[Massachusetts-NFB] March MAOPBC Meeting Minutes

[Liz Lesperance]

Good Morning,

Pasted below please find the minutes from our parents' division meeting
which was held yesterday, March. 9th.

Thanks,
Liz Lesperance
Secretary and Treasurer, MA Organization of Parents of Blind Children

**********

The MA Organization of Parents of Blind Children held their monthly meeting
on Thursday, March 9th, at 6:00PM. The meeting began at 6:05PM. Those in
attendance included:

Hai Nguyen Ly

Jennifer Bose

Kyle Stremel

Liz Lesperance

Sengil Inkiala

Stephanie Valdes

Youme Nguyen Ly

Youme read over the February meeting minutes. Hai put forth a motion to
accept the minutes as read which Liz seconded. The February minutes were
approved.

Stephanie encouraged members to please reach out to Shara if you are
interested in helping with the MA Parents' Rights bill.

Liz advised she has a link to the National Council on Disability’s academic
report "Rocking the Cradle" which Justin Salisbury spoke about at our state
convention. The report can be found at:

https://ncd.gov/publications/2012/sep272012/

Hai mentioned that we should utilize a shared workspace to streamline
communications. Google Drive appears to be the preferred cloud-sharing
service. Hai will look into setting this up. We discussed setting up an
MAPOBC Gmail account. Hai will look into setting up an email that goes to
all of our parents' division board members. For real time communication, we
discussed which platforms we prefer. The preferred choice was What's App,
which Stephanie will set up for us. Youme noted that 3 of the 20 POBC
divisions have websites.

Liz will start a spreadsheet with member contact info. Liz has reached out
to the contacts which Margaret secured at a recent Springfield chapter
event. Youme has reached out to Lisa, Evan's mom. Evan is interested in
attending national convention. Inky oversees child services for greater
Boston and has been reaching out to parents to share Stephanie's contact
information for our group.

Kyle, who works for the MCB, shared that on March 25th he is running an
event for an Easter social off of Rte. 290 behind Rotmans. Kyle will pass
our group information along to the parents he is in touch with. In May
there will be a second event which will be more geared towards blind
organizations. The date is pending.

We discussed our IEP event and ways we can increase attendance for future
events. We will need to consider what time works best for parents. We
didn't give ourselves enough lead time to market the event. We might want
to set up a registration process to gage interest. We can reach out to
other parent division groups.  Inky shared that the TVI is the best way to
reach the parents at the schools. Kyle shared that there are parent groups
at Perkins, and he can share are info with them.

Stephanie asked if there is a document from national that we can leave at
our local eye doctors. Inky advised that such a document should emphasize
that this is a support group. We discussed creating a pamphlet for our
group once our shared drive is established.

We discussed joining both the parents of blind children list serve as well
as the blind parents division email list.

Kyle wanted to discuss an issue happening at MCB. He is coming up on 4
years at MCB. During the pandemic, $50,000 in funds were earmarked for
children services. The pandemic highlighted the need for technology (i.e.,
iPads, accessing the curriculum, etc). The earmark is no longer there, and
those funds are evaporating. With the way their funding works they are not
allowed to split the funds between children and adults. Many of the funds
have gone to adults instead of children. State workers are not allowed to
lobby the government because it would be a conflict of interest. For MCB,
children means up to age 14. In many districts, devices given to children
at school aren't allowed to be used at home.  If MCB had a budget allowing
for children to have these devices at home it would be great so they can
practice while at home. Education is vital for students with disabilities.
The MCB is asking for constituents to contact their legislators to advocate
for greater funding for child services, training, and technology.

The meeting adjourned at 7:20PM.

Our next meeting will be Thursday, April 13th at 6:00PM.
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