Welcome to SAD #4 Special Education
25 Campus Drive, Drop 2
Guilford, Me 04443
Phone: 876-4635 Fax: 876-4363
tkurt [at] sad4 [dot] com (Trisha Kurt), Special Education Director
lhanscome [at] sad4 [dot] com (Laurie Hanscom), Administrative Assistant
SAD #4 offers extensive services to students with disabilities ranging from direct special education instruction to modifications and accommodations in the regular education classroom.
What is special education?
Special Education is designed to make sure that students with educationally-related disabilities have an appropriate education. It includes specially trained teachers and special teaching materials and techniques. It includes programs for students with any of the following conditions that interfere with education: mental retardation, emotional disabilities, learning disabilities, visual or hearing impairments, speech or language impairments, health problems, physical disabilities, autism or traumatic brain injury. Special education is intended to give students with educational disabilities a better chance of success in school. Special education may be provided in a regular classroom where the teacher gets help from an special education teacher or the student may receive help in a resource room, speech room or other specially designed educational settings. The important point is that special education is designed with the individual student's needs in mind and that it provides an education that will benefit the student. All educationally disabled students are entitled to educational and supportive services that will meet their needs at no cost to the parents.
What are supportive services?
Supportive services are those that are necessary if a student is to benefit from special education services. These may include special transportation, physical and occupational therapy and speech services. Not all services from which a student may benefit are included under law as a supportive service. You child will be entitled only to the supportive services found to be necessary for your child to benefit from special education services. For example, if the child is in need of physical therapy becuase of a muscular problem but that muscular problem does not effect the child's education, the child would not be entitled to physical therapy through special education.
Disabilities
In the Maine Special Regulations, the Department of Education defines "students with disabilities." The state has a duty to provide a free appropriate public education to those students. According to this definition, a student with a disability is an individual who:
- has reached the age of 5 years on or before October 15;
- has neither graduated from a secondary school program with a regular high school diploma nor reached 20 years of age at the start of the school year;
- has a disability which adversely affects the student's educational perfomrance and requires the provision of special education services in order that the student may benefit from an elementary or secondary educational program.
According to the state's definition, a student with a disability will have one or more of the following disabilities.
Child Find
SAD #4 seeks to ensure that all students within its jurisdiction are identified, located and evaluated who are school-age (5 through the school year in which they turn 20) and who are in need of special education and supportive services. Those students may include students attending private school within SAD #4 or students being homeschooled or who are in home schooling programs who are suspected of having a disability and in need of special education and supportive servcies. Identification of students with disabilities and programming for such students occurs after an appropriate evaluation and a determination of eligibility is conducted by the IEP Team.
Parents, physicians, private school educators and other persons who are aware of a child who may require special education and supportive services are asked to contact the Director of Special Education, SAD #4, 876-4635 for further information.
MSAD #4 Teaching Staff
| Piscataquis Community Elementary School (Grades K-6) | Piscataquis Community Secondary School (Grades 7-12) |
| jclawson [at] sad4 [dot] com (Jolane Clawson), Resource Room - 4 - 6 | bweymouth [at] sad4 [dot] com (Beth Weymouth), Resource Room - 7 - 9 |
| sconnolly [at] sad4 [dot] com (Shelley Connolly), Self Contained - K - 6 | nthompson [at] sad4 [dot] com (Natalie Thompson), Resource Room - 10 - 12 |
| jmceachern [at] sad4 [dot] com (Jen McEachern), Resource Room - K - 3 | lrandall [at] sad4 [dot] com (Lenora Randall), Self-Contained - 7-12 |
| Related Service Providers | Related Service Providers |
| ktaylor [at] sad4 [dot] com (Kate Taylor), Occupational Therapist | beworster [at] sad4 [dot] com (Bethany Worster), Speech/Language Therapist |
| jstpeter [at] sad4 [dot] com (Jennifer St. Peter) - Occupational Therapy Assistant |
cstutzman [at] sad4 [dot] com (Craig Stutzman), Speech/Language Therapist Assistant |
| Fran Moore, Physical Therapist |
Disposition Schedule
SAD #4 destroys the educational records of its special education students at the end of the school year in which the student turns 27 years old. Parents or adult students wishing to obtain these records should contact SAD #4 Special Education Department at 876-4635.