As members of the WW-P Board of Education waited for the polls to close on November 4 (see story, above), WW-P special services supervisor Deborah Batchelor presented an update on the district’s special education program review. This program review originated after consultant Michele Wilson Kamens issued a report in September, 2012, that identified numerous problems in the district’s special services programs and offered nearly 100 recommendations for improvement.
Batchelor’s update delineated what recommendations the district has already addressed or is currently implementing, as well as the next steps the department plans to take to further address outstanding issues. More than 20 parents were in attendance at the meeting, to hear the report and comment on the findings.
Batchelor said that the district had expanded its special education program offerings and had increased professional development training for teachers and staff who work with special education children. “We are also working very hard to expand interventions and other educational options for general education students, in an effort to better integrate special education and general educations students, rather than dividing and separating out students, and also to lessen the need for classifying students. This was one of the report’s recommendations, and we strongly support it. To that end, we have developed a tier program, with the first tier being basic support within the classroom, the second tier being a pull-out option for students for certain subjects, and so on. The idea is to mainstream special education students as much as possible, and to reduce the need for struggling general education students to be classified.”
Board Vice President Richard Kaye complimented the department for this approach, saying he strongly supported the idea of integration.
District parent and pediatrician Anna Sechser-Perl commented on this issue as well. “As a pediatrician and as a mother, I believe that early intervention is crucial. The identification of children who need special help is often delayed for years, putting these students at a disadvantage. How are these students identified? There are no grades in elementary school, so how are students who need early intervention chosen? Are there any criteria or objective measures? I have seen that there are a lot of students who should be classified who aren’t, and I want to know if the district looks at students who don’t get classified early? Early classification and intervention is crucial to students’ progress, and would save the district a lot of money later on, so better identification would be beneficial to everyone.”
Batchelor noted one area in which the district was not doing well was the disproportionality, based on race, in the numbers of students who require early intervention special services.
“This is the second year in a row that the district has been cited by the state for this issue. In our district, minority students, particularly African-American students, are disproportionally included in the lowest functioning segment of our students, especially in the area of reading. We are working hard to address and correct this disparity. We are training general education teachers to work with these struggling students in kindergarten, we have purchased additional, targeted reading programs, and we are trying to better coordinate our early intervention services.”
Parent and special education advocate Denise Dwyer also discussed an area of possible deficiency. “I am pleased that the board has included the special services department in its rotation of departmental program reviews — that is a very positive sign,” she said. “However, one area that has not been mentioned is the area of social skills instruction, which is very important for many special education students.”
Batchelor also noted that the district had created a Special Education Parent Teacher Student Association (SEPTSA) as well as a separate parent advisory group and a newsletter, to facilitate communication between the district and parents of special education children.
This aspect of the presentation raised some disagreement from parents. Kathleen Moriarty, one of the vice presidents of SEPTSA, challenged the idea that the district was communicating effectively with parents of special needs students. “We were hopeful that this process would be more collaborative [between the district and SEPTSA]. We haven’t seen it. There is no vertical communication with parents when their kids are transitioning between schools, no communication about staffing shortages.”
“Also, there should be collaboration between SEPTSA and the parent-advisory group. We ask for information about what has been discussed, and we are told it is not available, even though Deb Batchelor sits on SEPTSA’s board. There should be a parent from SEPTSA who is also on the parent advisory group.”
Batchelor said one topic suggested by board member Scott Powell was a survey of the parents, teachers, and staff who have worked with special education students, as well as the students, to find out if the community felt the implementations were working.
“We think a survey is a great idea, because we really want to know if we are doing our jobs correctly and meeting the needs of the special education community. We are currently developing the survey and expect to be distributing it shortly, and welcome any and all input,” Batchelor said.
Powell, whose wife, Michelle Powell, is the president of SEPTSA, asked Batchelor, “Are you pleased with the progress your department has made two years after the report was issues?”
“Yes,” said Batchelor. “We have made lots of improvements. We are more cognizant of children’s needs, and we are working more collaboratively with parents. There are areas we still need to improve, but we are doing well so far. But I am curious to see what the survey’s results will show. Then we will have a better measure of how well we are really doing.”
