Rochester school board member Malik Evans isn’t known for theatrics or public outbursts, but at a recent board meeting, Evans had enough.
Special education consultant Judy Elliott was bluntly describing a broken system. But she wasn’t more than 15 minutes into her presentation when Evans began fidgeting in his seat and interrupting her with questions.
“We continue to have the same issues over and over again,” Evans said in a telephone interview the day after the meeting. “How do we keep this from repeating itself?”
The district hired Elliott earlier this year to look at special education: how students with disabilities are identified and given the services they need and what results from those efforts. The report was the latest of many – going back years –with similarly condemning findings.
Elliott’s report raised challenging questions for the school board. Why, for instance, have referrals for special education shot up by a whopping 93 percent during the last few years, while the district’s enrollment has declined? The large number of special education referrals is overwhelming the district’s ability to manage them, Elliott said.
And why does the district’s special education enrollment hover at nearly 20 percent, when the national average for large school districts is around 12 percent?
The district seems to be basing its decisions about special education on the race of the students, according to Elliott’s report. For instance, the vast majority of students classified as having autism are white, and most of the students classified as having learning disorders are Hispanic. Race should not be a predictor of the student’s disability, she said.
The majority of students referred for special education services under the “Other Health Impairment” classification are African American. That category is typically reserved for children with ongoing medical problems like kidney disease, Elliott said. And those children were also disproportionately suspended more than any others, supporting critics’ claims of institutional racism.
“So kids with health issues are getting suspended?” Elliott said.
Most troubling was the report’s broader point: the district’s problems with special education reflect its problems in general education. The district must improve the latter to see better outcomes in special education, Elliott said.
Board member Malik Evans said he wasn’t interested in hashing over Elliott’s statistics, and he rattled off a list of previous reports, all of them harshly critical of the school district’s outcomes. The district has to be more focused on management, execution, and accountability, he said.
“I don’t know if it’s the data or the implementation,” he said the next day. “I just think we have to follow through and do the things that we say we’re going to do. A lot of what we heard last night, we’ve heard before. We could close our eyes and it could be the same things we heard in 2007. How many reports do we need?”
Board President Van White empathized with Evans.
“I know exactly what he’s thinking,” White interjected during the board meeting. Experts have been issuing reports and making recommendations for years to, as he termed it, turn over the applecart. The board has agreed to many of these recommendations, but the promised improvements usually don’t materialize, he said.
“Excuse me if I have some healthy skepticism,” White said.
In a telephone interview late last week, former Rochester superintendent Jean-Claude Brizard said he understands the board’s frustration.
“These issues are not new,” Brizard said. The district has management problems, but it also has cultural issues that help to explain the “over-classification of black and brown kids.” Not all of these kids are disabled, he said.
“It’s not something that’s in the water,” Brizard said. “It’s something organic, but changing a culture is not easy.”
And former Rochester superintendent Manny Rivera stressed intervention, which he said must begin as early as possible with children living in poor communities – in the 0-3 age group.
“It really has to do with having your interventions right up front,” Rivera said last week. “Then when they need to go to a program or service, you are more likely to have success, because you’ve started early and you know exactly what the problems are.”
And if intervention starts early enough, the referrals for special education often aren’t needed, he said.
Elliott’s report makes a similar recommendation. For instance, intervening early enough with many of Rochester’s students – providing support for reading or English language skills, for instance – could eliminate the need for many special education referrals, she said.
But at the meeting, Elliott also stressed that the district needs to use data to help drive its decisions about intervention. She used the example of students who arrive from Puerto Rico. Without immediate help with language, learning disorders are fairly predictable, she said.
Some changes are already underway, said Sandy Simpson, the district’s chief of special education. In the past, professionals such as social workers or special education teachers in the schools made the recommendations about referrals. But it’s hard for them to know everything the district can offer, Simpson said, so now a centralized team of experts will review all program referrals and existing placements for every student.
And the report showed that in the past, the district has been overly reliant on referring students to outside agencies, when similar services were available in the district, Simpson said.
“We need to bring the students home,” she said. More stability and less disruption are important for special education students, she said.
Still, that may not be enough for board member Evans. He said he wasn’t upset with Elliott for doing her job. “She put it out there,” he said, but the district needs to start making substantial progress. Maybe, he said, the board and the district need more independent oversight themselves, to keep everyone focused and on track.
“I think we need to partner with a third party to review everything, someone or some entity that is an objective party,” Evans said.
This article appears in Jul 19-25, 2017.
Isn’t the new head of special education for the state of New York the former director of special education for the RCSD?
If the board members are reading statistics, why are they not reading the ones that show that our district has one of the highest concentrations of poverty in the US? What are they not reading the statistics that high poverty correlated with high achievement gaps? Why not acknowledge our classrooms are bursting at the seams and the ONLY way to get a child what s/he needs is to be placed in a class with a LOWER teacher/student ratio (ie: special ed), Why is the board not read the stats that we have HIGH LEAD AFFECTED children therefore the HIGH Other Health Impaired numbers? When you have a point to make, we tend to only see the stats that support our opinions and ignore the ones that contradict our opinions.
These are indeed terrible statistics and yes, there have been other reports that pointed to extensive problems throughout the years. But that’s not a reason to impatiently dismiss this as “same old, same old”.
As an example of refreshing clarity, Dr. Elliot highlighted data from the rapidly rising use of the category “other health impairments” being applied to African-American boys compared to state and national data so we see proof of this as a local phenomenon of institutional racism. Since we’ve committed to addressing district inequities through a racial justice lens, the report is extremely helpful.
