program Coordinator, Maine Department of Education Jennifer Kimble stated today we're wrapping up our tour around what DHHS, DOL, and DOE are doing in response to the Employment First recommendations and today we are hearing from the Department of Education, Roberta Lucas. Roberta Lucas - For the Department of Education Special Services and looking at the Employment First recommendations, one of the recommendations was to propose resources - develop resources to conduct transition planning and services.
Her department and team have a lot to report on to the federal government. One of them is Indicator 13, which is transition planning for students with disabilities. She stated they have struggled a lot with the compliance components of Indicator 13 and have greatly improved where theyve met the federal requirement. They have a cohort of schools that they go into each year and theyre on a four-year rotation. What they often do now but its not required but strongly suggested is to go in and meet with a special educator at the high school level and go over transition planning face-to-face. Last year, in the school year of 17-18, they met with 277 special educators face-to-face and about 20 high schools. This year so far, 18-19, they met with 219 special educators face-to-face. She stated they have upped their game a bit and have a Part 1 of the training and now have a Part 2 which goes over some of those necessary components thats outside of compliance that is specific to whats happening nationally. Theyve also updated their MOU with Vocational Rehabilitation (VR). She stated VR has been updated and she meets with Libby Stone-Sterling frequently. Theyve also started a small initiative of cross-agency collaboration that Libby and Roberta are working on together. One of their initiatives or goals for this small committee of cross agencies is to establish a youth initiative board - getting youth directly involved. This is just in its infancy. A few years ago, they received a small grant from the National Technical Assistance Center (NTAC) and even though the grant has now expired, they continue this partnership. They continue to work with NTAC and they recommended them for a pilot program that was initiated through the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, looking at children with disabilities and mental health. There were 3 curricula they were proposing: 1. Student-led IEPs 2. Community and agency engagement 3. Career and technical education She stated they won the career and technical partnership with them and had about 12 schools come in, (school districts and high school staff) and received training on all three curricula. They also had four districts (Farmington, Saco, Westbrook, and Yarmouth) that agreed to be part of the pilot. They were the pilot sites for the career and technical curriculum encouraging students with emotional disabilities and mental health problems to be enrolled. This started last fall but the training was a year ago this month. The pilot itself started in February and they have collected data through June and are affirming more data as they go forward. Roberta stated she will provide a copy of the pre-published edition she will send to Jennifer Kimble via email. She stated they are excited because this was a population of high risk, high need that now has some opportunities. Roberta pointed out one of the big things they promote is assessments for career engagement and career interests for students at the high school level. She stated they are always looking for assessments for them because they feel thats probably the best indicator of adaptability of students into a career path. Theyre promoting as many assessments they can find. Theyve collected a notebook of assessments that they district to each high school when they go in and do the training. She reiterated, they continue to encourage face-to-face opportunities of special educators so they understand the importance of transition planning and especially employment and the training beyond high school. It doesnt have to be college. It can be an on-the-job training but employment is a big part of it, and independent living. Their mission is to focus on those 3 initiatives of training and/or education beyond high school, employment beyond high school, and independent living beyond high school. Roberta stated one of the challenges in special education right now is finding enough special educators to meet the demand that the schools have. There is a huge need out there for special educators, for education techs to work in districts. The demand of special education itself is very high.

State & Legislative updates Jennifer Kimble stated the former LCRED committee has been split up and Labor is now part of the Labor and Housing committee. For this committee, she believes its the Labor and Housing committee they will be following up on in terms of the Employment First recommendations. Jennifer stated there is a new Commissioner of Labor (Acting), Laura Fortman and asked Karen Fraser if she would like to talk about who she is. Karen Fraser stated Laura Fortman was their Commissioner prior to the last administration and returned officially on Monday. She stated its wonderful to have somebody arriving who knows the Department of Labor. She clearly has stayed connected in understanding disability and specifically related to subminimum wage. However, she needs to go through the confirmation process and she needs to assemble her leadership team. Karen asked Peaches if she had anything she would like to add? Peaches Bass stated the committee should invite Commissioner Fortman to the next meeting for a few minutes or sometime in the future. Jeanie Coltart stated she thinks it would be a good idea to invite Laura Fortman to one of our meetings or if some of us can meet with her at her office. She stated she has mentioned something like this before, one idea being for the Governors office to have an aid who would focus on disability and employment issues. Jennifer Kimble - Staying on the state/legislative updates, stated from a conversation with Cheryl Moran, the Chair of the State Workforce Board is now vacant that was previously held by Fred Webber. And the Directors position of the State Workforce Board also is vacant. Jennifer asked Cheryl if the Directors position has been posted. Cheryl stated it has not but should be soon. Jennifer stated because of the transition without a Chair, we have a slight problem to appoint new members according to our Bylaws. A recommendation was made to go ahead and be prepared when the new Chair is appointed. Jennifer asked if anyone had any discussions about Renee Doble being an official member and did everyone have the chance to review her resume. Donald Rice called motion to move that the committee accept Renee as a member and recommend her to the head of the Workforce Board. Gayla Dwyer seconded. Jennifer asked all in favor. Motion passed. Jennifer told Renee she is one step closer to being official and thanked her for the interest and happy to have her. Jennifer stated the other person who attended a meeting is Amie Parker but she could not make it today. She stated she has a phone call scheduled with her next week to talk about membership moving forward. And then perhaps at the March meeting, we can strategize about other members. Jeanie Coltart suggested since we have an Administration that is moving fast, we should schedule our next meeting in February. Meeting every 2 months right now is not good.
Jennifer agreed to talk with Cheryl about space availability for February.

