Latest news with #SpecialEducation
New York Times
11-05-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
In Trump's America, Every Parent and Child for Themselves
Last week, President Trump introduced the Special Education Simplified Funding Program as part of his 2026 budget proposal. The president's budget isn't binding, but it suggests that the way the administration proposes to allocate funds to the states could have an impact on the education of students with disabilities, both in classroom instruction and enforcement of minimum standards. For almost 50 years, parents of students with disabilities have relied on federal oversight to ensure that their children receive a fair education. But under the proposed budget, money earmarked for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) comes with a promise to limit the federal government's role in education and provide states with greater flexibility, which could mean drastically reducing oversight of how states will use that money. To me and many other parents of the 7.5 million public school students in the country served by IDEA, Mr. Trump's efforts to eliminate the Department of Education and potentially just give IDEA funding directly to the states is our worst nightmare. Last spring, a group of parents in Oklahoma filed a complaint with the State Department of Education against the Bixby School District, stating that the district had placed their children in segregated classrooms, and that it did not try instead to use supplementary aides and support services, thereby violating the law under IDEA. When students with disabilities are educated primarily in such segregated classrooms, they are often denied the full breadth of learning opportunities and interactions. Most significantly, they learn they do not belong among their peers. Nick and Kristen Whitmer chose to live in Bixby, a suburb of Tulsa, because of the school district's reputation for inclusive special education. This was what they wanted for their daughter, Adaline, who is 8 years old and has Down syndrome. But her experience last fall hadn't been what they hoped. Adaline spent less than half of her time at school in a general education classroom. She started her day there with a morning meeting with the other children. But after 10 minutes, a teacher guided her down the hall to the special education room. She rejoined other first graders for recess and lunch, but spent little time in an academic classroom with nondisabled peers. It was hard for Adaline to make friends with classmates. 'Adaline is not viewed as a member of the community,' Ms. Whitmer told me. 'She is a guest.' In preschool, Adaline had been placed in the Oklahoma Alternative Assessment Program, which is reserved for 'students with the most significant cognitive disabilities.' That meant that Bixby district administrators determined Adaline would not be given the opportunity to earn a high school diploma. Ms. Whitmer said that she pleaded with district representatives to put her daughter on the diploma track, but that they initially refused and began bringing a lawyer to meetings. After the state weighed in, and after intense advocacy, as of today Adaline is no longer in the alternative diploma track and is spending more time in a general education classroom in the morning. But all that could change. 'Is it the same for you?' Ms. Whitmer asked me. No, it's not. Like Adaline, my daughter has Down syndrome. Yet their educational trajectories couldn't have been more different. The discrepancies offer a glimpse of what is likely to become more common now that Mr. Trump has gutted the Department of Education and pledged to give full control to the states. My daughter, Louisa, goes to school in a rural college town in southwest Ohio. We have our share of challenges. But I never had to face a teacher or school administrator who openly resisted her inclusion in a classroom with nondisabled peers. Unlike in Oklahoma, removing students from a curriculum that would prepare them to earn a high school diploma requires written parental consent in Ohio. A bill to make it a parental decision in Oklahoma was recently signed by the governor. Before 1979, when the education of disabled children was in the hands of the states, many chose to not educate children with disabilities at all. A congressional investigation from 1972 found that 1.75 million children nationwide were turned away from public schools. Nineteen states provided a public education to less than a third of children with disabilities, and many had statutes that exempted such children from compulsory attendance laws. Congress implemented IDEA, then called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, in 1975 to guarantee that every child with a disability received a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. The Department of Education requires states to monitor how districts use the funding for disability-related services like specialized instruction, teacher training, speech and physical therapy, communication devices and classroom support staff. Oversight of a program as complicated as IDEA is challenging, but it has aimed to ensure that states are doing the right thing by providing the most inclusive education possible. To receive this funding, states are required to submit annual performance reports. The U.S. Department of Education uses 18 indicators to assess each state's compliance with IDEA, including graduation and dropout rates, post-school outcomes, parent involvement and the percentage of time students spend in a classroom with nondisabled peers. Based on those metrics, the Office of Special Education Programs (O.S.E.P.) evaluated whether states were meeting IDEA's requirements. But the 2026 budget proposes consolidating seven IDEA programs and using a 'simplified funding program,' which, while vague, suggests that the administration might be aiming to send the money to the states as block grants. This would likely allow school districts to use that money at their discretion. Acting on such changes to IDEA funding would require Congress to amend the law. The proposed restructuring could also reduce the federal government's power to intervene when states do not fulfill their responsibility under the law. Without more robust federal oversight, enforcement on the local level would continue to be uneven. Without a fully functioning Department of Education, states will not be held accountable for meeting even the minimum requirements of IDEA, and this landmark piece of legislation risks becoming essentially toothless, save for civil litigation. We will see an erosion of the promise of a free and appropriate public education for students with disabilities and fewer ways for parents and advocates to do anything about it. After what I have learned from the Whitmers and other parents around the country, I'm not sure why my family has been so lucky. But I do know that Louisa spends most of her time in classes with her peers, because of the creative thinking and support of compassionate educators. I also know that learning with her peers has had an astounding impact on her social and intellectual development. Louisa reads fantasy novels in her spare time. She is excited by the periodic table and the lab experiments she completes in small groups in her science class. She has sleepovers with friends. None of this would be possible if she was forced to learn in a segregated classroom. The significant disparities in Adaline's and Louisa's educations run counter to federal law. IDEA and several Supreme Court decisions have established a mandate for the education of students with disabilities — even those with the highest support needs. But states have been slow to end the practice of placing students