Park School parents air inclusion concerns (Evanston Review, December 15, 2009)

An Open Letter to Dr. Murphy and District 65 School Board Members

Following the departure of Ms. Geneva Oatman we would like to offer our help and support in finding her successor. While we understand the necessity of appointing an Interim Director of Special Services, we hope the District will engage in a nationwide search for a permanent Director of Special Services.

Parents and staff are seeking a more collaborative relationship with the administration in the Special Services Department. There have been many positive changes in the last year with increased focus on providing education in inclusive classrooms. There is more work to be done, particularly in improving the Special Services Department's relationship with parents. We encourage the Administration to fill this crucial position with a highly qualified and experienced professional. We hope that a key piece of the process will be soliciting parental and staff input through their participation as members of a search committee. This approach would set a tone of collaboration and would garner support for the new Director.

We believe the Director of Special Services should be:

• A visionary who has a clear idea of what high quality special education should look like now and in the future.
• Someone with a comprehensive background in special education and knowledge of research-proven methods to address all childhood disabilities.
• Deeply knowledgeable about special education laws and regulations, with a commitment to act on all compliance issues to ensure the implementation of all IEP's.
• A collaborative leader who takes an accessible, supportive and compassionate approach toward parents and values their full participation in the development of appropriate IEP's.
• Someone who understands the importance of providing comprehensive, quality professional development opportunities for teachers to support their work in inclusive environments.
• Able to ensure an inclusive and caring culture in all schools in the District.
• Committed to involving all stakeholders through transparent and collaborative processes.
• Ready to recruit and retain qualified Special Education teachers, therapists and ancillary staff.
• Eager to ensure that necessary resources are devoted to the successful education of all children.

Evanston School District 65 is a dynamic and caring community. Our children, families and staff deserve someone exceptional to serve as Director of Special Services. We hope that you will facilitate a nationwide search in a timely manner. We stand ready to participate in this important process.

If you would like to support this statement with your signature, contact Evanston CASE at info@evanstoncase.org. You can also email Dr. Murphy directly with a copy of this letter and your signature to supt@district65.net.

CASE Presents 2009 Annual Report

CASE has prepared our 2009 Annual Report to reflect and address the concerns expressed to us by parents and other stakeholders. The report contains a list of the most common issues reported to us this year, along with ten recommendations we developed to address continued problems with lack of access, transparency, and accountability in the special education system.

Our report was developed prior to the release of the new Cole report and was not developed in response to her feedback for the district.

At this time CASE has more than 70 members including families of children with special needs and other concerned stakeholders. We continue to grow at a steady pace. Our website serves as an information hub, a community connection, and a place to publish our reports and press coverage. Advocacy organizations, special ed attorneys and special ed professionals from around the state have contacted us for information. We hope to expand our reach to families in District 202 in the future.

CASE will continue to assertively advocate for the needs of children with disabilities, and will respond to issues that parents and stakeholders bring to our attention. There are promising signs of reform in the special education system in District 65. We look forward to another year of growth and change to improve the lives of children with special needs.

Click here to read the CASE Annual Report.

CASE Responds to Dr. Cole's New Report

Dr. Cassandra Cole shared her long-anticipated reassessment of Special Ed in District 65 at the May 18th, 2009 School Board meeting. The scope of her reassessment was to evaluate the District's progress on the 19 recommendations she made in 2002.

She indicates that the District made progress on -- or achieved -- 18 of those 19 recommendations. CASE agrees that the District has made significant progress since 2002 on the items that Dr. Cole pointed out at that time. We also believe that there remain significant areas that require a commitment of leadership and resources to ensure necessary change. These issues are outlined in the CASE Annual Report.

Dr. Cole identifies "three main areas that have emerged from this review that warrant continued conversation and planning":

1. Creating a more inclusive district and providing program stability.
"While there are pockets of inclusion in District 65, there are still too many students receiving their instruction in separate, pull-out settings, often in schools that are not their home schools;" "There are self-contained programs that are moved or are placed in buildings so that students are not able to matriculate through the grades with the same peers." (pg. 26)

2. Improving services for students with Emotional Disabilities.
"(T)his is a small group of students who require a high level of intensive support." "(I)t may be necessary to form partnerships and enter into interagency agreements to ensure the therapeutic needs of the students are met." (pg. 26)

3. Strengthen family - school partnerships
"The goal for this effort should be to improve communication and problem solving with families."(pg. 26)

There are, however, two areas in Dr. Cole's report that we find problematic:

First, under Recommendation #5 (page 11), Dr. Cole discusses the issue of parent - District communication and partnership. Dr. Cole uses data from a random survey she sent to parents (14 responses) and an "IEP Parent Survey" given to some parents after their IEP meetings (24 surveys) to draw conclusions about:
1. Level of participation in decision making
2. Satisfaction with the IEP meeting process
3. Level of satisfaction with service
4. Quality of working relationships at the school level and district level.

We do not feel the small number of surveys Dr. Cole analyzed accurately reflects the feelings of many D65 parents. We plan to make suggestions for improving the surveys as well as their distribution and analysis.

