Seattle Schools' Special Education on the Rocks

 October 22, 2021


The Seattle Education Association is the voice for educators and our students, standing united to address the needs of our community and to transform our district into an anti-racist school system where every student thrives.

Via an SPS parent,

Special Education Students Need Structure and Stability- Not Disruption

Last week, special education staff in about forty different schools were informed that special education positions would be cut due to lower-than-projected enrollment in special education programs. Many of these educators raised concerns about how the district determined these cuts and reached out to their supervisors and/or administrators to ask questions. Their supervisors and administrators did not respond or they directed educators to contact Dr. Torres. There appears to be significant confusion within SPS administration about what is going on with special education staffing.

This week, SEA hosted a Know Your Rights session for special education staffing impacted by the proposed staffing cuts. At the meeting we reviewed current contract language that pertains to special education staffing. We also met in small groups to discuss the district’s proposed staffing changes and the impacts those changes would have on programs. Many educators shared clear examples of how the district is not following the contract staffing ratios for overages and under-enrollment.

While we understand budget decisions need to be made, they must be made in accordance with our contract. Further, our students with IEPs have been disproportionately impacted these past 18 months, so any decision that will cause any disruptions to their services should not be done without educator and parent engagement. For that reason, SEA leadership sent an email to Dr. Pedroza and Dr. Torres to demand the district not proceed with any staffing changes until after the joint Special Education Task Force meets to provide input and until we mutually agree the staffing ratios are in alignment with our contract.

If you are an educator working in Special Education and you have not been receiving updates from Vice President Uti Hawkins regarding special education staffing changes, send us your personal contact information to sea@washingtonea.org.

Seeking Educators/Parents to Share their Stories about Special Education

We are seeking educators and/or educator-parents to share their stories about the full impacts of proposed changes to special education services within our school communities. Are you an educator who provides special education services? Are you a parent/guardian of a student with an IEP in SPS? If so, do you have a personal story you’d be willing to share with our school community about how you or your child have been impacted by all of the changes (inclusive of proposed changes to special education) this school year? Please email your story to sea@washingtonea.org.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tuesday Open Thread

The speaker list is up for the Board meeting tomorrow; not as packed as I thought with just four people on the waitlist. The majority of the speakers are speaking on high school boundaries (with several wanting to talk about Ballard High). There are only three of us speaking about the Green Dot resolution asking the City to not grant the zoning departures that Green Dot has requested.  It's me, long-time watchdog, Chris Jackins, and the head of the Washington State Charter Schools Association, Patrick D'Amelio.  (I knew Mr. D'Amelio when he headed the Alliance for Education and Big Brothers and Big Sisters; he's a stand-up guy.)
Read more

Breaking It Down: Where the District Might Close Schools

Update 2: an absolutely fabulous interactive map made by parent Beth Day (@thebethocracy on Twitter - she covers Board meetings and is fun to read).   end of update    Update 1: Mea culpa, I did indeed get Decatur and Thornton Creek mixed up. Thanks to all for the correction. end of update   I suspect some who read this post will be irate. Why do this? Because the district seems very hellbent on this effort with no oversight skid marks from the Board.    To clearly state - I do not believe that closing 20 schools is a good idea. I think they hit on 20 because they thought it might bring in the most savings. But the jury is still out on the savings because the district has not shown its work nor its data. I suspect closing schools and THEN leasing/renting them is the big plan but that means the district really has to keep the buildings up.   But this district, with its happy talk about "well-resourced schools" is NOT acknowledging the pain and yes, grief, that is to come fro
Read more

Seattle School Board Meeting, Wednesday, September 18,2024

Please let us know if you attend the rally before the meeting.  Seeing photos from Twitter; looks like a good crowd at the rally. The West Seattle Blog is there reporting.  I am going to attempt to live blog so you will see abbreviations, spelling/grammar errors, etc. I will clean it up but I think it is worth trying to do. I will be refreshing the page as I go.  I am sad to see that apparently President Liza Rankin is not even going to allow 10 people over the regular 20 to testify. Just five.  Also, right at the beginning, the Board has stuck in, after Board comments, a Progress Monitoring presentation. They could have put it at the end but they didn't. They think - in 45 minutes - they can do Superintendent comments, Board comments and this presentation. I doubt that public testimony will start on-time. Tone-deaf doesn't even cover it with Board leadership. To note, apparently the district scheduled the NE community meeting on closures on Rosh Hashanah which is October 2. I
Read more