Transition House is located two blocks from the ETHS campus that is home to ETHS's transition program, a day program designed to facilitate independent functioning and self-determination of young adults (ages 18-22) with disabilities. The program teaches vocational, social, domestic, community involvement, personal living, and recreational skills.

 

During her comments, Cari shared the major findings in the case as follows:

Cari concluded her remarks by asking the administration to report on what systems, policies and practices are in place to ensure that these failures will not occur again with any current or future students in Transition House. Following the board meeting, Dr. Lanée Walls, Director of Special Education, invited Cari to speak with her about the decision and subsequent corrective actions. For a description of that meeting, see below.

If you'd like to read the decision (MM v. ETHS, District 202, Case No. 2018-340) in its entirety, CLICK HERE.  

CASE (Cari Levin, Katie Smith, and Jill Calian) recently met with Dr. Goren, District 65 Superintendent to discuss Special Educational programming in District 65. Joyce Bartz, Assistant Superintendent for Special Services joined the meeting as well.

The initial impetus for meeting was the FY17 Annual Financial Report that the District mailed out over the summer. The Report contained a graphic entitled, "District 65 by the Numbers." This graphic included all sorts of demographic information about the District, including number of schools, number of teachers, percentage of students disaggregated by race, percentage of low income enrollment, student mobility, etc. It contained no information about the percentage of students with disabilities (who in fact account for about 13% of the District's student population).

The report also failed to separately account for special educational services in its description of how educational funds are spent.

When we sat down with him, Dr. Goren immediately understood and apologized for the omission of students with disabilities from the Report. Although the Report had been produced by the business office, Dr. Goren took responsibility for the omission and acknowledged that sometimes failure to say something in effect says something. We then had a lengthy discussion about the importance of being intentional about including special education in District communications. 

We discussed concerns about the academic performance of students with disabilities and affirmed our view that this should be addressed as an equity issue. Dr. Goren and Ms. Bartz agreed. We highlighted some bright spots in the District -e.g., particular Special Education personnel, individual school PTA's which are increasingly informed about and sensitive to the experiences of families with children with disabilities. We framed this as an indication that the community values inclusion and diversity.

Dr. Bartz candidly acknowledged some of the short-comings in the District's special education programming, e.g., the inclusion-for-everybody initiative. We had a meaty conversation about the recent speech-language delivery model change (see CASE Pushes Back on Change to District 65 Speech-Language Policy). Both Ms. Bartz and Dr. Goren encouraged us to meet with them periodically to discuss issues that come up in the CASE community.

We learned through the CASE Parent Connections Facebook Group that a number of parents/guardians had received telephone calls and/or emails from their children's District 65 speech-language therapists in which the therapists encouraged them to agree to a reduction in their child's direct speech therapy minutes in exchange for consultation minutes between the therapists and classroom teachers. This change was described as a new District 65 policy.

CASE was appalled about this insidious practice. While collaboration between a child's classroom teacher and their speech-language therapist is indeed beneficial and can be effectuated through the addition of consultation minutes in a child's IEP, the decision to relinquish direct service minutes in order to obtain consultation should be made within the context of an IEP meeting. In other words, the child's team should carefully examine the data and consider whether the child's unique needs justify this modification.

Accordingly, CASE wrote a strongly worded letter to Joyce Bartz setting out our misgivings about this new District "policy." Our scheduled meeting with Dr. Goren was set for the same day that we sent our letter - and we were able to hash this out in a face-to-face m eeting with Ms. Bartz and Dr. Goren.

According to Ms. Bartz, it was never intended that therapists reach out to parents and try to talk them into this change. Ms. Bartz entirely agrees that a decision to give up direct therapy in exchange for consultation minutes would need to be made by a child's IEP team. She was not sure how this got miscommunicated to the speech therapists, but she committed to walking it back.

If you agreed to a reduction in your child's speech language minutes as a result of an overture by your child's speech and language therapist that occurred outside an IEP meeting, and you would like to have the direct speech therapy minutes reinstated, contact Michelle Brand at (847) 869-8007 and make this request.

Also, a word to the wise: although Ms. Bartz demurred to the practice of changing IEP's via telephone call or email, she endorsed idea that consultation minutes are "best practice" in the field. Be on the alert in upcoming IEP meetings for your child's team to recommend that consultation minutes supplant some portion of your child's direct speech therapy. If the team suggests this, remember that you can ask that consult minutes be added without a reduction in direct services.

Please let us know how this unfolds for your child! The sharing of your experiences with the District informs our advocacy - so thank you!