Latest on EEU/School Board Meeting
Update: here's a bit of the discussion from the last Board meeting on EEU where Director Peters asks a very direct question to Sped head, Wyeth Jessee.
End of update
Via the Support Big K Facebook page:
I'm very sad to report the below update on EEU -
"I'm in disbelief that we are asking people to join us again (at the next School Board meeting.)
Despite all of your incredible support at our last meeting, the powerful moving testimony, the passion, and the unanimous support of the school board- no solution has been reached.
End of update
Via the Support Big K Facebook page:
I'm very sad to report the below update on EEU -
"I'm in disbelief that we are asking people to join us again (at the next School Board meeting.)
Despite all of your incredible support at our last meeting, the powerful moving testimony, the passion, and the unanimous support of the school board- no solution has been reached.
The Executive Director and Director of Special Education stated at a
Special Education PTSA meeting 'no solution will be reached by open
enrollment.'
We will be protesting this decision and asking for the School Board to continue to ask the administration to support the families we all serve."
#inclusionmatters
To note about next week's School Board meeting:
It's a fairly short one.
Assessment Presentation - hey, look at that SBAC scores by grade (not great and where are the 10th grade scores?)
Equitable Access to Programs & Services Annual Report
We will be protesting this decision and asking for the School Board to continue to ask the administration to support the families we all serve."
#inclusionmatters
To note about next week's School Board meeting:
Public testimony sign-ups for this meeting will begin at 8 am on Monday, January 18th, even though Monday is a holiday. Testimony requests can be made by calling 206-252-0040, or emailing boardagenda@seattleschools.org, and providing your full name, your contact information, and the topic on which you would like to speak.Board Agenda
It's a fairly short one.
Assessment Presentation - hey, look at that SBAC scores by grade (not great and where are the 10th grade scores?)
Equitable Access to Programs & Services Annual Report
ORCA card BAR to be voted on. New wording added to BAR:
The District will provide ORCA cards to the following low-income students:
High school students living within the 1-2 mile walk zone of their school that are not currently provided district funded transportation.
Middle school students living within the 1-1.5 mile walk zone of their school that are not currently provided district funded transportation.
The District will provide the City of Seattle non-identifiable data to be used in evaluation and assessment of the Partnership Indicators (II.).
Because this is the first year of this program, it is anticipated that there will be opportunities to refine this program and serve more eligible students. Therefore by March 15, 2016, this program will be reviewed to determine usage and potential expansion within the constraints of funding and transportation service standards. Under consideration is a plan to enhance distribution of cards to students who qualify for Free and Reduced Lunches (FRL) who participate in Running Start and Choice Schools, but live within the 1-2 mile walk zone. Additionally, consideration for FRL qualified students who live within 0-11-2 miles who have hardship situations may also be considered.
On January 14, 2016, representatives from the district, City Council, Mayor’s office, and Seattle Department of Transportation met with the Rainier Beach Transit Justice Team, including students and the school community, to discuss implementation strategies for the 2015-16 school year and beyond. The city and district are committed to continuing to engage with this community and other school communities as this program is refined and enhanced for future years. The district will create an ORCA Card Implementation Task Force per School Board policy 4110 and 4110 SP to help plan, implement and evaluate an open and transparent ORCA Card program.
Upon approval of this motion, the proposed amendment will be executed promptly with eligible students receiving ORCA Passport cards beginning February 1st, 2016.From the MOU with the City:
DISTRICT WILL PROVIDE:
The District will provide ORCA cards to the following low-income students:
High school students living within the 1-2 mile walk zone of their school that are not currently provided district funded transportation.
Middle school students living within the 1-1.5 mile walk zone of their school that are not currently provided district funded transportation.
The District will provide the City of Seattle non-identifiable data to be used in evaluation and assessment of the Partnership Indicators (II.).
Comments
Asking questions
Regarding funding: It should be noted that voters approved $53M for Seattle City's Prek program. The city will serve 2000 students @ $20K/ each.
If funding is an issue, perhaps the city can help cover costs.
