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AUTISM FIRST STEPS
AUTISM DAILY NEWSLETTER
Thursday December 6, 2001
EMOTIONS RUN HIGH IN DETROIT AS PARENTS
AND TEACHERS TELL SUPERINTENDENT TOM WATKINS OF PROBLEMS IN SPECIAL
EDUCATION
Parents and teachers turned out in force at Detroit’s Northwest Activities
Center on November 20th to tell Michigan’s Superintendent of Public
Instruction, Tom Watkins, about problems they face in the delivery of special
education services in one of the nation’s largest school districts.
Pickets greeted the Superintendent from paraprofessionals worried that
new proposed rules for special education would allow districts to back away
from class size and case load limits. Union representatives and anguished
parents implored the crowd of nearly 400 to take action to protect the
district’s most vulnerable students. “In order to save money we’re losing
lives,” said one. “It’s murder and we have to take responsibility for
it.” State Board of Education President, Kathleen Straus, was present as
were Michigan’s Director of Special Education and Early Intervention Services,
Dr. Jacquelyn Thompson, and Dr. Lee Martin, Special Education Director
for the Detroit Public Schools. As he had in other sessions held around
the State, the Superintendent vowed to stay “as long as it takes” and spent
four hours listening intently as each speaker shared opinions, suggestions, and
tales of heartache and frustration. Several parents complained
about a lack of accountability. “Every job I have ever worked, if I
did something wrong there were consequences,” said one. “What has the
State ever done to the Detroit Public Schools to hold them accountable?
We need to hold someone responsible.” “Why don’t the Detroit
schools have the same standards as the rest of the state?” asked another.
“Every year I have to fight for my child to get FAPE,” a mother
told Watkins. “I have filed countless complaints and the Detroit Public
Schools have been found in violation 90% of the time. But where has it
gotten me? My biggest complaint is the complaint process. It’s
ridiculous. Are you going to do something about the ineffective complaint
process?” “We are doing something about this,” Watkins told her.
“I’ve heard this before. It has gone so far that Michigan
Protection and Advocacy is suing us over the complaint process. We are
working with the Detroit Public School system, but it is like trying to turn a
big battleship. I agree that we don’t want to have a situation where you
file a complaint and then twelve years later when your child is out of the
system you finally get an answer.” “But I am a taxpayer and I am paying
school district attorneys to fight me,” she continued. “I had a principal
tell me, ‘so what if you file a complaint?’ It is just ridiculous.”
“I understand,” he said. “If you tell your child, ‘you have to
clean your room or else’ and nothing ever happens, you have a problem.”
“My son has suffered 8 years in the public schools,” another parent told
him. “I don’t understand why these people don’t have any fear about not
carrying out the IEP. When people are stupid like that, when they have that
kind of authority, there should be something to bring them back down.
They need to be disciplined.” Watkins responded, “Once these
things don’t happen – what is our course of action? What is the recourse?
I’m not sure I have a good answer to that, but I think that people should
be held accountable up and down the line.” Several members of
the Detroit Special Education PAC (Parent Advisory Committee) told Watkins that
Detroit school administration had disbanded the PAC in recent weeks and were replacing
it with “parent forums.” “What is your feeling about the role a parent
advisory committee should play?” a parent asked him. “I look at my job as
serving the customer,” Watkins told her. “We should engage and involve
people. I started at the Rouge plant listening to people on the front
line. Listening to parents and having their active involvement makes
sense.” “Well, I have never seen an administration that is so parent
unfriendly,” she responded. “Dr. Burnley has refused to meet with us, and
now he is trying to break us up. We have always supported the schools.
We are the PAC that fought for Medicaid reimbursements for the district.
What do they fear about us telling other parents about their rights?”
