Parents of some special education children bewail their failure to flourish in a system they have found intimidating, unresponsive and unfriendly.
In the past few years, dozens of parents in the San Ramon Valley have bemoaned publicly that the needs of their children in special education are not being met, which has created friction between them and top administrators in the San Ramon Valley Unified School District.
Many of them have taken school officials into lengthy legal proceedings to resolve their differences, with each party spending thousands of dollars on lawyers to win their arguments. Last year, the district spent more than $800,000 in special education disputes. Of this, $135,000 went to deal with a fraud case with a company that was supposed to provide special services.
This year, the budget for settling legal cases is around $500,000, said District Superintendent Rob Kessler.
Approximately 50 parents complained to Assemblyman Guy Houston (R., District 15) at an emotionally charged meeting last summer. At a follow-up gathering, around 100 parents showed up and several have continued venting to Houston.
“I find the district intimidating,” said Agnes Pawlak, the mother of 7-year-old Trevor, an autistic child. “There are a lot of struggles.”
“It’s unbelievable what we have gone through,” noted Tammy Brock, also a mother of an autistic child. “I don’t think the issues are that difficult to solve.”
“We shouldn’t be considered to be an angry parents group just because we are trying to advocate for our children,” she added. “That’s our job as parents. It’s not just a small group of parents.”
“It’s very confrontational. We need to have a better system than we have now,” said Jim McVay, a father of two children with special needs, who recently ran for school board. “Hundreds and thousands of dollars have been spent on both sides. It shouldn’t come to that.”
“We never like getting to that place,” Kessler said.
District officials and School Board trustees have agreed that special education services need to improve, and they have been working diligently to make learning opportunities available for all students.
Also, they said the majority of parents who have kids with special education were pleased with the district’s services and only a handful of parents have found them unsatisfactory.
Regardless of the number of complaints, they said they are making efforts to revamp the system.
“It’s going to be a priority,” Trustee Joan Buchanan said.
What is special education?
Special education is instruction in public schools that is individually designed for children from birth to age 22 who qualify according to laws and regulations made by the state and federal governments. It is based on the 1975 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the nation’s special education law, according to a 2005 report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Education and the Workforce.Children are eligible for special education if they need special services and meet the age requirements and the disability criteria of the 13 disabling conditions outlined by IDEA.
The disabilities are the following: autism; deafness; deaf-blind; hard of hearing; mental retardation; multi-handicapped; severe orthopedic impairment; health problems such as heart conditions, tuberculosis, rheumatic fever, nephritis and asthma; emotional disturbance; specific learning disability; speech impairment; traumatic brain injury; and visual impairment.
Students are declared eligible if their disability adversely affects their educational performance. An “adverse effect” is when youths fail to receive passing remarks as they progress through the grades.
“It’s a system that’s based on failure,” Buchanan said. She had a dyslexic child in the district who did not qualify for special education because he did well enough in his regular classes.
There are approximately 25,000 students in the district, and roughly 2,400 children are in special education.
IDEA provides billions of federal dollars to assist states and local communities in providing instruction for approximately 6 million students with varying degrees of disabilities who participate in special education, according to the report.
In exchange for federal funding, IDEA requires states to provide a “free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment” and supports due process to ensure the provisions of the law are enacted.
Kessler said the district spends $23 million on special education and has received approximately $16 million to $17 million from federal and state levels combined. He said the district’s general funds make up the difference.
The Contra Costa Special Education Local Planning Area (SELPA) is the regional organization in charge of making sure federal and state funds flow to districts for special education. There are 15 districts and the County Office of Education in the regional SELPA.
“The money that comes from the SELPA – a combination from state and federal – is not based on the number of special education and special needs. It’s based on the total district enrollment,” Kessler said.
The West Contra Costa and Mt. Diablo school districts have their own SELPA because of their large size.
Kessler noted that one of the difficulties with federal and state funding is it does not cover all of the costs for special education.
“It’s not unique to California,” Kessler said.
To qualify for special education, a child and parent must go through an assessment to ascertain whether a child needs special services.
School personnel are responsible for identifying children with exceptional needs and referring them for assessment. Also, the district encourages teachers and parents to join the process.
Parents questioning their child’s progress, either developmentally or academically, should first request a conference with the teacher. A teacher, parent, physician or any other person involved with a child’s educational growth can make a referral to special education.
Assessments include testing and conferences with school professionals such as teachers, nurses, counselors and therapists to determine if a child needs special services. Parents need to provide a written consent to receive an evaluation and also need to participate.
If the assessment finds a child needs special education, the child and the child’s parents or guardians will develop an Individual Education Program (IEP), which creates specific coursework and instruction tailored to the individual needs.
A student’s IEP team may include:
* The student, if appropriate;
* Parents;
* Special education provider;
* A district representative;
* A transition service agency representative;
* A person who can interpret the assessment results;
* A district representative; and
* Others with knowledge or expertise about the child.
Together, the IEP team writes a program for the special needs student. A meeting to write it must be held within 30 days of deciding a child is eligible for special education and related services, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
Also, educators must tell the parents the purpose of the meeting and inform them who will be attending.
Buchanan said this process, with so many specialists involved, can be overwhelming to parents, who are learning how special education works for children.
After the plan begins, progress reports are made to make sure a child is reaching his or her goals. The child is re-evaluated every year.
Parents or guardians have the option of due process if they have issues they feel cannot be resolved informally with administrators.