in separate classrooms, even when parents like the Whitmers advocate for more time in a mainstream academic setting. As recently as 2022, the latest year for which data is available, only 67 percent of students with disabilities were spending at least 80 percent of their school day in a general education classroom. States have had 50 years to meet the standards of education promised in IDEA and its predecessor, yet those standards have never been universally met. In 2024, 24 states (including Oklahoma), six territories and Washington, D.C. were labeled 'needing assistance' for two or more consecutive years. States in that category are directed to use IDEA funds specifically for areas where they are not meeting requirements. Now that the Department of Education has lost nearly half of its staff members, too few are left to ensure that states meet their responsibilities to students with disabilities. If the Whitmers and other parents choose to file a due process claim with the Office for Civil Rights in the Department of Education, there is most likely not enough staff left to investigate. IDEA has never been widely followed, and the Department of Education's bureaucracy wasn't perfect. But the lack of federal oversight will only worsen existing problems. It will make it even easier for states to interpret the law as they see fit. Those disparities could mean that many students with disabilities will lose the right to a free and appropriate education and their parents will lose the power to force change. Some parents who participated in the complaint against Bixby Public Schools told me that not enough has changed, and the cost to those parents, including for time off work and lawyers' fees, have been significant. As Ms. Whitmer put it, 'We've burned every bridge with everyone in the district.' But she pledges to keep on fighting. The alternative would be to acquiesce to the district's dim vision of her daughter's capabilities and her future.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Grand Forks teacher contract negotiators discuss special educator workload tool
Apr. 9—GRAND FORKS — Much of a special education workload committee presentation to school district and union negotiators Tuesday focused on a new tool that committee members said could better balance educators' caseloads. Administrators and special education teachers on the joint Grand Forks Public Schools-Grand Forks Education Association committee offered broadly positive assessments of the workload analysis tool, which is being rolled out in district schools as a result of the committee's research. Until recently, special ed teachers' workload was based on a "weighted" system that only factored in the number of students assigned to a speech pathologist, occupational therapist, deaf and hard of hearing teacher or other special educator, and the minutes of the day spent with that student. "A lot of things were missed because it only allowed us to look at a student and their minutes," Executive Director of Special Education Elisa Diederich said. Diederich said the new system took into account additional factors like time spent in meetings, filing paperwork, or completing duties specific to an individual teacher. The district and the teachers union agreed to establish a workload review committee after the 2023 negotiations season to investigate and propose solutions to a yearslong crisis of overwork and burnout among special educators. The committee's report was provided to negotiators for both parties at last week's opening negotiations session. Diederich said the tool's better accounting of how special ed teachers spend their time could help "protect" teachers' designated prep and lunch time, which special educators often lose out on due to job demands. Business Manager Brandon Baumbach told the Herald in October that special education teachers filed for some 1,288 hours of Teacher Coverage compensation last year, a figure that likely undercounts the additional hours that special educators put in throughout the school year. Two special education teachers on the committee, Marie DeMarce Garner and Katie Wood, gave the tool positive reviews in their comments to the board. "From my colleagues, I'm hearing, 'I like it, I'm feeling a lot more represented,'" Wood said. The committee presentation also addressed the need for better paraprofessional training, more training for general education teachers and administrators on special educators' responsibilities, as well as designating "team leaders" to manage paraprofessionals in school buildings. The committee's report did not call for hiring more special education staff, though Diederich and Assistant Director of Special Education Carrie Weippert obliquely acknowledged that may be necessary to address the burden on current special ed teachers. "Special education teachers serve kids all hours of the day, except for prep and lunch. So I think where we're getting to is you're not going to serve (kids) all hours of the day," Weippert said. "We have to allocate time to designate for paras, which might mean there's less time to serve kids, which may mean we need additional staff." The GFEA's opening proposal includes requests for pay bumps for special education teachers who take on additional responsibilities, like managing paraprofessionals. Lead district negotiator Amber Flynn raised concerns about how efforts at the federal level to dismantle the U.S. Education Department could impact local funding for special education. Funding from the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act currently covers between 8.5% to 9% of district special education spending, Diederich said. "I think all of us would say 'we'd love to open up the doors and hire more staff and more paras,'" Flynn said. "But how do we even begin to compensate (for) special ed or even think about what to do when we have no idea what's going to happen?" Flynn later told the Herald her comments were not meant to preclude considering salary boosts for special educators, but said the district needed to balance serving students with changing federal circumstances. Head union negotiator Melissa Buchhop told the Herald negotiators need to find a middle ground between those concerns and special ed staff's needs. "There are a lot of unknowns and we can't really do the 'if, if, if, if, if,'" Buchhop said. "We have to look at 'how do you keep your staff?' Because if we don't do something, what are we going to do if all of our special education staff leave?" Activities Director Mike Biermeier opened Tuesday's negotiations with another report, this one focused on staff compensation for overseeing extracurricular activities. Biermeier's report, also requested by negotiators in 2023, focused on updating contract language, changing contract lengths to match current activities seasons, and adding several extracurricular positions that had not previously been included in the contract. It also compared the district's current pay scale for activities with other large districts. GFEA negotiators agreed to a district proposal allowing new hires to bring in 25 years of teaching experience onto the salary schedule, up from 15. The School Board has issued an increased number of experience waivers in recent years, reflecting the limited labor supply for certain teaching positions. The district agreed in spirit to a GFEA proposal calling for a pay boost for teachers who teach a sixth online course in addition to their five contracted courses, asking for a small change to the contract language. It rejected a union request that would have boosted pay for elementary teachers teaching multiple grades at once and secondary teachers teaching hybrid classes, with Flynn saying the two were not comparable.