Another parent recounted that a petition on the issue of mainstreaming
had been submitted to Burnley with over 400 signatures, but that he had not
responded, even after being contacted by a state legislator. Watkins
noted that Burnley had been meeting with many groups and spoke of Burnley’s commitment
to Detroit schools, but another parent told him, “He might be one way with you
in Lansing, but that’s not how he treats us. I’m not asking him to
satisfy or meet with every group that asks, but when he has an established
parent advisory committee in his district, he needs to find time to meet with
them.” “You make a very good point,” Watkins told her. Later he
noted, “One of the things I’ve heard over and over from the people I’ve
listened to is that we have to have better communication to parents about
rights and information.” “My child has been in seven different schools,”
said one parent of an autistic child. “I’ve had to fight to keep him in
school. I had to get an attorney. Even with the laws on the books
it’s hard, and now we have to learn new rules. And, I can’t imagine a
class of 20 or 30 autistic children. I’m scared. I’m really scared.
You’re going to have teachers running.”
“That is a concern of ours,” Watkins replied.
“There is a shortage of special education teachers as it is, particularly
in the area of autism, but we are pursuing programs to certify more teachers.
We can thank Senator Leon Stille who saw the light when his grandchild
was diagnosed with autism. Through his support we are pursuing new initiatives
in the area of autism and teaching.” “Combining ages in the classroom is
a concern,” another parent told Watkins who responded, “We are looking at that
issue. In Macomb County I saw a young man, 18 years old and six feet tall
standing next to a young 12 year old girl in a wheelchair. That image is
staying with me as I think about these issues.” A parent with a two year
old with Down’s Syndrome told Watkins of her concern regarding the proposed
reduction in services for Early On programs. “The minimum of two hours
per week is going to be reduced to one hour per week. Intervention at a
young age is so critical and this proposal doesn’t make sense.” “I have a
personal interest in early childhood intervention,” Watkins told her.
“When I was in Palm Beach, 70% of the residents voted to tax themselves ½
mil for 0-5 school readiness. It all comes down to this...you can pay now
or pay later.” Parent after parent told the Superintendent that caring
for their special needs child left them very little energy to advocate for
their rights and/or fight the school system. “When you have a
special needs child,” one said, “your whole family changes. Our life has
changed drastically. I’m here to give it up for those primary caregivers
who dedicate themselves to our children. These special needs children are
vulnerable. They are the most vulnerable. My heart starts to boil
and my belly starts to burn when I think of what these children face in the
schools. I want you to know it is not easy. The schools get away
with a lot because the parents can’t be there.” “It is very hard on the
family. It is very stressful,” said another. “If you start changing
things that don’t benefit the child, it is going to add to the stress on us.
We’re the ones who have to follow up on the IEP and that’s stressful.”
“You have to give up a lot when you have a special needs child,” another
told Watkins. “I have a lot of friends who are not working because they
need to stay home to take care of their children with special needs.” A
grandmother of a severely mentally impaired 17 year old explained that she and
her husband were now their granddaughter’s primary caregivers after her mother
passed away in July. “Even though we were close to our daughter,” she
said, “we did not know what it was really like to have a severely impaired
child. Your life does change. For a school to take advantage of a parent
who is caring for a special needs child...well...I cannot think of the words,
but some day there will be an accounting.” “What happens to a parent with
a special needs child?” asked an advocate. “They don’t have thetime to
fight like we do. They are taking care of their children 24 hours a day.
So when Dr. Burnley changes their program, they don’t have the energy to
fight.” Parents of ADD and LD students told of their frustration in
trying to obtain services. “We have a 14 year old with ADHD,” one mother
told Watkins, “and we are very frustrated parents. Our son was labeled LD
from 1st to 3rd grade, but once he started doing well, they took him out of the
program. We signed off because we didn’t know better and by 6th grade he
was failing. Even though he was at a 3rd grade level in math, they
wouldn’t provide services. He felt bad that he was failing, but we told
him, ‘Son, you’re not a failure. It’s the School Board that has failed
you.’ Luckily we got together with CAUSE and got an outside evaluation
that found he was ADHD and LD. When we got to the IEP they weren’t happy
because we brought Martha from CAUSE. The people downtown, they have an
attitude.” “It’s not fair that we have to fight so hard for services,”
she continued. “I’m ready to get an attorney and sue someone.
