Former superintendent’s column: Gerald Ford was right about special education
Former Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Superintendent Curt Dubost.
– President Ford on Nov. 29, 1975, signed into law the Education for All Handicapped Children Act. Although he supported its goal of reforming the education of children with disabilities, it was with grave reservations that he did so.
You may recall in my last column I used Forrest Gump as an example of the lack of services for children with special needs prior to this legislation. The reforms in the new law were much needed and have been extended to guarantee the rights of all children from birth to age 21 to a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE).
This means all kids with special needs must receive appropriate services they need to achieve measurable goals as listed in their Individualized Educational Plan (IEP), and to attend classes with regular ed students whenever possible.
President Ford lauded those goals but warned the bill promised more than the federal government could deliver calling it, “excessive and unrealistic.” One provision promised for the federal government to pay 40% of its cost, a commitment never once kept.
Since then there have been many reforms, most notably in 1990 with the passage of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Countless children have benefitted immensely from the added services the law has mandated over the last fifty years. Members of my family have had (IEPs) that proved very successful. I have immense respect for the parents of kids with special needs and for the teachers and classified staff who support them daily. I couldn’t do it.
Most school districts are now overwhelmed, however, by the number of kids needing services. As a superintendent I used to expect to keep the percentage of kids with active IEPs to ten to twelve percent of the total district population. It’s now approaching 20% in many districts and was over 15% in Paso when I retired.
As one example, when I was first in Templeton thirty years ago the autism rate was about one kid on the spectrum per every 2500 students. Now it’s one in 36.
Meanwhile the promise to cover 40% of the cost of implementing IEPs to provide FAPE in the LRE as never been met. In this little county that results in encroachment on the general funds of each district to cover the unfunded mandate of IDEA to the tune of tens of millions of dollars per year. Here in Paso, it is over ten million per year just in encroachment to the general fund, and the district has no choice but to cover it or face even more costs for additional compensatory services and attorneys fees.
Unfortunately much of that money is not spent directly on the education of children. The regulations are extensive and complicated. Even in the best of times, it was very difficult to comply, even with the best of intentions. Lack of money or lack of qualified applicants is never a legal excuse. If a parent sues the district and prevails on even one of one hundred issues in contention, even if the school prevails on 99 of them, the parents’ attorneys are still awarded full legal fees for the entire matter paid by the school district.
Thankfully most parents are willing to work as partners with the district and avoid conflict. Some clearly though do try to abuse the system. You may recall reports of parents who worked with unscrupulous doctors to diagnose their children with Attention Deficit Disorder so that they would be afforded more time to take tests like the SAT or to be used as an excuse for their misconduct in school. Most, however, appreciate the additional services and just want what’s best for their kid.
Almost all of the school staff I know and have worked with also absolutely want what is best for the child and to comply with the law. Some of the demands though are just too difficult to administer or are just not realistic. That combined with all of the litigation and endless hours in IEP meetings motivate many SpEd teachers and support staff to leave education altogether or at least leave special ed.
This in turn becomes a classic Catch-22 as the dearth of new fully trained staff to replace those retiring or leaving a district make it even harder to comply with the law resulting often in further litigation, more encroachment on the general fund, and more staff burning out.
In this county we have a stellar head of our county’s SELPA, former Paso director of SpEd Amber Gallagher, and she has a highly professional support staff. In Paso Stephanie Schofield is an incredibly talented director of SpEd and she leads a dedicated, well trained staff. Many though are on emergency credentials of some kind.
Even then it is simply too much to handle and wears everybody out including the regular ed teachers who have to attend endless IEPs after a full day with their students. Often they must, with the assistance of special ed teachers and paraprofessionals, implement individual plans with multiple students with multiple IEP and 504 goals. One site administrator must attend the same meetings, often several a week. At one Paso school with 465 kids there are 95 IEPS to manage with 504 plans on top of that. IEP meetings may last for hours.
Issues around special ed were the number one complaint from site admin and teachers during my five years as superintendent in Paso, and we have really good services and a very supportive county office. Imagine how hard it must be in districts and counties without a local university to provide a pool of recent graduates and in a less desirable if more affordable place to live?
In remote and small districts as well as in huge urban districts there can be heavy turnover and with no trained staff they may have a very difficult time providing mandated services for children with special needs.
Unfortunately some law firms may look for cases in these districts, ostensibly to help the kids I am sure, but knowing there is little likelihood the district will be able to comply with all issues and they will be paid their fees.
Only one thing is certain; the lawyers will get paid and often with the district’s General Ed Funds.
One reform idea I heard from former SLO Coastal Trustee and California School Board Association president, Chris Ungar, made a lot of sense. He suggested the amount that is budgeted for implementation of each IEP be set at a multiple of the amount spent in that district annually for a kid at that grade level not in SpEd.
For example, let’s assume a district spends $10,000 per kid per year on kids not in special programs. Let’s additionally assume a kid has an IEP perhaps involving some relatively short term Speech Therapy maybe twice a week. Perhaps the factor for this level of IEP might be 1.5 times the base cost or in this case another $5000.
That then is the budget limit when the IEP team meets to develop goals and establish services. At the other end of the spectrum of services might be a child with more complicated disabilities requiring a aide be with them at all times. . The factor for this student might be tenfold so a budget of $100,000.
For medically fragile and other children requiring more support staff it could easily be fifty fold or $500,000. The point though is to have a standard schedule to set a budget forcing the IEP team to prioritize services based on what will get the best results. There obviously would have to be a lot of work to implement such a plan but something must be done to control sped costs and Washington has to revisit the funding issue.
I’d also advocate for highly gifted children to be treated like sped students with special needs as they were back in the day with the Mentally Gifted Minors (MGM) program. More on that next month.
Other superintendents and I did meet with Salud Carbajal on this issue several years and he I know made it a real priority but to no avail. When COVID hit and in its wake we were afforded millions in federal funds for learning recovery and the costs of masks etc.
I advocated instead that those monies be sent not as one-time funds to be spent within months but instead to be put in trust to be used over time to keep the promise Gerald Ford rightly predicted would never be kept fifty years ago, but there was no support for that alternative.
Do I think reform is likely? Unfortunately no. Several years ago when I was superintendent in San Miguel then Governor Jerry Brown came around the state on a whirlwind personal tour to see how the switch in the state school funding model was working. He drove himself to the meeting and had lunch with about ten of us. I took the opportunity as we discussed school funding to make my case for SpEd reform and the broken promise of 40% federal support.
While quickly pointing out it was a mostly federal not state issue, he shared with us a moment of remarkable candor. He said he was glad not to have it within his purview. He added he was running in his last election and was up by double digits in the polls but would not touch special ed reform or cutting sped spending, knowing if he did so his opponent would have an attack ad up in 24 hours.
I hope someone has the courage to take on special ed reform.
– Former Paso Robles Joint Unified School District Superintendent Curt Dubost
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