Second, Dr. Cole states that the "relationships between a small group of parents and the district office are adversarial and filled with conflict." She also states that "(F)or a small group of parents, the problem solving process of choice is litigation or threat of litigation, and more often than not, limited financial resources and extensive human effort are spent on a small number of students." (pg. 12). This was an unfortunate comment. The idea that using resources (even "limited" ones) and "human effort" is somehow too burdensome or inappropriate if it is applied to a "small group of students," is quite disturbing. The law requires a "continuum" of services so that students with more intensive needs are ensured to receive the necessary resources to obtain a "free and appropriate education." Parents who pursue legal intervention, do so as a last resort.

Dr. Cole writes, "True partnerships require cooperation, communication, and compromise." This is precisely the quality of relationship that CASE would like to have with the Administration. It is common for advocacy groups in support of civil rights to be the target of criticism by the establishments that they are challenging. CASE is no different. We will continue to make our suggestions to the administration as conciliatory as possible, but not to the extent that it compromises what we are trying to achieve: bringing attention to those things that need to change.

Click here to read Dr. Cole's Reassesment.

"Including Samuel" Event a Big Success

Over 60 people attended CASE's presentation of the documentary "Including Samuel" on February 8th at the Levy Center. Parents, staff, community members, board members and candidates enjoyed the moving story by Dan Habib about his son Samuel, who has cerebral palsy. The film also presents the struggles of four other families in their efforts to ensure that their children are included in regular education classrooms in public schools. In addition, two well-known disability activists discuss their experiences with prejudice and exclusion due to their disabilities, and a teacher and a principal talk about the challenges of inclusion. The most important point the principal makes is that, "It is better not to try inclusion at all than to do it poorly. And it is easy to do it poorly." Intensive staff training and resources must be implemented in order to have a successful inclusion program.

After the film Mr. Charles Fox, special education attorney, spoke about how special education law relates to inclusion. He answered questions and shared his experiences working to defend the rights of children with disabilities including his own son, who has cerebral palsy. Visit Charlie's blog at specialedlaw.blogs.com.

For more information about the Including Samuel Project, visit the website www.includingsamuel.com. CASE will be happy to arrange small group showings of the film by appointment. Call (847) 556-8676 to inquire.

CASE submits recommendations to D65 Strategic Planning Committee

The Strategic Planning Committee began work in April, 2008 to develop a Strategic Plan that would guide the District's priorities over the next five years. They developed a set of core value statements and goals. The areas of focus included District Goals, Curriculum, Instruction, Student and Family Support, Staff and Instructional Support, Community Outreach and Services, and Facilities and Finances. Goal statements were written for each area.

When Dr. Cassandra Cole evaluated the special education system in District 65, one of her core recommendations was that the District utilize the strategic plan to identify specific goals to address problems in the system and improve service delivery. Following up on this recommendation, the CASE Board lobbied to include a separate "strand" or goal section specifically for special education. Unfortunately, the committee rejected this idea. CASE created content related to special education to be included under each goal area in the plan and submitted our report to the committee (read the CASE submission here).

CASE Board members attended all four town hall meetings on the strategic plan to present our recommendations and highlight specific goals we felt should be included. In January when the committee approved a final draft to submit to the school board for approval, the special education related goals that were included were: "Ensure inclusion of students with disabilities in all programs, as appropriate," and to "increase age-appropriate disability awareness in grades K-8." Although this fell short of our proposed ideas, we are pleased that these goals were included.

The School Board is expected to vote on the final plan in February.

CASE Successfully Influences the Administration and School Board to Revise Its Proposed Policy

During the summer the District 65 Policy Committee and the School Board discussed the addition of a new policy to allow the use of "physical restraint and isolated time-out" in our schools. Evanston Citizens for Appropriate Special Education (CASE) was very concerned about this policy and the implications for children with disabilities in our community. Our members wrote emails to the school board and the policy committee members, and attended the policy committee meeting to suggest revisions. Although the District had been using physical restraint and isolated time out methods with students for years, they did not have a policy in place to regulate and oversee this practice (as required by state law).

Evanston CASE was instrumental in advocating for revisions to the proposed policy. The initial draft did not address the implications of physical restraint and isolated time out for children with special needs. There was no mention of procedures to protect them from unauthorized use of these methods. CASE advocated for safeguards that limited these interventions for use only if documented in a child's IEP or Behavior Intervention Plan, and with parent approval. In addition, isolated time-out can only be used in schools that have state-approved time-out rooms.

CASE also insisted that training in approved physical restraint and isolated time out methods should be mandatory for all special education staff. The initial draft policy called for voluntary participation in training. The revised policy states that "all full-time staff assigned to provide direct services to students with Emotional Disabilities are required to be certified in the use of positive non-aversive behavioral interventions."

CASE also requested that data on the use of physical restraint and isolated time out, including number of incidents, location, and staff members involved be reported to the Board of Education, not just the "Superintendent and or his/her designee."

We continue to be concerned about these methods of behavioral intervention. We trust that they will be used sparingly, appropriately and by trained staff.

CASE Submits Recommendations to D65 Board

CASE presented a set of recommendations to the School Board at their regular meeting on June 23rd. Developed out of our review of documented complaints as well as information discussed at recent Board meetings, we believe these actions will be a good start toward improving special services in District 65.

Background and detail on each of these recommendations is included in the attached document.