A.P.P.L.E. Institute

A.P.P.L.E. brings together family (SEPAC), school, and community leaders to form strong, collaborative teams within their school district. These teams work together to improve student outcomes, strengthen family–school relationships, and create more effective and inclusive district practices.

Participants learn and practice skills such as:

• Family engagement: how and why to partner with families
• Communication and collaboration
• Shared leadership, decision-making, and consensus-building
• Goal setting and action planning
• Promoting and sustaining change

Research shows that when families, schools, and communities work together, students do better. A.P.P.L.E. is designed to turn that research into real action.

Through training, discussion, facilitated group meetings, and collaborative activities during and between A.P.P.L.E meetings, teams work together to name their strengths, needs, and opportunities. This helps them co-create and achieve a goal that is designed to significantly improve student outcomes by making changes to policies, programs, or practices in the district.

Attendance at all meetings is expected for positive team development, and so all members of the team gain a shared language and build trusting relationships.

Each participant brings valuable experience and perspective. Teams include a combination of:

• SEPAC leaders and family members
• School and district administrators (e.g., special education directors, principals, superintendents, family engagement staff)
• Leaders from community organizations that support students with disabilities or (after school programs, employment programs, recreation department, city/town library, associations that serve specific populations such as culture-based groups, etc.)

Participants benefit by:

• Developing a shared understanding of why family voice matters
• Building trust and reciprocal respect across roles
• Improving communication within the team and with all families
• Learning and practicing effective team skills
• Conducting a strengths, needs, opportunities, and threats (S-N-O-T) analysis that can be reused for future goal setting
• Co-designing and completing meaningful team goals
• Learning from challenges and celebrating successes
• Discovering community and statewide resources
• Learning family engagement principles and best practices

District teams are selected in June 2026. There will be pre-APPLE Institute activities to participate in from June through September:

• June/July: Attend six (6) 1-hour “SEPAC Summer School” sessions (live virtual trainings in the evening on workdays)
• August/September: watch approximately 2 hours of pre-recorded videos on various, relevant topics (asynchronous)

A.P.P.L.E is a robust program intended for family-led groups and school district staff who are ready and eager to improve communication and collaboration. It includes learning components, facilitated meetings, and work between those meetings.

This includes:

• Participating in six 1-hour weekly sessions of SEPAC Summer School (mid-June to the end of July)
• Watching 2 -3 hours of training videos
• Participating in two 2-hour All-Teams meetings (October & April)
• Participating in two 90-minute meetings to complete your analysis for strengths, needs, opportunities, and threats and set your team goals (November)
• Participating in four 1-hour monthly team meetings with your FCSN APPLE facilitator (December – March
• Determined by your team’s chosen goals: your team will schedule additional times to meet and do the work to progress your team’s goals. Please note: those meetings will not include your APPLE facilitator, although they can check in with you between monthly meetings.

In early October, all teams will meet together: 

All-Teams Meeting: Thursday October 1st, 10am-12pm

No later than Friday, May 22nd, 2026, complete the A.P.P.L.E. Institute team application. Four to six school districts are accepted to the A.P.P.L.E. Institute each school year. All are encouraged to apply. Each team submits a single application AND each person named in the application must submit a Participation Agreement.

An application is complete when:

1. The application is submitted to the A.P.P.L.E Institute using the link found at the top and bottom of this page. The application must be co-completed by a family leader and school staff leader who are named in the application as participants.
2. Families: A minimum of 3 family members of the SEPAC (who are not ALSO school staff) must each submit a Participation Agreement form. Additional SEPAC members who are also school staff may also attend. But, a minimum of 3 family members must not work for the school district. Maximum number of family members is 6.
3. Superintendent: The superintendent must submit a Superintendent Agreement form that authorizes school staff participation. Superintendents are NOT required to participate, although they are always welcome to attend A.P.P.L.E. meetings.
4. School Administrators: A minimum of 2 must each submit a Participation Agreement form. Examples of school administrators: district and school level leaders from special education, pupil services, curriculum, family engagement and civil rights . The director in charge of special education services is required to participate as they have the ability to authorize staff and funding for goals. A.P.P.L.E. team membership must be 50% or more family members.
5. Community Organization Leader(s): 1-3 relevant community organization leaders must each submit a Participation Agreement form. Examples of relevant community organizations are ones that serve students with disabilities in your community: Boys & Girls Club, YMCA, library, Brazilian/Cape Verdean/Haitian cultural center (any community), faith-based institutions and organizations, recreation department, LGBTQIA+ youth organization (ex: AGLY), teen center, newcomer center, local Arc, etc.

A.P.P.L.E teams must have at least 6 members and can be as large as 12 members. Each team must consist of at least 50% family members.

All teams who apply to be included in the A.P.P.L.E. Institute’s 2026-2027 Cohort will be notified by June 2026 whether or not your team has been selected.