Principal Interview, Round 2

I interviewed our assistant principal and asked her the two most challenging issues she dealt with regards to special education or with student 504's. With regard to IEP's she expressed her concern regarding teacher compliance with modifications/accomodations. She felt that this had to be constantly monitored and enforced by administration.  Regarding 504's the challenge was often parents requested 504's in an attempt to gain testing accomodations for the EOG purely on the basis that the child experiences test anxiety. She felt that they were looking for seperate settings most of the time. Most of the time the student's condition did not warrant the changes and it would give the child an unfair advantage over the classmates

Supreme Court Case - special ed, June 2009

After T.A. attended public school from kindergarten until the spring of his junior year, his parents removed him and placed him in private school. Although T.A. "experienced difficulty paying attention in class," depended on extensive help from his family to complete his schoolwork, and was evaluated by the school district for a disability, he never received special education services while enrolled in public school. When school staff members evaluated T.A. during internal meetings that did not involve his parents, they considered the possibility that T.A. had Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD. Instead of testing him for ADHD, however, T.A. was formally evaluated for a learning disability, and the school's psychologists and educational specialists unanimously concluded that he had no such disability. Accordingly, the school psychologist's report indicated that T.A. was not eligible for special education services under the IDEA, though he may have been eligible for accommodations under § 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The school district never followed up on either the suggestion that T.A. had ADHD or that he might be eligible for § 504 accommodations.  When T.A. continued to experience difficulty in school, his mother contacted school administrators multiple times expressing her concerns and proposing that the school reevaluate him.  The school district told T.A.'s mother that a subsequent evaluation would not likely find T.A. eligible for special education services.  The district offered no other assistance. T.A. continued to fall behind in school and, in 2002, he began using marijuana and "exhibit[ing] noticeable personality changes."  In 2003, T.A. ran away from home and ultimately ended up in a hospital emergency room.  His parents then hired a psychologist, who "diagnosed T.A. with ADHD, depression, math disorder, and cannabis abuse."  Upon the psychologist's advice, in March of 2003 T.A.'s parents removed him from public school and ultimately enrolled him in Mount Bachelor Academy, a private school intended for students with special needs.  Four days after placing T.A. in private school, his parents obtained a lawyer who advised them to request a hearing under the IDEA and to seek an order commanding the school to evaluate T.A. for disabilities.  The team of specialists assembled to evaluate T.A. "acknowledged T.A.'s learning difficulties, his diagnosis of ADHD, and his depression," but nonetheless concluded that T.A. did not qualify for special education services under the IDEA "because those diagnoses did not have a severe effect on T.A.'s educational performance." Following the school district's evaluation, an administrative hearing officer concluded that T.A. "was disabled and therefore eligible for special education under the IDEA and [§] 504."  The hearing officer further concluded that the school district had failed to provide T.A. a free appropriate public education, and accordingly was required to reimburse T.A.'s parents for sending him to Mount Bachelor, which cost $5,200 per month. ("Lessons learned from," 2009) The issue in the Forest Grove case was whether a 1997 amendment to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (or IDEA) prohibited private-school tuition reimbursement for students who never received special-education services in public school. The amendment says tuition may be available for students with disabilities “who previously received special-education” services in public school, if the school did not make a free and appropriate public education (or FAPE) available in a timely manner. Forest Grove, backed by school-boards associations across the country, argued that the amendment precluded reimbursement for those, like T. A., who never received special-education services in public school. But the high court, in a 6-to-3 ruling, rejected that argument. “We conclude that IDEA authorizes reimbursement for the cost of private special education services when a school district fails to provide a FAPE and the private school placement is appropriate, regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school,” Justice John Paul Stevens wrote in the majority opinion. Justice Stevens said the school district’s interpretation would produce a result “bordering on the irrational.” “It would be strange for the act to provide a remedy, as all agree it does, where a school district offers a child inadequate special-education services but to leave parents without relief in the more egregious situation in which the school district unreasonably denies a child access to such services altogether,” he wrote. He was joined by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justices Anthony M. Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer and Samuel A. Alito Jr.In his dissent, Justice David H. Souter, joined by Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, said that the disabilities law was designed to promote cooperation between school districts and families in developing an individualized education plan for each disabled student. The dissent also discussed the high costs of private-school placements. “Special education can be immensely expensive, amounting to tens of billions of dollars annually and as much as 20 percent of public schools’ general operating budgets,” Justice Souter wrote. “Given the burden of private school placement, it makes good sense to require parents to try to devise a satisfactory alternative within the public schools.”(Lewin, 2009)   

I support the Supreme Court decision and agree with Justice Stevens, as I strongly feel that the school district did not do their best to help T.A. They did not include the parents in their meetings; they did not share the fact that they suspected ADHD with the parents. The Special Ed teachers are the professionals who can sense issues that a student may have versus a parent who is distressed with his child’s inability to be successful. If this information was shared, the parents may have requested an ADHD evaluation from their doctor, and all this turmoil in T.A’s life could have been avoided. As stated above the mother contacted the school administrators multiple times expressing her concerns and proposing that the school revaluate him. T.A. continued o fall behind in school and eventually went downhill. When the district offered no assistance the mother had no choice but to make a decision that she thought was best for her child. It is imperative that an administrator takes active interest in special-Ed cases to avoid any similar situations. The administrator has to be aware of all the facts and make sure that there is good communication between the professionals at the school and the parent. Special Ed teacher’s commitment to helping the students should be foremost and their goal should be to ensure success for each student. Ron Hager, senior staff attorney at the National Disability Rights Network, describes five areas of concern that parents should keep in mind in light of the ruling:

Know Your Rights "School districts have an obligation to locate and evaluate children to determine if they do have a disability," Hager says. "The IDEA law envisions that the parents are equal participants with the school district in developing the child's program, but parents frequently don't know what their rights are.”