Something has to be done. The responsibility that you shoulder,”
she told Watkins, “is to try to get some fairness. There are too many
kids who fall through the cracks.” “If it weren’t for CAUSE and Martha
and Lynda,” said another, “my child would have been put in a school with drug
addicts.” “My child’s program was taken away,” said another. “These
kids shouldn’t be kicked to the curb. Somebody needs to step up to the
plate and ask why this is happening. It’s not fair and it’s not right.”
A second grade teacher told Watkins, “I have several kids who need
services, but I can’t get them. Perhaps you’re the guy who can untie some
knots and bring some sense and sensibility into this system. A child
shouldn’t have to be profoundly impaired to get services.” A mother whose
daughter has a learning disability explained that by the time her daughter
reached 3rd grade she was being treated as a disciplinary problem because she
couldn’t do the work. “I was lucky enough to have a house I could
mortgage,” she said, her voice trembling. “I went deeply into debt to get
my daughter private services and she went from a 1st grade reading level to a
7th grade reading level. These children could do so much better with the
proper services and it is a crime that they don’t receive them. And now,
this year, she was finally in an excellent program and two weeks ago the entire
program was dismantled. I am appealing to you to do something,” she told
Watkins. “Go before the press. Talk about the funding that we need for
these programs.” “Know that I have talked about that,” he told her.
“I’m going to be there. I have been there. I am an outspoken
advocate for children and I am not going to back down. But I need you
behind me. I need you to call your State Representative and ask
why, in a time of overwhelming need, are we getting ready to give back money in
the form of a 0.1% tax cut? That is money we need to keep at the
state level to support children and families. I need you to work with me
on this.” He also reminded the crowd, “Elections do make a difference.
Your voice does count. United States Senator Jim Jeffords switched
parties largely because of special education issues.” Students also
addressed the Superintendent. Said one, “They took away my resource
teacher. Do you know how fast your grade can fall and it is so hard to
catch up. I’m not getting the help I need.” Said another, “Regular
ed teachers treat us like we’re not nothing. And my resource teacher
isn’t helping. He’s just hangin’ this year. We need more resource
teachers who know what they are doing. We have students who want to do
better, but we need the help.” Several parents told Watkins that when
they began to advocate for their children they found themselves referred to
Children’s Protective Services. Recounted one father, “My son had a brain
tumor at the age of two and he had to have surgery, but he had continuing
problems and I was trying to get services. CPS and a social worker showed
up at my door asking why I was making up my son’s problems.” Said
another, “It is not fair how our children are treated in the schools.
They are looked down at, laughed at, pushed, shoved. The schools
say our special needs kids need to grow up and when we push for services we get
reported to Protective Services. There’s no cooperation, only put downs.
How much can someone fight? Until you’re dead?” “Parents are
intimated,” a bus driver told Watkins, “because if they complain they are
labeled a ‘bad parent.’” Watkins was also told that 75% of children in
foster care who qualify for services do not receive them and that in some programs
children are being referred to juvenile justice because the schools have not
responded. Concerns were also raised over delinquent youth whose parents’
rights have been terminated. “They are placed in facilities that do not
provide special education services because the facility claims that they have
no special ed students. No one is there to speak for these kids, they are
wards of the State, and when they get out they are way behind,” said one
advocate. “School systems are always talking about how they don’t have
enough money to provide services,” a parent commented, “but the real issue is
that we aren’t spending money wisely. We buy computers without proof that
it is raising achievement levels. I currently pay $2,250 a year to get
services for my son. That’s probably half of the real cost, so figure it
costs $4,500 a year. Why does it cost $22,500 in a public school?
Down in the trenches, a lot of money is being spent on public
education. Where is it going? I think the schools are getting
plenty of money. The issue is how it is spent.” “It’s no good just
dumping more money in,” said another. “The question is, what are you
doing with the money?” One teacher asked if individual
schools are required to account for how money is spent. “It seems to me that
if a school is saying that they have to go to a larger class size for monetary
reasons, they should have to make their budget public – the way a corporation
does.” Some parents complained about a lack of summer school options for
children with disabilities and noted that the current rules require a greater
number of days of schooling for certain disabilities, particularly those
involving cognitive impairments, in order to guard against regression over the
summer. The proposed rules would do away with those requirements.
