Steve Hirase

Dixie Huefner

Jack Rudio

Joyce Barnes

Helen Post

Jerry Christensen

Emily Johnson

Minutes of the 2-4-98 meeting were approved, with the spelling of Jerry's name corrected to "Christensen".

There has been no activity.

The latest version of our sections of the draft Utah rules were mailed to

Task force members before the meeting. Steve had made the recommended changes to the sections on due process. The section on surrogate parents was also included in the mailing.

Steve and Helen reported that the last planning committee meeting was spent on progress reports from the task forces.

Helen noted that the planning committee has chosen to eliminate parental agreement as a requirement for the selection of a hearing officer.

We reviewed the latest draft of the due process hearing section, as well as the draft of the surrogate parent section. See working document for specific changes. We agreed to group all dispute resolution sections together, with due process hearing comprising one subsection. Other subsections will include informal dispute resolution procedures, state complaint procedures, mediation, and litigation. A preface to the section will describe the circumstances for which each procedure is appropriate, noting that some procedures may be used concurrently.

During a discussion of mediation, a concern regarding the qualifications of mediators was raised. Jack mentioned a draft standard from Colorado that he's seen, and offered to bring copies of it to the next meeting. We also discussed building in a process for evaluation of mediators by the parties involved in disputes.

Jack also offered to bring MPRRC's general list of resources for possible inclusion in the user's manual. The list will be shared with other task forces as appropriate.

The group agreed to formally recommend that the second, or appeal, level of the state due process hearing procedure be heard by a three-person tribunal, whose members are to be selected by USOE in the same way that the original hearing officer is selected. We will incorporate the specifics of this process into the rules section on due process hearing.

Our next meeting has been changed. Instead of Wednesday, 3-4-98, we will meet Thursday, 3-5-98 at the ULRC, from 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon.

An additional meeting has been scheduled for Thursday, 4-2-98 at the ULRC, 9:30 a.m. to 12:00 noon.

During the March 5 meeting, we will assign sections to individual task force members so that each of us may begin drafting items for the user's manual. We anticipate that the electronic discussion group may be a useful tool as we write these items.