I served as the chair of the SEAC for Henrico County this past school year.  My comments are in no way shape to be construed as comment from this committee.  They are my own concerns and may or not be shared by the members of the commitee.

I am concerned about the changes to the make up of the local Special Education Advisory Committee.  The local advisory committee currently is made up of parents and agency members.  Your revisisions allow school personnel to become members of the committee.  I believe that what your intent was to allow school employees which have special education children to become members. I believe that the revisions to the regulation in the draft regulations allows for any school employee to become a member of the local SEAC. 

First, are employees of the system going to be able to impartially be able to review and make recommendations that are unpopular or unwanted by their school system.  It puts employees in a very awkward situation wherein the employee will not be able to be 100% impartial and could cause the employee to be able to be manipulated by their employer.  The current system continues to work best and the federal regulations did not make this change. 

Please remove this change from your draft regulations and restore the current regulations regarding local advisory committees.

Thank you.