A single mother with a 10 year old son with Downs Syndrome
told Watkins, “When school is over, there are no summer programs. I used
to be able to go to Easter Seals for a summer program, but now I want to get him
into a program for handwriting. I got a list of resources and I have
called them all, but they are out of service or shut down. There is
nowhere here for special ed kids to extend their learning at the end of the
school year.” A surrogate parent shared a success story of a young man
with learning disabilities, anxiety disorder and an IQ of 52 who, with the help
of a team of 3 surrogate parents is now in college. “He was the first
special ed student from Mumford High to attend college,” she told Watkins.
“He can’t write numbers, he can’t read, but he can learn and he can make
it.” “Very few of us make it in life unless we have help along the way,”
Watkins told her. As in other sessions, a parent rose to remind the crowd
that special needs children are not a burden, but a gift. “My son has
taught me so much that I don’t learn on the job,” she said, “like courage,
compassion, and patience. With the proposed rule changes we are sending a
message that our children don’t matter and that is not true. They have
gifts that they give us. You can tell the strength of a nation by how it
cares for its most vulnerable.” Said another, “These children have a
heart and a soul and a body and arms and legs. They may use them
differently, but they are still somebody.” “Thank you for reminding us
that what we do is a statement of our values and not just a statement of the
rules,” Watkins responded. More so than in any other session, teachers
came forward to tell Watkins of their concerns.“It all comes down to money,”
one said. “The bottom line on these rule changes is about cutting
budgets. And now they are taking money away from those who need it most.
Engler just cut $3.8 billion dollars out of general ed and it’s money
coming out of anti-poverty programs. It just bothers me so much.”
“Look at every single organization that represents special ed,”
said another. “They are all opposed to these rule changes. We are
lowering ourselves to the federal level. We will not put up with going
back to a day when special ed students had to hide in corners.” “We talk
about mainstreaming,” another told Watkins, “but, there isn’t a process for
bringing general ed and special ed teachers together to make mainstreaming
successful.” That was echoed by another teacher who asked, “What is
the total number of special ed students that can go into a class of 35 in
regular education? Without follow-up and support from special ed, these
kids can’t succeed.” “No one has talked about how we are going to train
regular ed,” another commented. “The big package includes socialization
skills.” A regular education teacher told of being asked to sign off on
IEPs and special ed plans that she had never been a part of developing.
One teacher spoke in favor of retaining the exclusion from the EI category
for “socially maladjusted” youth. “It’s a different kind of kid,” she
explained. “They are tough kids where the EI kids are very vulnerable.
It is not a good idea to put them together.” A speech and language
teacher commented, “In the changes for speech and language it suggests that
direct assistance can be done by a lesser trained person. It takes 6-7
years to get a high master’s degree to do this job. This job deals with
how the brain works, how the ears, the mouth and the tongue work. It
takes an understanding of physiology and anatomy. It can’t be done
competently by a person with lesser training. On the other hand, 1/3 of
my time is now going to paperwork: the Medicaid reports, the IEPs.
If you want to talk about getting me someone to help with paperwork...well,
ok.” “I am an EI teacher,” explained another, “and I currently have a
class of 20 EMI students. Today I was given a LD kid and told, ‘You’re a
special ed teacher. You can teach anyone so your classroom is now
cross-categorical.’ But I can’t,” she told Watkins. “I don’t have
the expertise to do that.” He responded, “That would be like asking a
podiatrist to be a brain surgeon, wouldn’t it? Even though they are both
doctors, we know that one can’t do the work of the other.” “My B.A. is
K-8,” she told him. “My teaching certificate is K-8. My district took me
and put me in a high school and told me to teach LD and EI in a high school
setting. I think I’m a good teacher, but when you take a teacher and put
them in a setting where they have no background you set both the teacher and
the students up for failure.” “What really concerns me,” she continued,
“is the amount of students in my classroom. I can’t give quality
instruction no matter how hard I try. I give no individual instruction.
