Teachers decry new special ed system

Educators say it’s riddled with flaws, threatens services

The platform was touted as a new Special Education Data System that would streamline the design, implementation and access of individualized education programs for 85,000 students in Connecticut.

Special education professionals call it a nightmare.

Riddled with design flaws from the outset, educators say CT-SEDS has multiplied their workloads and driven districts out of compliance with state and federal guidelines in a year already marked by staffing shortages and academic challenges.

“People keep telling me that this is going to be something that will be discussed for 40 years from now,” said state Sen. Jan Hochadel, the president of the Connecticut branch of the American Federation of Teachers. “In a year that we’re trying to make gains, it really disrupted every special educator in Connecticut.”

‘None of it is easy’

Teachers have reported a laundry list of glitches and inefficiencies with CT-SEDS since the Connecticut State Department of

Education rolled out the program this school year, the bulk of which remain unresolved.

On the new system, userfriendly drop-down menus have been erased. Idle screens timeout after 5 minutes, deleting any unsaved work. CT-SEDS does not notify users if two people happen to be working on the same document and only preserves the first entry to click “save.” Words typed into boxes disappear from view. Uploaded files cannot be edited or deleted, and only higher-ups have the keys to revise typos or mistakes in finished documents, requiring multiple levels of authorization for something that used to be an easy fix.

Educators say that an IEP that used to take 1.5 hours to write now consumes upwards of three, with some clocking in at 10 hours, putting time-sensitive compliance guidelines for paperwork at risk.

The CSDE has attributed much of the challenges to a “learning curve,” offering 25 in-person training sessions, 70 live webinars and 20 step-by-step videos.

Jane Roth, an educator of 29 years who teaches special education students at John C. Daniels School in New Haven, said that the new system “feels so punishing” as educators obsess over getting the paperwork right. She said teachers don’t need more training — they want changes.

“We’re not stupid people. I can follow a list. I can click on this, this, this, done, boom. I can do that, but that’s the easy part. The hard part is trying to save your work or trying to edit your work. It’s time-consuming and it’s frustrating,” Roth said. “The mantra for everybody is that it is not user friendly, and it feels retaliatory because it’s so hard. … None of it is easy.”

“The idea that they would’ve rolled it out now, knowing full well that it hadn’t been perfected is just — I mean, it’s atrocious,” Roth added. “They knew it wasn’t perfected. They said, ‘Oh, a few hiccups.’ No, it’s not a few hiccups. We are having so many problems.”

The timing of the CT-SEDS rollout puzzled educators and administrators. Fran Rabinowitz, the executive director of the Connecticut Association of Public School Superintendents, said that as early as May of 2022, she pleaded with the CSDE on behalf of the state’s superintendents to pause the CT-SEDS launch.

“I actually had several meetings asking to please not put it in yet. It was just too soon, we weren’t ready for it,” Rabinowitz said. “It needed another year of piloting to work all the glitches out. … I think it’s going to be a good system, but it is not good right now.”

In an email to the Courant Friday, Eric Scoville, director of communications for the CSDE, said the department is “working continuously to improve and enhance” user experience and “acknowledges the tremendous efforts that our educators have engaged in to learn and understand a new IEP document and a new platform.”

“We are acutely aware of the challenges, and as with any new technology that is launched statewide there is a significant learning curve requiring additional training and resources. There were also a variety of system deficiencies that required swift resolution,” Scoville wrote.

He added that the CSDE is identifying potential future enhancements through a listening tour for special education. Scoville said that school districts can apply for grants ranging from $10,000 to $50,000 to pay for “educator stipends and/or any related training costs associated with the

CT-SEDS Implementation.”

When asked about whether the CSDE is concerned that program problems are causing districts to fall out of compliance, Scoville said “Compliance is always a concern of the CSDE and we are working diligently to ensure that CT-SEDS does not interfere with any compliance requirements.”

But educators say it already has.

‘Nobody wants to be out of compliance’

“I am not a teacher who likes to be late on things. I am very punctual. If anything, I always have my things done way ahead of time. And right now I am only 56% compliant on CT-SEDS and it gives me great anxiety,” said Jennifer Graves, a self-contained pre-k special ed teacher in New Haven Public

Schools. “I don’t know what the consequences are because I’ve never been out of compliance before . ... Nobody wants to be out of compliance.”

Graves said in urban communities like New Haven, where caseloads can number 20 to 30 students, educators are scrambling to keep up with the time demands of CT-SEDS.

“There’s really not enough time in the day to meet all of the requirements. Teachers are very, very stressed that they’re out of compliance, and they feel like they’re forced to take all of their work home,” Graves said. “I have teachers texting me that they’re up until midnight, almost every night, trying to be in compliance.”

