COBB AUTISM SPECTRUM SUPPORT GROUP MEETING NOTICE

THURSDAY—OCTOBER 16, 2008
MORNING MEETING - 9:30 a.m. to 11:30a.m.

Presenter: Carmen Hernandez-Freemire; Georgia Department of Education
Topic: The Georgia Special Needs Scholarship~Senate Bill 10

The Georgia Special Needs Scholarship program is a scholarship program
for special education students which was created by Senate Bill 10
(SB-10) during the 2007 Georgia State Legislature. The bill was
sponsored by Georgia Senator Eric Johnson from Savannah. Georgia
House Representative, David Casas (Lilburn), carried the bill to the
House. It was signed into law on May 18, 2007 by Governor Sonny
Purdue, and went into affect during the 2007-2008 school year. Under
this law, state money that would ordinarily go to a public school
system for the education of a special-needs child is used to fund a
voucher that is paid to the child's private school instead. Since the
scholarship program has been operating for just a little over a year,
most parents of special children know very little about the program
and have many questions regarding its use and application. That's why
we are very fortunate that Carmen Hernandez-Freemire is coming to
speak with our support group. She is an Education Research and
Evaluation Specialist with the Georgia Department of Education, and in
this role, she is directly involved with SB10. Please come listen to
her presentation, and bring your all SB10 questions with you!


NOTE REGARDING EVENING MEETINGS
For the 2008-2009 school year, the majority of our meetings will be
held in the morning. Currently, we are trying to schedule at least
two night meetings during the school year. For these meetings, we are
working to secure speakers and professionals who will discuss topics
that will have broad appeal to a large number of families. Future
e-mails will update you on our progress in this area.


RSVP
In order to set up the meeting room properly, it is important for us
to have an idea regarding the number of people who will be coming.
Please let us know if you are planning on attending the meeting by
sending an RSVP to Karen Kolacinski at kkola@....

DIRECTIONS:
Our meetings are held at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church in the "B"
building located near the front of the church campus. Our meeting
room is B116, next to the church library. Directions to Mt. Bethel
are as follows: From I-75 take exit #261, Delk Road and head East
(opposite Dobbins Air Force Base). If exiting Northbound, turn right
onto Delk Road. If exiting Southbound, turn left onto Delk. Follow
Delk Road until it runs into Terrell Mill Road and turn left. Terrell
Mill eventually turns into Lower Roswell Road. From I-75 the church
is approximately 5 miles. It is a large yellow church on the left,
and a police/fire station is across the street on the right. Turn
into any church driveway. The parking spaces at the front of the
parking lot will be the ones closest to Building "B."


MESSAGE BOARD:
Our support group message board is a great way to ask questions and to
share information with everyone in our group. Joining is easy. Just
go to our website: www.asgcobb.com and click on the "News" tab at the
top of the home page. Then look for the "Yahoo Groups" Icon at the
bottom of the page to sign up!