I commend the superintendent for courageously seeking to find and discuss these problems – we cannot address issues until and without an unflinching examination of reality. And we need public support rather than cynicism as we pursue aggressive solutions.
THE MADNESS CONTINUES, AND WILL NOT STOP UNLESS AND UNTIL WE DEVELOP A DEADLY-SERIOUS MOVEMENT THAT DEMANDS SUBSTANTIAL, CONCRETE, MEASURABLE, FUNDAMENTAL, CHANGE AND
IMPROVEMENT, AND MEAN IT, I.E. ISSUE A CLEAR AND CERTAIN ‘OR-ELSE,’ OR ULTIMATUM.
“The district seems to be basing its decisions about special education on the race of the students, according to Elliott’s report. For instance, the vast majority of students classified as having autism are white, and most of the students classified as having learning disorders are Hispanic. Race should not be a predictor of the student’s disability, she said.
The majority of students referred for special education services under the “Other Health Impairment” classification are African American. That category is typically reserved for children with ongoing medical problems like kidney disease, Elliott said. And those children were also disproportionately suspended more than any others, supporting critics’ claims of institutional racism.
“So kids with health issues are getting suspended? Elliott said.”
PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO TIM MACALUSO’S LANGUAGE — I.E., THOSE OF US WHO (FROM THE OPPRESSOR’S PERSPECTIVE) HAVE THE GALL AND AUDACITY TO CONSISTENTLY POINT OUT THE RACIST NATURE OF THIS OLD, OLD, ONGOING, SYSTEMIC CRISIS — ARE MERELY “CRITICS” — AS OPPOSED TO AUTHENTIC LEADERS AND EXPERTS — UNLIKE THE PEOPLE WHO HAVE MADE TONS OF MONEY PRODUCING THESE REPETITIVE STUDIES AND REPORTS (FOR DECADES). GO FIGURE — RIGHT???
http://www.democratandchronicle.com/story/…
Although early intervention is key, districts must be willing to spend money on scientifically-proven, systematic, explicit, and researched programs, especially in the area of reading. There are few districts, even in the suburbs, that will commit the funds for these programs. Another issue is mainstreaming, which is simply a money-saver for many districts and sped kids never get the appropriate remediation — just a lot of accommodations, which is not the solution. An entire shift in perspective and outlook would be required and the ability to implement it.
I agree with Diana. Early intervention is crucial…it’s beneficial to catch learning lags early on. Addressing learning issues in the formative years will improve graduation rates long-term.
Teachers who work with the children make the recommendations about referrals because we are the ones who work closest with them. So now we are handing it over to a “centralized team of experts” who know what programs are available. How about letting the schools keep their CASEs and educate THEM about what our options are. Now we will have people who have never even met a child making decisions on his/her behalf.
We need to be honest with ourselves and realize and admit that when our children come to us from such severe deficits, there are going to continue to be learning challenges. Classifying a student with Learning Disabilities should be excluded as an option is there are economic, societal or environmental factors. Yet that is exactly what happens in so many cases. As was said earlier, intervention between ages 0-4 is critical. A shift in values toward prioritizing the acquisition of a quality education also needs to occur in our urban communities.
The Third-party is BARRIERS NO MORE Foundation created right in the heart of Rochester New York. Doris Carrisquillo the FED Founding Executive Director and COO Chief Executive Officiate Markeisha M Jackson. We are more than ready to assist with child development, education and cultural knowledge for our RCSD families I was a per diem Safety Officer for almost 2 years. Feel free to Contact by email Barriersnomore2017@gmail.com
#ReCreationRochesterNY #EDUCATORSOFTHENATIONS
I’ve been teaching in the RCSD for many years, and I agree that we need to closely scrutinize the system when it comes to the designation of students in need of special education services. There’s a huge difference between a child with developmental disabilities and one with oppositional-defiant disorder. And teachers need more information about their students’ issues, but often all we get is “other health impairments,” as Ms. Hallmark notes. But we also need to look at what we’ve done when it comes to classroom support. We’ve moved from a co-teacher model to a consultant teacher model, and nobody will ever be able to convince me that this wasn’t a cost-cutting move. As a general education teacher, I’ve gone from planning with a special education colleague, teaching with that colleague, and assessing with that colleague to having another teacher drop into my classroom to work with the eight or nine students designated as special ed. We have no common planning time other than that time we voluntarily give up to “consult.” We don’t have the opportunity to develop working relationships over time, as we are paired arbitrarily from year to year. It’s frustrating in the extreme to spend a year working with a colleague to develop a solid, effective approach for students only to find yourself working with someone else the following year. The whole system is broken, and we–the frontline–are never asked for our input as to how to fix it.
In June, 2012, I asked Superintendent Vargas about motivation for all students. He told me that motivation was too complicated and he wasn’t into it. Then, he told me I was not supposed to be at that meeting, with parents, because I wasn’t a parent.
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I still believe that motivation for both students and teachers is key. Progress comes with effort in school. Of course you need good instruction in special ed, but you also need the effort. We are all motivated to do certain things and not to do other things.
http://www.SavingSchools.org
Dear City News, let me try once again to penetrate your editorial “wall”, with a second poem by Robert Frost. It is 100 years old, and so it should be OK to reprint.
Our schools need to have the FLEXIBILITY to allow each student some leeway.
But unfortunately, in they tend to be RIGID and so students with special needs suffer. It is rush, rush, rush, to push them along. Perhaps if we think of this poem and repeated it, over and over, some people in the RCSD system will start to see, “The Road Not Taken” and they will alter their course. THANKS Harry
http://www.SavingSchools.org
The Road Not Taken
BY ROBERT FROST
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Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and II took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
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