Oppose: Elimination of parental consent prior to the partial or full termination of special education and related services
Oppose: Elimination of parental consent for services for transfer students.
Support: Each and every recommendation of the Virginia Office of Protection and Advocacy (VOPA).
I make my comment as an advocate and member SIEFA, a grass-roots coalition of individuals in Chesterfield County Supporting Inclusive Education For All. I oppose draft regulations which would reduce parental involvement and participation, especially the elimination of parental consent for partial or complete termination of special education and/or related services. This draft regulation is in direct violation of the spirit and intent of both IDEA 2004 and NCLB to increase parental involvement and participation.
In findings of IDEA 2004, Congress found that “almost 30 years of research and experience has demonstrated that the education of children with disabilities can be made more effective by strengthening the role and responsibility of parents and ensuring that families of such children have meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children at school and at home. “
Likewise, the purpose of Title I of NCLB is to ensure that “all children (including children with disabilities) have a fair, equal, and significant opportunity to obtain a high-quality education and reach, at a minimum, proficiency on challenging State academic achievement standards and state academic assessments.” One of the 12 ways this purpose can be accomplished according to the law is “affording parents substantial and meaningful opportunities to participate in the education of their children.”
How many students in Virginia with disabilities would be affected by the elimination of parental consent? Today, how often does it happen that schools want to remove students from special education but parents won’t consent? Schools say this is a problem. I believe schools have created the problem of overidentification of students with disabilities, not parents. Ironically, I know 3 students in our district who do not have disabilities but were evaluated and found to have an SLI because they simply could not perfectly produce the ‘s’, ‘ch’, or ‘tch’ sounds. These students I am referring to are honor roll students. The average person would not be able to detect a speech impairment. Their speech issue does not negatively impact their educational performance, a requirement for a child with a disability to be covered under IDEA. One parent resisted having her child labeled, but the school pressured her to go along with the SLI label as the only way to provide her child with speech therapy. And schools complain about the high case loads of speech therapists in Virginia. This seems to be incongruent with statements that valuable and limited resources need to go to the children who really need them. …Until you realize that the SOL scores of such children positively impact the disaggregated scores of the disability subgroup and possibly enable a school to make AYP.
On the flip side, I know of two students, though failing reading as well as other subjects throughout their entire 2nd grade year, whose parents had to push school administrators for an entire shool year to have their children evaluated for special education eligibility. As they continued to fail, these children were denied special education that may have enabled them to succeed. Not only this, but these students were not receiving RTI research-based instruction in order to identify a SLD, specific learning disability – a common reason for delaying identification prior to 2nd grade. These children received no help at all which is why the parents sought special education services. These parents were told by the schools not to rush to have their child burdened with the stigma of a label. One was told that there was a waiting list 9 months long of students to be evaluated. I believe the deadline is 65 business days from the day of referral which can come from parent or teacher. This parent obviously did not know to put the request in writing. This seems to be incongruent with statements that valuable and limited resources need to be reserved for the children who really need them. … Until you realize that the SOL scores of such children will not negatively impact AYP because they will not be disaggregated into a subgroup.
We hear school officials talk about keeping students in general education, in the regular classroom. However, students with disabilities covered under IDEA 2004 should, to the maximum extent possible, be educated in the regular classroom with age-appropriate peers. In fact, according to the law, they should not be removed from the regular classroom unless adequate progress is not achieved with the use of supplementary aids and services. In ChesterfieldCounty, unfortunately, many students with disabilites are not even allowed access to the general education curriculum and are routed to self-contained classrooms as the first placement, in clear noncompliance with IDEA 2004. Special education is a service – not a place. At times, schools appease parents in the LRE struggle and “dump” students with disabilities in the regular classroom, with no supplementary aids and services. When students (and teachers) fail to thrive from lack of needed supports, schools say, “Johnny needs to go to ‘special education’ (i.e., the room down the hall).” So here we are in 2008 hashing out draft regulations for IDEA 2004 when Virginia has been in noncompliance in many areas for decades!
Ironically, we keep hearing complaints about the high cost of special education, the huge volumes of paperwork, and time-consuming IEP meetings. But school officials have been silent on the costs of busing students all over the county for center-based programs. Many of these students are subjected to hour-long bus rides each way. What a waste of 2 hours out of a student’s day. Not to mention the high cost of gas! It recently came to light in the media that 67% of the students in the center-based gifted program at Manchester Middle School in Chesterfield live in the western part of the county and must endure long, 1-hour bus rides to and fro. Parents were fighting to have their chidren moved closer to home. The county officials actually blamed the parents for being intolerant of diversity! Schools don’t seem to mind spending money on gas in this day of escalating gas prices. (Perhaps the SOL scores of the gifted students are an asset to their diverse schools that outweigh the cost of gas?)
Also, many schools urge parents to have their children with disabilities take the alternate assessment which requires reams of paperwork and hours of time putting together the portfolio to show a student’s proficiency on each SOL. (The easiest way for my girls to show proficiency is on a multiple-choice test, so I find this to be very strange. On a multiple-choice test, at least there is a 50/50 chance a student can get the correct answer simply by guessing, since 2 of the answers are usually ridiculous. And many school officials claim that passing the SOL tests is reaching the floor; I believe ninety percent of children with disabilities can reach the floor!) This time eats away valuable instructional time. Our school just suggested that my twins Sarah and Emily go through this ordeal. Parents want their kids to take regular SOLs, but schools try to convince them to take the time-consuming, burdensome, tree-killing alternate! Does this sound like schools are trying to reduce paperwork and time-consuming busy work for teachers?
I find it astonishing that many times, schools want to change what is working well in the system, while they are reluctant and slow to fix what is clearly broken!
Retaining parental consent conforms with the emphasis of IDEA and NCLB on increased parental involvement. In Virginia, the Special Education Performance Report includes indicator 8, Parent Involvement, which is based on a parent survey mailed to parents by VDOE and which will be reported to the public beginning in 2008. Indicator 8 reflects the percent of parents who report that schools facilitated parent involvement as a means of improving services and results for children with disabilities. How will parents in Virginia rate their schools if parental participation is reduced by the new regulations?
“There are no secrets to success, it is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure.”- Colin Powell, soldier and statesman
