Parents: Study confirms special ed concerns

GREENWICH — Special education parents say that there is a lack of communication from administrators and educators, that they and their children are treated unfairly, that the special education process is purposely confusing and that

there is a general unwillingness among educators to work with families, according to a recently released report.

Results from the much talked about Key2Ed study, a review of the special education services in the Greenwich Public Schools completed over the 2019-20 school year, were made public this week. The results were to be presented for the first time to the Board of Education at Thursday night’s meeting.

According to special education parents, the document confirms that complaints have persisted for years, and even decades, in the district. Superintendent of Schools Toni Jones did not respond to a request for comment on the document. But Board of Education Chair Peter Bernstein said the report produced interesting findings.

“It is important to remember that this report was only looking at certain elements of a larger program and will certainly be informative as the larger special education review gets underway,” Bernstein said. “However, there are many actionable ideas in that report that the administration can begin to implement while the review is happening.”

The scope of the review

Key2Ed is a Tennesseebased education consulting firm and an authority on the implementation of Individualized Education Programs, with a focus on resolving conflicts between families and schools using a “task force and devising seminar” process.

“The ‘Task Force and Devising Seminar’ process solicits information to identify the strengths and challenges within the district special education programs from all district stakeholders, and then assists a group that is representative of all those stakeholders to collaborate and develop their own solutions for the identified challenges, rather than the consultants alone supplying those solutions,” according to the document.

The task force portion of the process comprised 15 members, including district and school administrators (including Jones), five parents, general and special education teachers and a member of the community, according to the report. The group met and created a list of strengths and challenges in three categories: Interventions and Response to Interventions, the process by which special education students are identified, evaluations and Planning and Placement Team meetings, at which educational plans are negotiated, and the implementation of IEPs, which dictate the educational requirements of special education students.

Key2Ed then interviewed 99 participants, including 62 parents and 37 staff members, based on the work of the task force.

“The purpose of the task force and the interviews was to identify strengths and challenges in three gross areas of special education, specifically as these strengths and challenges are the genesis of disputes and conflict between and among district staff and families,” the report states. “The goal was not to gather information about the district to vindicate or to villainize, but rather to focus on opportunities that stakeholders could work together to find mutually agreeable solutions.”

Concerns

Across all three categories, the report highlighted a handful of common issues.

In particular, the document refers to “miscommunication, lack of communication, unclear and incomplete communication, from school staff, from parents, and administration, between, among, and with each other, oral and written.”

It describes an adversarial and distrustful relationship between parents and staff, and the perception among parents that they are not taken seriously until they retain a special education advocate or legal counsel. Educators, in response, become defensive, the report suggests.

Parents reported that they do not understand aspects of general and special education and staff, too, expressed a need for parent training and education around processes and procedures.

Frustration from parents interviewed was primarily directed toward district administration, rather than school administrators and special education teachers, the latter of whom, parents said, might provide better services if not for the intervention of district-level staff.

“Some parents feel that district level staff only wants to stymie allocation of services to students, and are perceived as blockers for obtaining services for their children,” the report states.

In terms of the RTI process, parents described the district’s approach as “delay and deny” and alleged that the district uses RTI as a barrier to getting students “identified and served in special education.”

‘Overwhelmed and alone’

Parents also expressed common concerns regarding PPT meetings and IEPs for their children. There was not enough time allotted for PPTs and the material was confusing, they said.

Staff said similarly that there was not enough time or resources for their workload, with some feeling they are not able to meet the legal requirements of IEPs — which was reinforced in a recent letter from the Greenwich Education Association, the union representing teachers, to Jones and the Board of Education. There is also confusion around the implementation around IEPs and too few updates on student progress.

Some of the parents interviewed described feeling “overwhelmed and alone,” in PPT meetings. And staff members, too, described feeling unable to speak freely in the meetings, for fear of retaliation from higher-ups in the district.

“These staff members expressed the concern that if they share something that the superiors might disagree with, even if the staff members believes it to be in the best interest of the child, there might be some form of retribution against them,” the report states.

In addition, parents expressed concern that there was “improper and inappropriate” behavior by the special education administration. They “reported that they were forced to sign nondisclosure agreements, so that others would not find out about these behaviors that were not in compliance with federal and state special education laws on the part of district personnel, as well as the amount of any monetary settlement.”

A path toward resolution?

The Key2Ed task force was reconvened on Oct. 12 to discuss the findings and to find creative solutions, specifically aimed at resolving conflict.

The document outlines a series of steps, agreed upon by the task force, to improve communication in PPTs, implementation of IEPs, including the reevaluation of special education staffing, and increase training for staff and parents on processes and services. But it also shows that the task force felt it had too little time to develop a thorough action plan with next steps — which is of the utmost importance to special education families.

Caroline Lerum, a special education parent and co-founder of the Greenwich Special Education Action Committee, described many of the findings of the Key2Ed study as devastating to children and teachers.

This information has now been made available to the public, and the school board and the Board of Estimate and Taxation, Lerum said.

“Members of the BOE and BET can use this data to create change,” she said. “The questions are: Will they do it and will they make resources available for needed changes? After reading this report, I would certainly hope so and I would also emphasize that as our children wait for these changes, their window of opportunity shrinks.“