Message From The Superintendent - June 2021

Greetings! 

We hope everyone is doing well! Here are this month’s updates.  

Portage DD has hired three new positions to improve services here for the people we serve. The three positions will be an IT Specialist, Educational Services Manager, and Community Employment Coordinator. Ryan Knowles will be our new IT Specialist, and he started with Portage DD on June 1st. He will assist our IT Director Gary Slapnicker with improving technology here and working remotely to serve people better. The increased utilization of technology has increased the need for this position. The Educational Service Manager will be Vincent Valerio. He was the Executive Director of Steps to Transition previously. He has a wealth of experience and will work with Alicia Hall, our Director of Education and Child Development, with Happy Day School, Early Intervention, and new services for children. One of Vincent’s focuses will be assisting our local school districts with the needs of kids with developmental disabilities in each section. Vincent started on June 7th. The Community Employment Coordinator will be Tiffany Jones. She is a familiar face and has worked at Leeda NE for over ten years. She will be focusing on finding new employment and helping people maintain employment. We have not had a person filling this role since 2018, and we want to focus on our employee-first policy that looks at employment as the 1st option for any adult with a developmental disability. We are very excited to welcome Ryan, Vincent, and Tiffany! 

After 31 years of service to the children and families of Happy Day School, Mary Ellen has decided to retire at the end of the 2020-2021 school year. Mary Ellen is an Instructor Assistant at the school. I would like to extend a heartfelt farewell and good luck to Mary Ellen McDonald as she begins the next journey in her life. We will miss her, and the students will miss her as well! Good luck!   

We have decided to open our buildings. Starting June 2nd, we will now have someone at the Coble Building from 8-4. Staff will continue to work remotely and be in the building depending on the day. By having the buildings open, we can now have meetings in the building again. The Happy Day building will be open until the end of the school year, June 10th. They will come back to school a little earlier this next school year. The 1st day of school for the 2021-2022 school year will be August 25th. We will now start doing home visits and face-to-face visits again more frequently; although some staff still will not be working in the office all the time, face-to-face visits have already begun based on the wants/needs of the person and family.   

There have been three new COVID cases since our 2nd vaccine clinic for people at Happy Day School on March 5th. One case in late March and two cases in May. None of those three people received the COVID-19 vaccinations. We continue to be impressed by the great job the people, families, and providers do so everyone remains safe. It appears we are turning the corner and heading in the right direction.  

Our summer camp at Happy Day School starts June 14th through August 6th. The camp will be eight weeks instead of 6 weeks this year. We again contracted with Akron Rotary Camp and are excited to have this since we could not do so last year.  

We have only eight days of school in June at Happy Day before the 2020-2021 school year ends. Everyone has done a tremendous job with in-person services for most of the school year. We again express our appreciation to the students, families, and staff! Incredible job!  

Portage DD has changed our guidelines for our Family Support Services Program (FSSP). FSSP is a program Portage DD fully funds and North East Ohio Network (NEON) runs. Starting July 1st, 2021- June 30th, 2022, Family Support Funds will be open to eligible people with developmental disabilities that do not currently have a waiver. The difference for this fiscal year is that there is no financial eligibility guideline as there was in the past. If you are eligible for services and do not have a waiver, you will qualify for the FSSP funds. We have added additional funds for siblings and special circumstances for increased respite funding. We have partnered with ONDECARE for respite as well. Please see the attached guidelines for further information.  

We sent out an RFP (Request for Provider) to work with a provider to develop a short-term respite location for families that have kids with developmental disabilities. Short-term respite could be a few hours or a few days to give families some much-needed respite. We will be interviewing providers in July to move towards this option sometime late this year or early next year.

Thank you again for your continued support. We are incredibly grateful for all your support! We will get through this together! Portage DD will continue to be available via phone, face-to-face, email, and virtual meeting (ZOOM or TEAMS) as we navigate these unique times together. Portage DD will continue to strive to meet and exceed your expectations. 

WE ARE HERE FOR YOU.

Sincerely,

John Vennetti