An emotional process
“We are dealing with children,” Kessler said. “Special education is not a scientific process. It’s an emotional process.”“Parents and staff care very deeply,” he added. “It’s a partnership that’s governed by 4,000 different procedures.”
Relationships have sometimes become contentious in seeking the best quality services and curriculum for youths in special education in the district.
“We are still struggling to work on this,” Tammy Brock said.
Parents have complained that special services are not being provided or are being outright denied to children, she said.
The state Department of Education had found the district “out of compliance” by not providing speech language or occupational therapy for Brock’s son, according to a department report.
Others have said their children have not received the appropriate help.
“It’s ultimately about getting the right service,” McVay said.
He recalled that it took six months for his son to get an aide shortly after he was qualified for special education.
“It hurt his ability to participate in class by not getting the support needed in time,” he said.
Additionally, it took 17 to 18 months for his son to receive services from the initial time when his educational plan was formed. McVay said his son’s assessment started in March and his IEP was made in November. He did not receive services until February of the following year.
“It’s a lot of time that was lost,” McVay said.
“They should have quality service when they start,” he added. “It’s too slow in providing services.”
However, he said he is satisfied now with the instruction that his child receives.
Several parents said the IEP process has been inconsistent and unwelcoming.
Jess Pawlak, Trevor’s father, added that IEP team members often do not come to a unified decision about what is best for his son.
He believes they are too influenced by top administrators.
“They can’t make any decisions,” he said. At times, the IEP team brings in lawyers when they all meet together.
Brock remembered that her daughter’s IEP team held a meeting without her.
“We were fed up,” she said. “Holding an IEP without a parent is like saying, ‘Sue me.'”
Several parents noted there is a high turnover of teaching aides and staff specialists. McVay said the district finds it difficult to retain some professionals such as speech therapists.
Additionally, some complained, the quality of instruction can be inappropriate.
Jess Pawlak said his son was diagnosed with a series of complex disabilities – nonverbal autism among them – and aides lack credentials to sufficiently tend to his needs.
Brock said another complaint is that the district lumps kids with special needs together in too broad of a group. As a result, the interactions can be acerbic or hurtful.
She said her daughter was clumped together in a classroom with a girl who had traces of volatile behavior. She said they had a fight and the girl stabbed her daughter with a pencil.
“She’s traumatized,” Brock said and her daughter tells her, “I hate school.”
“How do you teach to that?” she asked.
When parents and the district fail to resolve their differences, they often go into a “fair hearing.”
The district responds: Working on solutions
“I feel Ö that we need to do a much better job in being welcoming in our special education system,” Kessler said.“I assure you we are behind in making changes to make the system better,” Buchanan said.
Both Kessler and Buchanan said the district is doing many things right in special education, and they said most parents and students have been happy with its services.
“We are doing a pretty good job in helping the students get successful,” said Kessler. “It’s a handful of situations that don’t get resolved at an informal level.”
When district officials haven’t been welcoming or they haven’t followed the procedures correctly, or the parents would like services the district cannot provide, they go into disputes with attorneys, Kessler said.
“(The legal process) is heavily regulated,” he said. “You haven’t resolved something significant to the family. Sometimes, you have tried everything.”
Kessler said the high turnover rate and inconsistency with specialists, such as speech therapists, is due to a shortage of professionals nationally.
“There has been a high turnover rate in some areas such as speech,” Buchanan said. “We are recruiting at the college level and some in the private sector.”
“We just don’t pay enough,” she said. “We live in a very expensive area.”
“We notified parents,” Kessler said about the lack of speech therapists. “Once we find somebody, we will compensate for services missed.”
Kessler said there is a steering committee that has been in place for three years for parents and staff of all levels to monitor special education and make recommendations for improvements.
Moreover, Buchanan said she has been consulting with a parent liaison in the Mt. Diablo Unified School District who provides advice and feedback on how to make the system better.
She added that a committee has met with an independent advocate from Sonoma County, and the district is thinking of bringing in an ombudsman to provide alternative ways to solve disputes and train parents about their rights.
“We need to find friendlier ways,” Buchanan said. “We need to work better and minimize the conflict we do have.”
“We may never have a system that’s perfect,” she added.
In addition, the district Parent Teachers Association has a strong special needs community, and it is working closely with the district.
Also, the district is working to create its own SELPA, which will be running in June 2007. This will give the district more control over special education money and more flexibility to use it “in ways that are going to help our community,” Kessler said.
Board trustees approved the district’s own SELPA plan at their meeting Tuesday.
The portion of money used to pay for the technical costs of the Contra Costra SELPA can be used for other services in special education, Kessler said.
“It will be good for us to have our autonomy,” said Linda Rowley Thom, the district assistant director in special programs. “It really narrows our focus.”
Brock suggested some of the following to the district: Assign a manager of special programs to get to know parents’ children; fulfill everything in the IEP; allow parents and their experts to view programs; and observe procedural timelines and notice requirements.
Some parents said they feel they have been left out of the district’s steering committee.
“We didn’t even know it existed,” said Jess Pawlak. “They have to have some new ideas.”
Parents hope their efforts come to fruition and their children grow up able to function well in society.
“You have to count your blessings,” Brock said. “When you don’t get the support you need, it makes life a lot more difficult.”
“I don’t mind working with the school district as long as it’s fair and equitable,” said Pawlak.
