To Grafton SPEDPac Members:
On Wednesday of this week we received both the oral and written reply from the Office of Civil Rights on the status of the claim we filed in February 2007. You may recall we filed this claim against the district for discrimination of the special needs students because the district put forth a proposal to allow for related services to be missed up to 30 percent without being made up. We passionately disagreed with the proposal and found it to be indicative of a wider problem related to missed services in general. So the claim with the OCR centered on these missed related services.
The report, which is attached, came back as not having a finding against FAPE (Free and Appropriate Public Education) and therefore no recommendations could officially be made. First they found no finding against the district on the "30 percent protocol" because it was never implemented. The district did not implement it because the DOE rejected the proposal. The SpedPAC also filed the claim with the OCR around the same time. However, as you read through the OCR finding report it is clear there is certainly room for improvement, most especially in the area of how we handle the case loads of our service providers (something SpedPAC has been bringing up for years). We tend to burn out our service providers causing them to leave the district or step away from their specialty.
To their credit the OCR investigative team was thorough and
exhaustive in their efforts to turn over every stone during this six
month long investigative process. The amount of hours and
professionals involved in this process cannot be understated. In the
end they were very complimentary of the service providers and called
them a dedicated team of professionals who truly care for the kids.
We could not agree more.
Moving forward we have a tremendous opportunity to dig in on the
areas that are still an issue, like the fact we still have a bad
habit of missing services in the first place. We proposed several
options to the Sped Director to re-evaluate how time is allocated in
the service providers' schedule. Could their schedules be alleviated
in some ways and still remain efficient, cognizant of the bottom
line?
At the SpedPAC meeting last night we expressed DEEP CONCERN the district would potentially take this finding and routinely allow for missed services. The district calls FAPE "complex". We believe their interpretation is now becoming "gray" and may lead to too much subjectivity on the part of the district, potentially leaving parents out of the loop if a child is not adequately progressing. It is our sincere hope the district would continue to work with the families to mend bridges, not divide things further. We still find validity in filing the claim in the first place. And the PAC would consider it again if the situation precludes it.
Feel free to pass this along to any and all who may find it of interest. As always, your comments are welcome.
Mary Romaniec
Grafton SpedPAC