FASP Northwest Region

Northwest Region

This is your region if you are in one of the following Counties:
Bay, Calhoun, Escambia, Franklin, Gadsden, Gulf, Holmes, Jackson, Jefferson, Leon, Liberty, Madison, Okaloosa, Santa Rosa, Taylor, Wakulla, Walton, or Washington

Your FASP Northwest Regional Representative is:

Sharon Bartels-Wheeless

Email: faspregion1@gmail.com

NW Regional Workshop - March 2, 2012 (8 AM – 4 PM)
RTI model for Behavior Assessment and Intervention using the BASC-2 family and Social Skills tools
(SSiS & AIMSweb Behavior)
Presented By: Diana Y. Gintner, L.I.C.S.W., Ed.S., N.C.S.P.

Workshop Details | Registration Information

Executive Board Meeting Highlights – April 30-May 1

Budgets cuts impacting school psychologists are a major concern. Duval County School Psychologists have been placed on 10 month contracts resulting in significant financial loss. Palm Beach is anticipating a 10% cut while Polk County School Psychologists are also bracing for cuts.

Advocacy information has been placed on the FASP webpage to assist psychologists in addressing these issues. Also, FASP Executive Board members are available for consultation.

LEGISLATIVE

Bob Cerra, FASP Lobbyist, stated that the upcoming budget is one of the worst for education in recent memory. There is an expected 3.42% reduction in funding.

Retirement – COLAS are being suspended for new employees

Retirement will be based on your highest eight years of your salary rather than the previous highest five years.

With the exception D.R.O.P. enrollees, all employees will be required to pay 3%of their salary into their retirement.

Vacation days and overtime will no longer be used to calculate your final retirement compensation.

NASP

Sarah Valley, NASP Delegate, reported that the prohibition of serving students in your school district has been removed by the NASP Ethics Committee. However, the rule continues to apply to students within the schools served by you.

Sarah also talked about a project “Back the Pack”, a drive to provide food for students who may have little or no food on weekends. Please follow this link to learn more about this most worthy project: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/
vp/42587983#42587983

DOE UPDATE

David Wheeler stated that if parents make a request for an evaluation, the district must proceed or send a notice of refusal. Saying that they must wait for RtI is unacceptable. The evaluation has to be done concurrently with interventions.

IMPORTANT DATES

FASP Elections – May 13 – June 12 PLEASE CHECK YOUR EMAIL

FASP Awards nominations due June 30, 2011

FASP Executive Board meeting – July 18, St. Petersburg, FL – All members are welcome to attend

Summer Institute – July 19-24 – St. Petersburg, FL

FASP Executive Board meeting – October 29, St. Petersburg, FL – All members are welcome to attend

Fall Conference – October 30 – November 1st

FASP would like to congratulate the following Region 1 recipient of February's "Monthly Recognition of Excellence"

Dawn Sanders: Okaloosa County recommends Dawn Sanders for the FASP Monthly Recognition of Excellence. Dawn has distinguished herself by spearheading the RtI initiative in Okaloosa County. She has attended numerous RtI trainings and has worked tirelessly in training school based and district personnel in developing interventions, data collection, graphing, and understanding the decision tree. She has done all this while providing excellent service to the schools in which she is assigned, overseeing a school psychology intern, and voluntarily serving as the lead psychologist for the school psychology team.