Dear Parents of the Washington DC Area,

[Guest guest]

FYI

Mike Savory

April 23, 2002

Dear Parents of the Washington DC Area,

The National DSS has invited me to assist them in providing information to

parents and families of children, youth and adults with disabilities. Our new

policy team is working to keep you informed re: IDEA and other policy issues of

importance for you.

At this time the most crucial area of our work is the protection of IDEA.

President Bush established a Commission on Excellence in Special

Education to collect information and study issues related to Federal, State, and

local special education programs with the goal of recommending policies for

improving the education performance of students with disabilities.

To date, the work of the commission has caused great concern within the advocate

community. As a result of this concern, we are working to provide you with

information so that you and your fellow-parents can impact the outcome of the

work of this commission.

On April 26, 2002 the Commission will hold it's tenth hearing. Attached you will

find information about the upcoming hearing in Washington, DC. At this writing

the Agenda for the meeting is not available. There are talking points that you

might want to use if you choose to testify or write testimony to be sent in to

the Commission. We have learned from the reports of the other hearings that the

Public Comment period is very short and the sign up time, very early in the day.

When the Commission met in Iowa, the parents planned a strategy whereby, they

made the Hearing a " Celebration of the Success of Idea. " Reports were that this

set a very good tone, and parents who testified and wrote testimony focused on

the importance of the program and the success for their children.

Hollye Doane, our lead person for IDEA on the NDSS Policy team in Washington, DC

is requesting all the parents and advocates who give testimony or who sent/send

it in to send copies of their testimony to her in her Washington office. She

will bundle up the testimonies, etc. and take them to the Hill. It is quite

predictable that the parent voices will not be quoted often in the final

blueprint the Commission sends in. This is a great idea.

Hollye Doane

The KDW Group

1200 19th Street, NW, Suite 500

Washington, DC 20036

HDoane@...

Thank you,

Patty

Patty McGill , Senior Policy Advisor

National Down Syndrome Society

psmith@...

1-402-551-0707 (phone)

1-402-551-0709 (fax)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If you are unable to attend and would like to submit testimony you may e-mail it

to troy.justensen@...

or mail it to

The President’s Commission on Excellence in Special Education,

80 F Street, NW Suite 408,

Washington, DC 20208