My kids can’t hear with 21 kids in the classroom. They can’t learn
with 21 kids in the classroom. And even though I was offered an
aide I turned it down. Why? Because I’ve had an aide before and I don’t
want an aide who is not trained that I have to babysit. I don’t have time
to babysit an aide.” “I’ve been in the field for 27 years,” another
teacher told him. “I’ve been proud to be a Michigan educator. We
have been progressive and a leader. My concern is that it will change
with these new rules. I think that the State needs to retain control over
class size. Right now class size for LD and EI is 10 students. They
are saying that class size could be 18-22 -- that we should expect that.
To try to reach the 10-12 now is difficult. If you raise class size
to 18 or 20, it won’t be possible. We are burning special education
teachers out.” “I currently have 19 students where the state limit is
supposed to be 10,” said another. “These students all have capabilities,
but they also all have disabilities and need services. Right now all that
I am able to provide is expensive babysitting – expensive warehousing.
Schools should be able to ask for waivers, but they should have to prove
themselves and explain what supports they will put in place for these kids if
they increase class size.” A school psychologist told the
Superintendent, “It’s hard for me to test children knowing that there are no
programs to help them on the other end. The majority of the kids I test
have a literacy problem. To get them help I say they have a reading
discrepancy or a processing disorder and need a resource room, but there is no
space for them. Why can’t we have a resource room teacher for
regular ed students? Why can’t a student receive services without the label?”
Another teacher told of receiving regular education high school text
books for her students who couldn’t read well enough to use them. “If
you’ve got kids who can’t read, we can’t worry about the regular ed books,” she
said. “We need to concentrate on the basic skills that they need:
reading, phonics. I don’t care if they are in high school. We have
to focus on what they need.” “Parents should be outraged about social
promotion,” another told the crowd. “Some teachers let these kids play
cards or play Game Boy. They aren’t learning.” Many teachers
mentioned a lack of professional development opportunities in special
education. “I’m a social studies teacher and I have been to 8 workshops this
year,” said one, “but I haven’t been invited to one workshop on special ed.”
“I’ve only been to two staff developments in the past six years
that had anything to do with special ed,” said another. “Staff
development is absolutely critical,” Watkins responded. “It is not
unusual for business to invest 10-12% in staff development. In education,
if we invest 3% that’s a lot and it is often the first program cut in difficult
economic times.” A registered nurse came forward to raise several
concerns. “We are the forefront monitoring system for students with
disabilities,” she told Watkins. “But we aren’t considered professional
staff. We are required to take orders from administration yet, we are the
ones held liable. There are consequences for not following
state mandates. Medication management is a big concern, yet nurses are
not invited to the IEP. We are only called in when a serious problem
arises. We are seeing cuts in mental health services. We aren’t
doing prevention and intervention. How do you see nursing in the schools,”
she asked. “As vital and important?” “Absolutely,” he replied.
“I was just meeting with support personnel and heard the stories about
the school secretaries dispensing medications. Unfortunately, in
government we don’t do anything, and we don’t do anything, and then there is a
tragedy. We don’t want to see that happen.” A bus driver raised concerns
that the training she had received was not being implemented at the school
level. “I asked someone about you,” she told Watkins, “and they said you
are very compassionate and you will hear people’s pleas. We are trained,
but when we go back to our home base it is stopped. Student
transportation is an important part of these children’s lives. We are
given special equipment and the trainings, but we can’t use it.” “Sometimes,”
Watkins reminded the crowd, “ we tend to forget all of those ancillary services
that make up a school. The bus drivers, the custodians...they add
value to what we do.” As in other sessions, concerns were raised over the
proposed “instructional ratio” and that increased flexibility would simply lead
to larger class sizes and wider disparity between districts. “I am
concerned about the disparity now between districts and counties,” a parent
told Watkins. “A child in Southfield is in a class of 9 students with 2
aides and a teacher, a 1:3 ratio, while my child has 18 in his class with 1
aide and a teacher, a 1:9 ratio.” “What we are hearing is that we need to
find a framework that sets a minimum level of compliance that will keep the
bottom from falling out,” Watkins told her. “I am going to do my best to
make decisions in the best interest of kids.” As the crowd thinned and
the evening came to an end, a parent thanked the Superintendent for coming, but
said, “You came at the right time, but come back later to see how things
are going.” “I will,” Watkins told
him. “I’ll be here.”
******************************
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