IPUL's E-News for April 10, 2020

Here are the highlights of our recent activity online. Not all everything is included due to timeliness. If an advertised event already took place, we've left it off.

IPUL Is Here For You! The best method to reach us is through our website request form:    https://ipulidaho.org/connect-with-us   We are still monitoring our   intake phone line   several times a day, and will try to respond to any request there within 24 hours.  For questions that are  not  about something in our  scope of work , you can still leave a phone message as above, or send us an email at  parents@ipulidaho.org   - this account will be monitored daily, but is not as heavily monitored as the main intake systems.

We keep constantly updating our COVID-19 page with new information as it becomes available: https://ipulidaho.org/covid-19-information

School Is Soft-Closed for the Rest of the Year*

The Idaho State Board of Education has voted unanimously to extend the soft closure of all school districts through the end of each of their school years *OR until a district is able to meet certain criteria for re-opening that will be developed with their local public health officials. The Board will discuss criteria at next week's meeting. For a full story on this, click this link You can actually watch an archive of the board meeting where this was decided - it was streamed live to Facebook here.

The CDC Reccomends Everyone Wear Cloth Masks in Public

The CDC recently updated their guidelines that everyone wear a cloth face mask in public. Here's their page with instructions on how to create a sewn, no-sew bandanna, or converted t-shirt cloth face mask.

The Council for Exceptional Children Responds to the CARES Act: IDEA during COVID-19

We posted this letter from CEC President Jennifer Lesh regarding the CARES act and waivers for IDEA: " T o be clear, we expect that these flexibilities should only be granted during the COVID 19 pandemic and that state and local education agencies, parents, and families should continue to work together in the interests of children with disabilities. And we believe, as long as our community continues to provide a free appropriate public education , we can build these temporary flexibilities into our system without altering IDEA and still allow those on the frontline of special education to focus on delivering services to students with exceptionalities." Click here to read the entire letter

Will the Stimulus Check Impact Your Medicaid Elegibility?

For SSI recipients who will receive a stimulus check and are worried about their Medicaid eligibility: In a blog post, the commissioner of the Social Security Administration said that coronavirus stimulus payments will not be counted as income for Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. He said the payments will be “excluded from resources for 12 months.” So no. You can read the entire article here

More Tools to Use During the Soft Closure | Archived Webinar From the Special Education Director

Tuesday's Special Education Director's Webinar provided even more guidance, tools, and resources for schools to use during the extended soft-closure. The webinar is now available on the Idaho Training Clearinghouse site. You can also access some of the shared resources by going there. One that was shared by Idaho SESTA was their behavior resources padlet. You can find that here: https://padlet.com/idahosesta/erp1hvcwy6f6

IPUL Went Live Again!

The staff and some guests at Idaho Parents Unlimited went live this week to discuss many topics in a casual conversation format - you can watch it archived here: https://www.facebook.com/IdahoParentsUnlimited/videos/156298805701196/

Processiong Together: Arts Education for Students with Disabilities during COVID-19

Did you the webinar, Processing Together Arts Education for Students with Disabilities during COVID19? You can now access the recording and listen (or read the transcript) to the conversation we had last night. Thank you to all of the panelist and attendees for making this webinar such a rich conversation and for sharing resources. We thank you for making our community even stronger! #ProcessingTogether Find the recording at https://bit.ly/PTRecording

Statewide Training for April- Current Events and Planning For a Healthy Transition to Adulthood

Adulting is Hard... But Planning Ahead Can Make It Easier! Obviously, with the current pandemic we will be expanding the focus of this training to include current topics, but we will still be discussing how to prepare youth for transitioning to adulthood with a goal of independent health care management. Topics include managing appointments, medication, oral health, mental health, coping with the pandemic and more. UPDATE: WE ARE ONLY DOING ONE TRAINING - THE EVENING TRAINING Wednesday, April 15, 2020 6:00 - 7:00 p.m. Broadcast live from the Boise office our homes and interactive via webinar from anywhere with an internet connection Idaho Parents Unlimited 4619 Emerald St., Ste. E Boise, ID 83706 (not that anyone will actually be at the office) REGISTER: https://ipulidaho.org/statewide-rsvp Phone: (208) 342-5884 Email: parents@ipulidaho.org