The Special Education Department and the Capacity Planners in SPS should not be allowed to operate in this inequitable manner. If there were no K programs for kids with red hair or for left-handed kids, wouldn't there be some intervention? Duh. Oh, but it's allocating resources for kids with disabilities and realizing their rights to education in the least restrictive environment. That's just optional. It's not optional, but that is how it is being treated.
Our Superintendent is asleep on the job. He is sleep walking. The Board needs to wake him up and get a clue themselves about what their jobs. Their job includes oversight of the Superintendent who is currently presiding over and supporting a basically inequitable situation for K students with disabilities who need access to General education. It's breaking the law. Would Teaching and Learning under Michael Tolley ever dream of telling parents they don't have reading materials in schools xyz and have no plans to resolve that problem in time for Open Enrollment? That the Superintendent cannot rouse himself to direct Tolley, Jessee, and the capacity planners to fix the LRE situation for our K students while whinging around about imaginary problems with the EEU just about says it all about the apathy towards the rights of students with disabilities in this District. The treatment of the premier research institution in the region says it all too.
I agree, big leadership void in SPS.
Appalled
(1) It is not listed on this blog's "not complete list" of acronyms
(2) the blog's link to the district's list. Doesn't work.
(3) A search of the District's website showed:
Partial List of Acronyms and Terms Used in
Seattle Public Schools (SPS)
EAP Employee Assistance Program
EALR Essential Academic Learning Requirement
ECE Early Childhood Education
EDM Every Day Math
EGP Easy Grade Pro (online)
ELL
EOC
ESD
ESIS Electronic School Information System
ESL
BUT NO listing for "EEU"
-- Dan Dempsey
"In 1964, what would later become the Experimental Education Unit, then the Haring Center, began as the Pilot School, a small, school for children with neurological injuries. This school was originally funded by a gift to the UW from a parent of a child with disabilities who could not find appropriate services for his daughter in the community. The focus of the Pilot School’s work was on education, rehabilitation, and family advocacy. The program was staffed by University of Washington faculty and was originally directed by Charles Strother, a faculty member from the UW Department of Psychology. Strother was the individual responsible for recruiting Norris Haring to the UW from the University of Kansas. In 1965, the Pilot School program became affiliated with the UW’s University Affiliated Program, funded by the Kennedy Administration. This program was originally called Child Development and Mental Retardation Center (CDMRC) and the name of our program was changed at that time to Experimental Education. In 2007 the CDMRC was renamed the Center on Human Development and Disability (CHDD). In 1969, the program moved to its current location on south campus and was named the Experimental Education Unit (EEU). The EEU’s first director was Dr. Norris Haring and the first principal was Harold Kunzelmann. From the early days of the EEU, two practices were critical to all work carried out by researchers, teachers, and staff: Applied Research and Education Using Data-Based Decision Making.
Teachers and staff at the EEU were committed to using effective teaching practices and researching their use to teach new skills in practical settings. Many common instructional strategies, including those based on the principles of Applied Behavior Analysis, that are widely used in the field of special education, and many of the behavioral strategies used in practice today were first implemented and studied at the EEU."
TS
Parent
Thanks for the detailed explanation of EEU. Much appreciated.
-- Dan Dempsey
That case had a normal school (school for training teachers) which wanted to teach public school students. The ruling said that wasn't allowed because the teachers would not be "subject to and under the control of the qualified voters of the
school district". And also said "all experiments in education must be indulged, if at all, at the expense of the general fund".
Maybe that is why Jessee said that the EEU was private service?
LisaG
Currently there are no kindergarten age programs in SPS that provide the same level of inclusion and support that the EEU kindergarten provides. This has been true ever since the Blended Kindergarten Programs were established and then dismantled. I suspect, that is the actual dilemma for the Sped department: Only SOME kids receive this level of support, and not all who need it. So, if they dumped it, maybe they thought that no one would notice. Ha. Seriously?
If this is true, how does the District pay for those programs ? Sped dollars? Gen ed dollars? Commingling.....? I am sure they could figure out how to maintain the EEU K , if they really wanted to.