Review and approve November meetings minutes, membership vote Jennifer Kimble asked if everyone had a chance to review the 11/07/18 minutes. Karen Fraser stated theres a correction for DBVI and Brenda Drummond. Donald Rice called for motion after correction. Gayla Dwyer seconded. Minutes approved after correction.

Review and approve annual report draft, plan for 2019 Jennifer Kimble asked if everyone had the chance to read the report. Jennifer stated she really tried this year to represent the work they have done in this room over the past year and to best represent what the incoming Legislature and Administration needs to know. She stated she is open to discussion and feedback about things to be edited, adjusted, things that are missing in terms of representing last years work, and then we can have another conversation about the plan (the last page) which is really the draft plan for 2019. Peaches Bass mentioned she receives a newsletter on access design that she believes is coming out of Alpha One. This newsletter is all about various accessibility from the architectural standpoint. She stated the most recent one had a little report on a guide thats been developed in the greater Portland area around transportation and accessibility. Peaches stated she will send the link to Cheryl so we can take a look and see if that will be helpful around the recommendations. Transportation is a huge workforce problem in Maine and a personal problem for people who cant get to where they need to go regardless. Jeanie Coltart agreed by stating its absolutely a problem if you live in rural areas. Jennifer stated as you can see, for this report, I really streamlined the messaging around transportation because it really is a huge issue and not something the commission itself can address but it continues to be a significant issue, and nobody seems to have an answer. Karen Fraser stated she has one suggestion around the transportation recommendation; be specific, identify solutions to this need, some emphasis on PWD, and to include viable options for PWD. Jennifer stated also specifically work-related transportation. Jennifer stated she will add at the end of the sentence to include work-related transportation options for PWD. Jeanie Coltart stated its a huge problem for people who have to work at night. Jennifer asked Jeanie if there is language she can suggest we add to this section around transportation in terms of working in the evening and at night, or do you think having the flexible solutions and the multiple options would address that concern? Gayla Dwyer suggested, or it could be something as simplistic as including after the word "options for work" 24/7. Jeanie responded to Jennifers question stating it depends on where people live as far as viable options for transportation goes. Jennifer concluded stating she will make some edits to the transportation section. Jennifer stated she thinks where she struggles is how much we really can do and knowing that its really a short period of time but she thinks having the Employment First recommendations has been very helpful. Also, having something in law that they can follow up on, report out, and really take that up has given them an opportunity unlike they have had before, or unlike theyve taken before. Jennifer stated in terms of advising the Legislature and the Governor around transportation, I dont know other than to say you need a better solution, this cannot come off your radar screen, you need to remember PWD. Jeanie Coltart stated yes, our commission needs to be more forceful and advocating. She pointed out in discussions about transportation and improving transportation, the question of money to finance expansion will come up. Jennifer then asked so what do you all think about adjusting the last number 3 where is says public perceptions and to have something thats more inclusive of specific barriers, still coordinating with stakeholder groups, trying to work on things together, but weave in the other pieces of the report that arent necessarily represented in our plans right now for 2019? Donald Rice responded, I think we are on the right path for changing number 3 but we also want to make sure we keep the number of pages down because people do not like to read long and lengthy paperwork. Jennifer responded I do think we might be able to add one more bullet there and adjust the language. Gayla Dwyer stated simply include the accessibility to work which is inclusive of having access to transportation. Jennifer called motion to accept the report with those edits made. Donald Rice motioned. Gayla Dwyer seconded. Motioned approved. Jennifer asked Cheryl if the report has been sent to the Legislature/Governor? I know this report is part of the State Workforce Development Boards annual report. Cheryl responded no it has not. Tim Sardano is the only person in Communications right now. The report will run by the Commissioner. We are hoping to have it submitted next week. Jennifer stated she would like to send this report independently so its not just buried in the whole board report. She also stated she would like the Commissioner and the legislative committee chairs to receive a copy. She stated she wants to make sure she is not going about this in the wrong way. Cheryl suggested to speak to Josh Howe what the proper protocol would be.

Other/Next Meeting Jennifer Kimble asked at our next meeting, to go back and look at those minutes and think about what from those recommendations, and frankly, from our recommendations, we would want to follow-up on. What are our specific asks of the Legislature? This can be our discussion at our next meeting regardless of who else is there. Karen Fraser stated it would be super helpful if there was an email sent that attached those three sets of minutes versus searching myself and finding each one from Cheryl, if that would be possible. Cheryl stated she will forward the three sets of minutes to everyone and will check to see what dates in February are available. Jennifer stated unless we can get a date in February, which we will try to do, our next meeting is March 20th here.

Adjourn Gayla Dwyer called motion to close the meeting. Donald Rice seconded. Meeting adjourned.

Next Meeting March 20, 2019 from 9:00 noon in the Frances Perkins Room, 45 Commerce Drive, Augusta.

Respectfully submitted by Cheryl Moran

Attachments