CASD’s Special Ed: Strategic Plan Part III

On Friday, we discussed the strategic planning committee process and highlighted several of the comments and concerns many of us discussed.  However, we purposefully left out the special education section as it had its own separate committee that many of us didn't participate in.  Thankfully, Jill Santiago participated on this committee and submitted her concerns to the board.  

The special education committee was a much smaller group, made up of the superintendent, Dr. Cathy Taschner, special education director, Lisa Hauswirth, three special education teachers, two parents, and three community members. However, due to our concerns with special education in the district, we reached out to other special education professionals within the community (who were not a part of the committee) to review the document and give us their honest feedback.  

 Note that color coding in the headers aligns to the graphic below. If you have questions about the plan or the concerns we highlight, please share your thoughts in the comment section.

Section	Inaccurate  or questionable Content
Planning Process (pg 2)	“The information from the meeting with community and business partners was incorporated into the district plan.”  As mentioned in the comprehensive strategic plan - it is also clear that to those who participated in the Special education plan felt as if the information from their meetings were also not incorporated into the plan. As you will see below, there was a lack in identifying priorities, and possible solutions or actions identified in the meetings are not detailed in the explanations.
Enrollment (Pg 4)	“After Reviewing [sic] the enrollment differences based upon 12/1/17 child count there is an enrollment difference between the percent of special education students enrolled in the [CASD] at 25.2% and the State[sic] at 16.9%.  This difference could be attibuted [sic] to an over identification of students eligible for specially designed instruction.” (4): On what basis are we saying that we are over identifying students? This seems like spurious claim not supported by data. How does our special education identification compare to other districts with similar demographics, not just statewide averages? Additionally, there is an exodus of non-disabled children leaving the district, whereas children with disabilities remain in the district, hence driving qualifying averages higher for the district (CAN WE GET NUMBERS ON THIS?).  What type of programming is being used in districts with similar demographics, and lower identification numbers, that are proving to be successful (academic, social and emotional) for student achievement?
Least Restrictive  Environment (Pg 6- 8)	“The Coatesville Area School District’s percentage of students receiving special education in other settings is higher than the state.” (6):  Is there a breakdown of “other settings”; i.e. charter school, parochial school, I.U. programming, due to low programming support in home schools?   “Inclusionary practices and training have support the efforts to increase the students’ “meaningful engagement” within the general education curriculum in the general education classrooms.” (7):   What does “meaningful engagement” look like; being and engaging in a general-ed classroom vs. a direct instruction/resource area?  Acknowledging goal progress of individual’s with IEPs would also be an area that the district would be able to tell if inclusionary practices are successful, and can be easily tracked by the special education teacher at each year’s IEP meeting or when an IEP is revised via a spreadsheet. We should be planning for meaningful progress not just engagement. Are they engaged or just involved?  Supplemental Programming (7): Such as? We have reduced our programming (resource rooms, safe places, Autism support, etc.).   “CASD continues to expand upon the continuum of supports/services and educational placement options with the District” (7): How often are teachers being trained in this programming?  How often are students using programming?  Are these interventions strictly for special education students, or for general education students also that may benefit from an RTI program? What does this look like, please detail?   “Exploring options for mathematics intervention” (7): What options are being considered, and who is allowed to provide input for decision making?  When will we have this?
Behavioral Support Services (Pg *8-9)	“These Pilot programs additional support for students such as mentoring”(8) this is not a pilot since CASD has this before the new administration removed mentoring." Social Workers (9): Social workers are not mental health professionals! “Students CAN receive school-based behavioral health services with school counselors” (9): Special Education students, once their team requests, and is referred with/through school counselor, may see a mental health therapist for a screening.  The MHT will meet with the student to determine need/frequency and it is added in their IEP as a related service.  General education students do not see the MHTs. Mental Health First Aid (9): How many that are currently employed are trained, many have left. Are we training students and ALL staff? If not, why and it should be included to do so in the plan.
