Schools, Special Education, and Choice
A little piece of news hit yesterday about a family in the Hamilton Southeastern school district that is fighting to get the school system to put their child in both AM and PM sessions of Kindergarten. Many of the fact of the case are reported in the Indy Star today. As a bit of background, this is the world of special education which is a complex combination of Federal requirements, state requirements and local implementation.
This child, in this case, has been identified as a child in need of special services. he has speech, memory, and behavioral problems. The parents would like for him to go through both the AM and PM Kindergarten program. Just to be clear, this is not “full day” Kindergarten–he would receive the exact same instruction twice in the same day. Without knowing the specifics of the child’s situation, this seems to be a very reasonable service plan to me for the Kindergarten year. The school system, while admitting that the child needs services, do not agree that this is the right approach.
Analysis below the fold:
Since I do not have all of the facts, I cannot say for certain that the school system is wrong (though I suspect I would side with the parents here). But what I do know is that the system is structured in a way that encourages the school system to fight the parents on this.
The Star reports that the school system could end up spending $100,000 on this case if they lose. Why would they do that rather than send a kid to school for a half day? As in most areas, let’s trace the money. For each child going to a school, the school system receives aid from the state. For Hamilton Southeastern, that number appears to be about $3,155 per year, though a Kindergarten child would only bring in half of that amount. BUT this child qualifies as a special education student.
It sounds to me like this child would qualify as a severe special education. In calendar year 2009, a severe special education student with speech services will receive $8,888 for the year. Well, actually that isn’t right. The school system receives that amount–and it does not have to be spent on special education services.
So think about it. This child will bring the school system over $10,000 and the services would only cost them, say, $5,000. So why risk $100,000 over that? Well, I think it is due to the precedent of the parents being able to call for services.
If Indiana had a program similar to that in Florida which parents of special education students could take those dollars to programs of their choice, this would not be issue at all. HSE would have immediately agreed to the services or the parents would have simply taken those dollars to a school that would meet their needs.
Crossposted at Circle City Pundit
August 22nd, 2008 at 3:44 pm
The parents seem to belong to that school of thought, that you can make yourself understood to someone who doesn’t speak English, as long as you speak very slowly, and very loudly.
The kid doesn’t need two ineffective sessions of regular kindergarten daily; he needs one effective session of something else. If the kid goes to two sessions of kindergarten, he’ll end up hating school. That’ll happen soon enough anyway, and no need to accelerate that outcome. What’s more, he’ll make 60 other kids hate school, instead of just going to one session of kindergarten, and making 30 other kids hate school.
If you had a kid with speech, memory, and behavioral problems, you’d understand why the parents want him in kindergarten both morning and afternoon; they need some relief. I’m not unsympathetic, but the school is there to meet the kid’s needs, not the parents’ needs.
If someone wants to start up a really valuable charity, someone needs to provide a daily break for parents with kids like this.
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I have a child on the autism spectrum. I know of what I speak. Don’t be patronizing.
The reason that I believe that it would probably be beneficial (not knowing the specifics that you do not know either) is that someone with memory issues normally has to have more repetitions before they get it. The repetition is EXACTLY the solution that the child needs. If he is currently in a mainstream classroom, the issues are probably there already.
“he needs one effective session of something else”
That is exactly what I proposed at the end of the entry.