SOUTH LAKE TAHOE, Calif. – The Community Advisory Committee (CAC) that advises the Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) was issued an apology after an incident with an interim SELPA director caused parents to walk out. The CAC is now facing more challenges as they’ve been asked to comply with Brown Act regulations, which Chairman Darrell Miller says is taking up valuable time that they would rather spend training parents to advocate for their children.

Miller says that the CAC has existed for about eight years in its current capacity to advise the SELPA. For special education, especially in rural districts, counties are usually joined together in a SELPA—the South Tahoe area and Alpine County are in the same SELPA, for example.

As an advisory body, the CAC is meant to tell the SELPA members how to improve the program. Here in Tahoe, special needs parents have particularly focused on individual education plans or IEPs. Ensuring that these are written and executed properly is one of the most important tools that guardians of special needs children can utilize to make sure their children have access to education. A CAC is mandatory under the California Department of Education, as they are required to sign on SELPA documentation before it is submitted to the department. For the past three years, Miller has signed those documents.

But at a recent meeting with the interim SELPA director Michelle Boyd, members walked out after being treated as if they were simply members of the public. “We’re not the public, we’re the committee,” said Miller.

Bill Roderick previously served as the SELPA director, but was selected to serve as Alpine County’s interim superintendent. Because he would have one of the votes on the SELPA control board, he elected to find an interim director while he filled the position. Boyd took on the position in early January.

Though she had met once with Miller, he was surprised that before their CAC meeting, Boyd had removed their agenda and replaced it with her own. “She told us that she would be taking the lead and would put together her own agenda, and relegated us to public comment.”

Miller says that she cited that they were not Brown Act compliant, which he pushed against on several counts—including that, by changing the agenda so close to the meeting, Boyd had actually made their meeting non-compliant. She also told them in an email that “the lack of a formal appointment process has created a gap in transparent communication and community representation.”

“Really, it was a SELPA director meeting, not a CAC meeting,” said Miller.

Boyd reportedly also filed a complaint against a member of the Alta Regional Center for asking her questions over email.

During the meeting, Boyd only allowed Miller three minutes to read his statement on the CAC. According to the relevant bylaws, there is no reason for a CAC meeting to limit public comment to three minutes. Other members ceded their time to him to finish his statement. “The way you have introduced yourself to the special education community has only fostered more distrust and uncertainty… you have not met with stakeholders or other CAC members to understand the history of what we have worked to accomplish for the sake of our children,” read Miller. “Instead, you have ignored the history that exists between this community and the districts within the SELPA as if there has never been a CAC.”

When Boyd made it clear that she was not allowing Miller to chair the meeting, he and several others left. The remainder of the February 25 meeting had Boyd speaking on how they needed a formalized CAC. The agenda Boyd set forth for the meeting is no longer available online.

Boyd did not respond for comment. Teresa Schow told the Tribune that Boyd is serving as the interim director until Roderick returns to the position on July 1.

“We’ve been recognized as a CAC for eight years, and legally, I’ve been recognized as the chair of the CAC since I’ve signed off on the SELPA for the last three years,” said Miller. “The lack of a formal appointment for CAC members is not on us—it’s on their side. Nobody told us that we needed to do this until now.”

Miller acknowledged that if they needed to get things formalized, they would. Their upcoming CAC meeting will formalize specific bylaws including virtual recording, dealing with disputes, autonomy and non-retaliation clauses. They will also begin the process of filling out relevant forms for the CAC, which Miller noted were outdated in the previous SELPAs.

“It’s frustrating though. This is not what we’re supposed to be doing. We’re supposed to help children get unfettered access to the best education they deserve,” said Miller.

Superintendent Todd Cutler and previous SELPA director Bill Roderick issued an apology on March 10 acting as the SELPA governance council. In it, they say they “sincerely regret and apologize that the meeting did not reflect our appreciation for your efforts and engagement.” Boyd will reportedly be limited in her interactions with the parents.

However, parent Jesse Kravchuk complained at the March 12 meeting about the way the situation was handled and the costs of hiring Boyd. “How much are you paying her to stay at home and be quiet for the rest of her contract? A hundred grand plus a year, for an employee that’s been instructed not to interact with parents anymore?”

Kravchuk demanded accountability from the board regarding Cutler, around both his pay and his behavior. He referenced an incident where employees of Sierra House spoke to the board rather than to Cutler about issues they were having. Lastly, he spoke about how Cutler reportedly failed to inform staff about a special training offered by an outside consultant on how to properly write IEPs—a consistent issue in the district.

Kravchuk and Miller both feel that there has been a lack of accountability from the district regarding how special education has been handled. Miller’s statement read, “The Tahoe-Alpine SELPA has been in noncompliance for 46 years, since 1980, when CACs became a requirement of the SELPA by the CDE… for the last eight years, none of our requests and recommendations for the assessment and improvement of special education within the SELPA’s districts have been implemented.”

The Lake Tahoe Unified School District is currently undergoing an audit for its special education programs, which was approved by the board last year. Miller agrees that it will likely go in more depth, which he’s grateful for. “Still, would we have even needed the audit if we had operated in the spirit of collaboration?”

“This is an already marginalized class of people. It just breaks my heart that this class of people keeps getting told no,” said Miller. “We’ve created this community here for years. We need people who are going to take a hard stance for these students.”