Intensive Interagency/ Ensuring FAPE (Pg 10 - 11)	CASD provides a continuum of services for students identified (10): NO life skills, AS, or ED programming, nor intensive skill instruction programming exist.  Again, this document mentions a continuum of services that we obviously do not have within our schools.   “The CASD Employs Supervisors of Special Education who assist IEP teams with available programming for students” (10): Then why do many people say they can’t get supervisors to attend any IEP’s meetings and that after IEP teams have met, several time supervisors have disagreed with the plan?   “The CASD intends to expand the continuum of services in a variety of ways” (10): What “variety of ways?  Does this include reinstating programming for Life Skills, Autistic Support, and Emotional Support Programming?  Could providing these programs support students that are currently placed in other locations, come back to their home school, and allow for a closer ratio between the State and CASD for “placed” students?
Special Education Affirmations (Pg 75)	Throughout this description the use of the words exploring, expanding, some identified, etc. do not explain a plan only a thought. The action that PDE asks for is to Describe (75): Action word meaning give an account in words of (someone or something), including all the relevant characteristics, qualities, or events. I do not see descriptions rather I see thoughts and ideas. How/what is the plan to implement and what does it look like in practice/description? (75) “There are a full range of services, programs and alternative placements available to the school district for placement and implementation of the special education programs in the school district.” (75):  We do NOT have a full range or a continuum of practice for special education. “The district has adopted policies and procedures that assures that students with disabilities are included in general education programs” (75): while students are included, they lack the appropriate supports and services in implementation to make inclusive practices a success with in the district. Not every child can be included without supplemental supports.
District Level Plan (Pg 142 – 149)	Co-teaching (143): What specifically does this model look like?  How many hours each day do we have co-teaching? Is there a plan to expand on that so we have full time co-teaching?  How are we changing, adding to, or implementing the co-teaching model in practice/description? Are special education students co-taught in all content areas? Autism (144): District “will” undergo training?  Training is not enough, we need a program with someone who is experienced running it.  Again, only PEAL and the ARC, we have many very experienced entities within our state to use. We should not limit them.  Implementation plan/description? Behavior Support (145): What does it look like in practice?  Where is it being expanded?  How will it be expanded to be school wide vs a targeted group of students?  Are parents included in the process?  PATTAN has long been focusing on PBIS, has data, pilot programs that include schoolwide mental health. Are we using them? If so how, if not why? They are experts in the field of PBIS.  Implementation plan, description?   Data Analyses Procedures (147): there are no specifics detailing how CASD has implemented this process of data analysis, data-informed instruction, data teams and data warehousing. Curriculum & Instructional Committee (148): Do all teachers participate? Or is this a designated subgroup? Are these regularly scheduled, if so what is the frequency? Goal #2 indicates that it “provides professional development in word work “all elementary, middle, and high school English teachers. “ Why is there no mention of the rest of the teachers, one might assume that the district is only focusing on “word work.”

These were a few of the things that were discussed in this planning meeting that seem to be missing from the plan all together:

• Ongoing professional development for families on a monthly or bi monthly schedule
• A committee which includes parent and community members
• There is nothing about mental health supports and services being included in the schools OR training for staff (other than MHFA)
• Nothing about suicide prevention and ongoing training
• Surveys to parents and the community to understand what their needs are for learning
• Lack of Youth voice
• Use of SAP and drug and alcohol in the school
•  Implementation of full time behavior specialists in every school
• Mental Health services unavailable to all students. According to Hauswirth, they are only available for students with IEPs.

It is the team’s recommendation that the board not approve either of these strategic plans.  Meaningful inaccuracies should be corrected before signing - especially as during signing, the board president indicates that the document is accurate. In addition, we noted that the plan does not reflect the input of either of the committees, and shared that several sections of the document were updated and not identified during the board presentation as updated pages. In fact, some of these sections that were supposedly not updated showed more changes than other sections that were scheduled to be updated. Finally, even in content that was accurate, the lack of detail and HOW the district does or seeks to accomplish the objectives is concerning.