Return to classroom could be challenging for special education students and staffs
For students with disabilities, the pandemic has been a landscape of extremes. Some have thrived with distance learning and want to continue in the fall, while many have languished without the in-person support of therapists and teachers and have lost ground academically, socially and emotionally.
But staffing shortages, a lack of data and a backlog of evaluations mean it could be months before schools get a clear picture of students’ needs.
“Students with disabilities are not a monolith. Each student is an individual. And right now, we don’t know exactly what the impact has been,” said Meghan Whittaker, policy director for the National Center for Learning Disabilities. “We need data, assessments, guidance and accountability.”
Since campuses closed in March 2020, distance learning has been a challenge for many students enrolled in special education. Those who received services like occupational or physical therapy — which are almost impossible to deliver virtually — fell behind. Some students suffered from the disruption to routines, behavioral therapy and socialization.
But some students saw their grades improve and enjoyed school more due to the lack of distractions and social pressure, the flexibility to meet with private tutors and learn at their own
pace, and access to useful technology.
An informal survey in late April by Decoding Dyslexia California, which advocates for students with dyslexia, found that 28% of parents think their child had a positive experience during distance learning. Just over half said their students had a negative experience. The rest said it was too early to tell.
“In April 2020, my 16-yearold sophomore daughter imploded from anxiety from isolation/quarantine, (but) by fall she had mastered online classes and is getting her best grades yet this year,” one parent wrote in the Decoding Dyslexia survey. “Because all of her classes are at her desk, she rarely loses homework, is much better at staying organized, focused and gets her homework done on her own. It has been fantastic for her.”
Jessica Maria, a parent in the North Bay Area, said distance learning was so ineffective for her two children — one of whom, a fifth grader, has dyslexia and attention deficit disorder — that last spring she withdrew them from school and opted for homeschool.
“Keeping my son focused and on task was impossible. For us, distance learning just meant me yelling at him all the time. It wasn’t working,” she said.
Instead, she found a project-based curriculum online and hired a private tutor to help her son with reading and writing. Her children did science experiments, art projects, cooking and other hands-on assignments. For one project, they made a cardboard map of the United States, to scale, and learned the capitals and facts about each state.
But because she and her husband are returning soon to their workplaces, they’ll no longer be able to oversee their children’s education, and the children will be attending a local magnet school that focuses on project-based learning.
“If cost wasn’t a concern, I’d never send my son to traditional public school again. He’s been let down so many times,” Maria said. “But we’re giving this a shot. I think it’ll be good for them to socialize. In general, right now I’m hopeful.”
Students with disabilities who do return to the classroom this fall might encounter another problem: a dearth of teachers. Some districts have seen large numbers of teachers quit or retire over the past year, and a shortage of substitutes has left administrators scrambling to fill vacancies. A shortage of special education teachers before the pandemic is now much worse, administrators said.
“The burnout is real. Teachers have been working long hours, with extra stress … their personal and professional lives have been upended by the pandemic. They’ve been heroes throughout this, and it’s been very hard,” said Amy Andersen, director of personnel services for the El Dorado County Office of Education, who with her colleagues co-wrote a commentary for Policy Analysis for California Education on the challenges of reopening schools for students in special education.
Some districts are only allowing students to continue with distance learning in the fall if they’re approved for independent study. A complicating factor is specialized services, like occupational therapy, outlined in a student’s individualized education program. Those services will remain difficult to deliver virtually.
Ultimately, it’s too early to know the full impact of campus closures on students with disabilities, said Whittaker of the National Center for Learning Disabilities. Until schools have done assessments and reported the data, any assumptions are purely speculative, she said.
“Unfortunately, no one has been able to actually study or measure this on a large scale,” Whittaker said. “Every district has different ways of measuring student progress and nothing, so far, is public. Statewide assessments could be a good indicator of how students with disabilities (as a whole) are doing on gradelevel standards compared to their peers, but I don’t suspect we’ll be seeing those administered fully this year, particularly where the majority of students are still learning virtually, or in a way that gives us enough good and valid data for students with disabilities.”
Meanwhile, districts can take some steps to address staffing shortages, she said. She suggested they use some of their Covid relief funds to create partnerships with local colleges and teacher credential programs to build a staffing pipeline. She also suggested that districts contract out some tasks, such as evaluations or assessments, so teachers have more time in the classroom, and encourage parents to become trained as classroom aides.
Regardless of the challenges ahead, administrators are hopeful about the return of students with disabilities to the classroom. No matter how many obstacles students, families and teachers face, it won’t be as bad as last year.