Curious
The problem with the EEU -it's simply the highest quality offering. When my kid graduated, the most depressing thing was the sped central staffers who came put to the EEU and told us to get used to lower service levels, and lower qualities. "Party is over folks, public school isn't going to be like the EEU." they promised.... and they were right!
Speddie
Another speddie
I think anybody who thinks they can win on a compliance claim, will have a very heavy lift.
Speddie
reader
It will be darn near impossible to make a court find that the whole of sps special ed is so poor quality that the district must keep EEU open, even though that is true. It is better to take another tack.
Speddie
There are very legitimate arguments for keeping the EEU program (such as what this program contributes back to our community as a whole by training educators); let's make sure that we present the "facts"-- this goes for those on either side of the fence.
Facts First
Why isn't there a bigger push being made as a teacher prep facility that helps support transformative practices aligned with SPS vision? Why not stress the partnership between the UW and SPS? Why not call on teachers who have benefitted from this program/research?
FF
I also don't get why there isn't a legal option? Can we file complaints with OSPI or another agency?
What is happening at Stevens? The staff there are opposed to ACCESS?
-QA Parent
Special ed in a "resource room" in SPS is nearly always in well, stuck in a resource room. Doesn't that sound "restrictive"? It is restrictive. Students are restricted to a room outside of general education for "pullout" special ed services. So, the special education service of most resource rooms rivals the environment of any self-contained program. ACCESS students have the same features - they often receive special education in a pullout setting. "Resource room" and ACCESS students both have a less restrictive setting when it comes to plain old general education. In most cases, their classrooms have fewer students with disabilities as a percentage than EEU.
Some resource rooms and ACCESS programs - do little or no "pullout". They do pushout. In that case, those programs are arguably less restrictive than EEU.
On the other hand, resource room students are not restricted from their neighborhood peers, or from general ed for most of the day. For those environments -EEU is more restrictive. (EEU students are restricted from neighborhood peers because they are disabled, and they spend their entire day in a disproportionately disabled environment)
ACCESS students, like EEU students, are restricted from their neighborhood school - but, ACCESS students at least attend a school in their middle school region (or so we have been led to believe). A middle school service area assignment is less restrictive than EEU because students will eventually be placed in the same middle school as those in the ACCESS program.
However - if you view the EEU as an alternative school placement - then, the general education makeup of the classroom is really something that parents have chosen (like alternative schools). In that case, EEU is NOT more restrictive because of its lack of proximity to neighborhoods. It is an all-city draw.
Bottom line - You can't really say it is "less" restrictive, definitively. It is obviously way less restrictive than self-contained programs. For others - it's not clear. You can always say it is better. You can point to a virtual 100% satisfaction rate with special education families. You can point to collaboration with true data collection. (Isn't that a theme in the district?) You can point to racial equality. It is the only place that really trains teachers and supports students as they age. And that is all totally worth it. This bad press - is nothing but a black eye for Wyeth Jessee and his entourage of greedy career climbers - who offer nothing in return.
Speddie
If that is confusing, look at how the Access program often works: kids with special needs sit in the back of a general education kindergarten, using a computer or doing something different/perhaps unrelated to the rest of the class. Teachers aides come in sometimes to help. Kids leave for periods of the day to work in smaller less distracting rooms or work in the hallway. At lunch the kids with IEPs have special lunch social groups....maybe. When kids in Access have "meltdowns...." big meetings are held to figure out what to do. Kids often go home on separate busses. Gen ed teachers often feel/are unsupported and it shows. It really is not the same. The EEU also enrolls a proportion of students who would otherwise receive services in a SPS multi-grade segregated setting, aka self contained. Sometimes without much curriculum at all. Most certainly less restrictive for them.
Is the EEU perfect? Nah, but don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Really. Can't understand how this decision was made. There is a difference between the programs/services and families should have a choice, like everyone else.
Casey
I wish Nyland would get a handle on this debacle. If not him, the School Board?
LookingforLeadership
The Special Education Task Force should rework the feeder pattern so that the kinders will be able to sustain their gains made in a quality inclusive K. The more services provided at the earliest benefit children the most.
