Sisters wins high marks for special education

Late last year, experts from the Oregon Department of Education reviewed the way Sisters School District handles special education. Their findings?

“The state was very happy with the job we do here,” said Jim Golden. “We have no corrective action plan, which means they felt we were practicing at a very high standard.”

Golden had good reason to be pleased. In addition to being the vice principal at Sisters High School he is the district’s director of special education.

Providing education to students with identifiable special needs is no small part of the school district’s operation. By Golden’s estimate, it costs about $500,000 a year. As of mid-December, the three Sisters schools had 140 special-ed students, 10.4 percent of total enrollment. That’s slightly below the state average of 11.5 percent, Golden says.

Many different types of disability can formally qualify a student for special education services. Oregon law lists 10 categories (see story, page 30).

The two largest groupings in Sisters are “Specific Learning Disability,” accounting for 41 percent of the special-ed kids, and “Communication Disorder,” 34 percent. The fastest growing category is “Autism,” represented by 4 percent of the Sisters students.

The literature of special education is rife with key words and phrases derived from the federal laws that form the legal foundation of the whole enterprise. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 1974 (IDEA) is the cornerstone. It has undergone one major revision and is up for reauthorization by Congress this year.

The laws direct that students with documented disabilities must have access to “a free and appropriate public education.” Schools must make reasonable “modifications” to accommodate these students and must offer them instruction in the “least restrictive environment.”

The latter concept has produced a revolution in the way disabled children are treated. It means that, to the extent feasible, these children will be mainstreamed — taught in the same classes as their non-disabled peers.

“Years ago a lot of these kids were put out in the back 40, in some modular that was used to dump all different kinds of disabilities together,” Golden explained recently. “Out of sight out of mind. So if you were learning disabled you were in with the retarded, the autistic, the orthopedically impaired…because we didn’t want to look at these people, as a society.”

Now, in Sisters, at least, “we believe in full inclusion to the greatest extent possible,” Golden said.

Golden is quick to point out, however, that, “This does not mean that you put me in your class to the detriment of the other 20 kids. So that becomes a judgment call.”

Who makes the call? A team of adults that usually includes a regular teacher, a special ed teacher, and a test evaluator. The team tries to reach consensus on placement and then develops an IEP, an Individual Education Plan, which specifies the services the student will receive and the accommodations the school will make.

Sisters has been highly successful in mainstreaming disabled students. The December census showed that 95 percent are in regular classrooms while only 5 percent are in separate classrooms or facilities.

Ironically, the state’s largest school district is a negative example in this field. On Feb. 10, The Oregonian reported that the Portland district’s director of special education, hired just last year, had resigned. Some believe he ran into trouble by pushing mainstreaming too fast. The story noted: “For years, the district has had a much higher proportion of its 6,300 special education students in segregated classrooms than the state as a whole. Superintendent Vicki Phillips said she was surprised to learn when she arrived in August how far behind Portland was in including special needs children in general classrooms.”

Some of the resistance to special education stems from the fact that it is expensive. In a tight-budget environment, some resentment of the cost can be expected.

Schools do get extra help from the state for this function. Golden says that whatever the state provides to schools for their “average daily membership,” not quite $5,000 per student today, the amount is doubled for special ed students. That’s one reason schools take such care to diagnose and define a qualifying student’s disability; they must do so to receive the extra portion of state aid for special education.

Schools are not expected to spend an extra $5,000 on each disabled student. The costs of providing a “free and appropriate” education vary widely depending on individual circumstances. The most expensive students in the program this year are costing more than $25,000 each.

The district tries hard to live up to its special ed obligations for moral and humane reasons. But another motive in the background is the desire to avoid lawsuits.

Neighboring Bend-La Pine School District provides a demonstration of this danger. An administrative law judge has ordered the district to pay the $50,000 cost of having an emotionally disturbed Bend girl attend a private, therapeutic boarding school in Montana for a year.

The judge found that the district’s Individual Education Plan for the girl was inadequate. Her parents sent her to the Montana school and sought reimbursement from the district under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The district is appealing, but its attorney acknowledged that a number of Oregon districts have fought similar cases and only one has won.