Yahoo
04-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Utah's education board rejects letter supporting Trump's Education Department changes, DEI resolution
By majority vote on Thursday, the Utah State Board of Education decided to nix a pair of proposed board statements — one declaring board support of state/local control over educational funding; the other, a resolution in support of disbanding all DEI practices. By a 10-4 margin, the board denied a call to send an 'Intent Letter' to President Donald Trump, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon, and Utah's U.S. Congressional delegation formally stating that it supports state and local control over educational funding and 'endorses the initiative to return federal education funds to the states.' The Intent Letter, which comes shortly after Trump's executive order calling for the elimination of the Department of Education (DOE), had evolved in recent days into a two-paragraph letter. Gone from the letter's final draft were specific references to Trump and Utah Gov. Spencer Cox's support of the president's DOE actions. The final Intent Letter stated that Utah education leaders would be better at managing programs funded by DOE such as Title I and Special Education. 'The Board aims to demonstrate that state and local governance is best equipped to serve the interests of students and looks forward to ongoing engagement,' the letter concluded. Board member Jennie Earl said the letter affirms Utah's willingness and capacity to manage education within the state, including financial resources that go toward services such as assistance for special education students. 'We're asking that that funding remain in the state and that we are able to use that funding for the purposes of providing for our students. ... This is just a simple statement that says: 'We can do this. We're ready to do it. We can take this on.'' Board member Carol Barlow Lear opposed the letter, saying she 'has not been impressed' in recent years with how the state has managed education funds. She pointed to the Utah Fits Alls voucher program as an example of the state 'not doing a good job' — and added she worried current federal funding levels for DOE-supported educational programs could be diminished. 'There is no evidence, in my mind, to say the state can do this better,' said Barlow Lear. Meanwhile, a proposed school board resolution directing 'removal of DEI in Utah schools' also failed after prompting a divided response from board members — and, as several reported, from many of their constituents. Some board members asked to postpone consideration of the resolution until next month to flesh out details and clear up misunderstandings. In the end, the decision was made to vote on the resolution. There was insufficient board support needed for adoption: Four board members voted in favor of the resolution — while 10 cast 'Nay' votes. Board member Sarah Reale pushed for an immediate vote on the resolution, saying: 'No amount of work or time or wordsmithing or changes would give the public or myself any chance of (the resolution) being something that we would actually support and approve. It is something that is taking up a lot of our time. It's unnecessary.' Reale added there are already laws in place regarding DEI. 'We do not need this resolution. There are better things that we could be working on right now, and postponing it is dragging out all of the pain and stress and worry from the hundreds of people that we have heard from.' Board member Emily Green, who voted in favor, argued that the resolution works in harmony with existing laws 'removing radical DEI ideologies.' 'As I see this, we are talking about complying with the law.' The proposed resolution began with a statement that DEI are 'explicitly programs, processes or implemented ideas attempting to achieve the Soviet policy goal of equity … by implementing a political favoritism program … in the name of identity politics.' Such approaches, the letter resolution added, 'foster division, not unity.' The proposed resolution also cited the 2024 Legislature's House Bill 261, which overhauls DEI programs at public institutions in the state — along with Trump's Jan. 20, 2025, executive order calling for the termination of DEI offices and practices and DOE's recent formal elimination of DEI 'within their agency and education at large.' The proposed resolution concluded by calling on all LEAs (Local Education Agency), instructional and administrative personnel 'to immediately disband any and all Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Practices per the codified language of HB 261.'
Express Tribune
24-03-2025
- General
- Express Tribune
Eid gifts distributed among special persons
Deputy Commissioner Dr Lubna Nazir distributed Eid gifts among special persons on directions of Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif. The ceremony took place at the Government Special Education Center Lodhran on Monday where Additional Deputy Commissioner General Muhammad Asad Ali, Assistant Commissioner Lodhran Iram Shehzadi, and Headmistress Special Education Hidayat Fatima Hashmi also participated. DC Dr Lubna Nazir highlighted that the initiative aimed to include special children in Eid celebrations, ensuring they feel valued and loved.