The real issue for the district isn't the EEU, it's the Academy for Precision Learning. APL was created to provide a continuation of the EEU's services to K-12 students. If the EEU receives district special education funds for kindergarteners who (in theory) could be served by the district, it would follow that the Academy for Precision Learning should also receive special education funds for serving district students. There is at least one family in due process over funding for APL.
I am not agreeing with the district - just trying to figure out their point of view. If I had a child who needed the services provided by the EEU and APL, I would much prefer to place them there than to take my chances with SPS. Ultimately the district should provide this kind of program so that it's available to every student who would benefit.
To some points mentioned above, the EEU is the best possible training for our special education teachers. At the first SpEd PTSA meeting of the year, Wyeth Jessee was asked about some empty positions around the district. His response was that our area's higher education institutions weren't producing enough high-quality candidates, and that if only there were enough candidates to meet his high standards, he would be able to fill those spots. What a line. The EEU produces a crop of the best, every year, but until SPS is a place people actually want to work in, those amazing educators will stay at the EEU (for LESS PAY than they could make elsewhere) or go to other districts. It's a testament to the strength of SPS Special Education teachers that they can do what they do in spite of all the crap they deal with every day.
To support LookingforLeadership's point, being a parent at the EEU is also a drastically different experience than being a parent in SPS. When your child receives a diagnosis, there's a wide range of emotions and response. It's scary and uncertain. At the EEU, there is unfailing support, and you know that if you have any questions or concerns, staff there will do all they can to help you, and be an advocate WITH YOU for meeting the needs of your child. Walking in the door everyday, there's a sense of relief knowing that, and complete trust. At the most recent SpEd PTA meeting, parents were patronized, condescended to, and dismissed. The anxiety level in the room was very high. SPS SpEd seems to want to make it as difficult as possible for families to access the services their children are entitled to, or even to just get simple answers to questions, when the department SHOULD be their greatest ally and advocate. It's appalling.
It makes me believe that the only reason Jessee wants to eliminate the EEU is because the EEU proves that his job is being done better elsewhere, and is a challenge the I-know-best image he works so hard at projecting.
Numbers
Reader
here is how it would work if the district replicated the EEU blended Kindergarten: 10 students with IEPS would attend K along with 10 typical peers, whom I would assume are assigned to their neighborhood school. The typical kids would continue at the school through 5th grade, like their neighbors. But what happens to the 10 student with IEPs? They move up to first grade as well, no? then second. So each grade level would eventually have 10 students with IEPs (plus, of course, Resource Room level students at the school) How would that be staffed: 5 full time sped teachers and 15 IA's, for ACCESS level services? Hope that explains the "batches."
So, it might be more challenging then you think, and have other ramifications/capacity, etc. Can we figure it out? sure, problems are solvable, but it's not so simple.
Casey
numbers
A few years ago, the placement changed to a lottery system like open enrollment, a change that the district made.
Ref
SPS ALREADY has a payment plan with APL. It does so with a "reimbursement" plan. No contract, harder to track. Nontransparecy is their second speciaty. Lying is first. APL was founded by EEU parents, but by no means is the destination for most EEU grads. But it does pay.
Speddie
http://www.k12.wa.us/SpecialEd/NonpublicAgency.aspx
APL is not on there. APL must be getting funds via proportionate share for parent-selected private schools. IDEA allows this. This IDEA provision is not ideal, because the district need not provide transportation and IDEA due process protections do not apply.
The best thing I could imagine - insurance companies of families at APL who cover the tuition - suing the school district over the costs of educating students with autism (at a minimum). Now, that would be a fair fight. Premera vs SPS. Insurance companies are now required to cover students with autism for the ABA. So, APL collects insurance from companies like Premera. But those insurance companies should turn around a sue the school district - who really is ultimately responsible for dumping the students into their schools which are mostly daycare centers.
Speddie
What is more possible - blended classrooms in secondary schools - where the numbers are much larger. A number of schools have employed a co-teaching, blended model. Whitman, Eckstein, BHS are examples of this. Also possible is a blended multi-age arrangement. In this case, the students with disabilities are clustered into the blended classrooms. This happens at Salmon Bay and Montlake. That clustering sometimes is problematic.
Speddie