She explained that after a Planning and Placement Team meeting, a finalized IEP with its new goals and objectives must go into effect within 10 days of the meeting, but with CT-SEDS that isn’t always happening.

“If there are people, service providers, PPT chairs, special education teachers who don’t have the time in their contracted day to fulfill all of this very time-consuming data entry into CT-SEDS, they are out of compliance. The IEP isn’t finalized on time, the new services don’t start on time, [and] the evaluations don’t get done on time,” Graves said.

Despite the program change, Graves said her first priority remains her students.

“I service my students, regardless of the platform, the same way I always would. My students get the intervention they need, they get the supports they need, they get any accommodations and modifications that they need,” Graves said. “My students will always come before paperwork.”

Graves said that when speaking to colleagues from other towns about compliance issues, districts seem to be providing a level of grace, but she is unsure if the state will react the same.

As the paperwork problems continue, Graves said that she worries about CT-SEDS’ effects on the state’s special education students.

“If more time is spent on paperwork, less time is spent with students. And that is really heartbreaking because our students need and deserve high-quality instruction and intervention. If teachers are distracted by compliance and paperwork with this new platform, it might change the way that our students are being serviced.”

Graves is experiencing the impact of CT-SEDS as both an educator and the mother of an eighth-grader with an IEP in North Haven.

Graves said that parents did not receive training on the new platform and teachers are not equipped to show them how to use it.

“I think parents are a little bit out of the loop. I talk to other moms of kids with disabilities in North Haven, and they too, have been frustrated with the changeover,” Graves said. “The whole point [of CT-SEDS] was to make parents more engaged and give parents more information. And so far that is the opposite of what we are seeing.”

Graves explained that parents are unable to give consent to evaluations online, and others receive their child’s IEP late.

A special education teacher from Hartford, who spoke to the Courant on the condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, said that CT-SEDS “does impinge on a lot of people’s best practices.”

“A lot of people are going back and just taking back information from the old IEP because again, time is not there to do testing and evaluations, and there are not enough teachers,” she said.

A larger ‘special education problem’

The Hartford educator said that this year the district is experiencing “an exodus of special education teachers.” She explained that many are leaving for better pay and lighter workloads in well-funded suburban districts. Others are leaving for another reason — legal concerns.

“Special education, it’s a high-risk job,” she said. “A lot of people are leaving because they’re worried about the legal ramifications. We see things happening that we know are not right. And so people are stepping away because we know that this is one of the easiest jobs for us to ‘catch a case,’ if that makes sense. We know about the federal mandates that are associated with our jobs.”

“We feel like there is a lot of pitching and patching with paperwork, just to have something look good on paper, but it’s not happening in all actualities,” she added.

The Hartford teacher said special education teachers are weighed down by stress that stems from a multitude of factors, including the CT-SEDS system, the need to cover or co-teach open classes, a disconnect with administrators on where to place students and the services they receive, and a lack of agency, but above all, she said special educators feel like they are not accomplishing the work they set out to do.

“We’re doing every other thing except our jobs,” she said.

Kate Dias, the president of the Connecticut Education Association, said that obstacles with CT-SEDS are indicative of larger issues in special education.

“We have to recognize that the [CT-SEDS] program itself is a problem. But it’s really the cherry on the top of a special education problem,” she said. “We started the school year down. Twenty-five percent of our openings were in special education, and that number is not getting better because this workload issue is really problematic.”

Dias said constant challenges drive prospective and current teachers away from the special education field.

“We want to make sure that we’re building a job that teachers can actually do,” Dias said. “It’s February, people have been struggling with this program since August, and we really want to make sure that whatever procedural fixes we can get into place can get into place quickly.”

Dias said that she feels the CSDE is trying to make changes to CT-SEDS, but the response is not yet up to pace.

“We are feeling very frustrated that, in many cases, the issues we’re talking about have been talked about for months, but I also recognize that it has been taking a little while to filter those responses to the right people,” Dias said. “What’s happening right now is teachers are raising issues at the local level. Those get then filtered to an administration. The administration then brings them to the state department, and all through that process is a loss of time.”

She said that teachers want the CSDE to adapt CT-SEDS to their needs.

“This needs to get fixed sooner rather than later,” Diaz said. “We have to solve this problem, or the problem will continue to grow and become absolutely insurmountable.”

“The idea that they would’ve rolled it out now, knowing full well that it hadn’t been perfected is just — I mean, it’s atrocious. They knew it wasn’t perfected. They said, ‘Oh, a few hiccups.’ No, it’s not a few hiccups. We are having so many problems.” — Jane Roth, special education teacher at John C. Daniels School in New Haven