Get Involved "School districts have an obligation to ensure that children with disabilities receive an appropriate education based on their individual needs," Hager says. "It's not one size fits all. The parents should be looking at, 'Are my child's needs being met?'

Question the Evaluation "The other thing that's critical for parents to know is when the school has done its evaluations, if the parents disagree with the results of those evaluations, they have the right to an independent evaluation at the district's expense," Hager says.

Be Wary of Narrow Criteria "The other thing that happens ... is that the school districts have an overly narrow view of what the criteria are for special-education eligibility," Hager says. "Frequently, with a child with ADHD, they'll look at whether the child is doing well academically.”

Don't Wait to Take It to Court "Parents should appeal right away," Hager says. "Don't wait for four years. But many parents do, because they're frustrated, they don't know, or they assume the school is telling them the right thing. (Miners, 2009)

Under the IDEA, a school district is not liable for the cost of private special education services if it affords a child a free appropriate public education.  Accordingly, the simplest and cheapest way for school districts to avoid the cost of private school tuition reimbursement is by providing children in need of special education services with a free appropriate education in the first place.  However, if school districts fail to do so, parents must be able to turn to effective administrative and judicial procedures to ensure that their child ultimately receives the education that the IDEA guarantees. ("Lessons learned from," 2009)

Bibliographic Citations:

 Lessons learned from forest grove school district v. t.a.. (2009). [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawreview/colloquy/2009/

 Lewin, T.. (2009). Court affirms reimbursement for special education. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/23/education/23special.html

Miners, Z.. (2009). Court ruling helps special-needs students. [Web]. Retrieved from http://www.usnews.com/blogs/on-education/2009/06/24/court-rulinghelps-special-needs

Video Assignment

After watching all the thought provoking videos I was extremely inspired by the fact that so many people are doing the right thing....of promoting a good culture among the students and inspiring them to learn in a innovative way so they move from being knowledgeable to knowledge-able. Each of the videos had a powerful message but the ones that really stirred me were the following-

• A VISION OF STUDENTS TODAY - Mike Wesch has done a tremendous favor to us educators by promoting his students to compile all this interesting data for us to read again and again, till we realize how crucial it is for us to bring some change in our ways of teaching.I would be scared for our students future and feel compelled as an educator to bring about the change. As an administrator watching this video would result in a lot of discussion among my staff as to where we are going wrong and how can we change some of these percentages.The data shared in this video would be shared with parents too on a Parent Ed night to educate them as to what our students are experiencing today. Together we would have to share the burden of promoting a better culture. The teachers would have to start educating themselves with the new tools available for them to entice the students to learn.
• A VISION OF K-12 STUDENTS- This video would truly inspire teachers to use technology for higher level thinking. This would be a great follow up video for an administrator to share and  further stress the importance of teaching the students to think,create, analyze,evaluate and apply, thus teaching them to think. As an administrator I would promote offering professional development courses to the staff to introduce them to the innovative uses of technology. Teachers would be expected to allow students to create, consume, remix and share information with each other.
• 21st CENTURY LEARNING- This video was en eye opener for me as it made me wonder if I was a digital immigrant or a digital native. I do know for a fact that by the end of this Masters program I will definitely be a Digital native (thanks to my professors). As an administrator this would be the next question posed to the staff  " Are you a digital immigrant or a digital native". Their answers would decide their future path. They will all be required to change their instructional strategies to meet the needs of the digital learners, and make learning more fun and relevant to them. The ideas of increasing the speed of instruction, and to include multi tasking and networking promoting brain research to impact teaching would be strongly enforced and the progress would be regularly monitored.

I strongly feel that practicing what is addressed in these three videos would make a school ready to face the 21st century. Time is running out so as an administrators it is imperative that these topics are first and foremost in the educators mind at all times, and they work hard to change their styles and approach to teaching the text.  Rich Baranuik said in his video " the 21st century is going to demand that we liberate the textbook pages and open them so they can be modified, changed and improved by the second". I agree with Sir Ken Robinson that we need to get serious about the second climate crisis, not of natural resources but human resources. He and Jamie Oliver further believe that we have sold ourselves to a fast food model of education and it is impoverishing our spirits and energies as much as fast food is depleting our physical bodies. We have to keep in mind that our students world now demands new skills and we have to continuously ask ourselves the questions 'are we teaching them those skills?' 'would our school be ready to welcome the 21st century'?

As I was extremely impressed by Sir Ken Robinson, I found a video that expressed to us how we need to open up our minds and be creative and explain what is creativity. This video should help educators understand the importance of letting go of set ideas, learning styles and methods and to search within ourselves on how we can change our outlook by having confidence in our creativity.The link to the video is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63NTB7oObtw&feature=related