In the News

Districts cited for inadequate special ed procedures

April 11, 2010

Marquita Brown • mbrown13@clarionledger.com • April 11, 2010

State education officials have cited eight school districts for failing to adequately identify students with emotional disabilities or referring a disproportionate number of black students to special education.

The school districts cited were Coffeeville, Covington County, De-Soto County, Greene County, Greenville, Holmes County, Jackson Public Schools and Holmes County. They range in size from 625 students in Coffeeville to 31,228 in DeSoto County, the state's largest school district.

The review teams from the state Department of Education found problems ranging from incomplete paperwork to students recommended for special education before full evaluations.

The monitoring was done this school year, but one parent said her son was affected by problems with special education years ago when he was in JPS.

Denise Summers-Ray, of Raymond, said she tried to enroll her son, Jonathan, in Hinds County Schools and Jackson Public Schools special education programs when he was in sixth grade.

She said Jonathan has attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) , but she was told after an evaluation that there was nothing wrong with him.

But Jonathan is a slow learner and easily distracted, Summers-Ray said. He would hum in class or stare out the window, and she has lost jobs because she often had to pick him up from school for his behavior problems.

Jonathan, 22, is now enrolled in a GED program, she said.

"He's a good kid," Summers-Ray said. "He just feels like nobody cares but me."

More children are in similar situations.

"Every child deserves a chance to learn in a way that he or she is able, and every child deserves the opportunity to get free access to education," said Chanda Roby, staff attorney and education advocate with the Mississippi Center for Justice. "If a child needs some extra help or they need some extra services in order to get access to that free education, then it's their right by law to be able to have those services."

In Mississippi, about 11 percent of school children have disabilities, according to the Department of Education.

The state Department of Education aims to monitor 18 of 152 districts this school year to check for compliance with special education requirements. That goal should be met by the end of the month, said Pete Smith, a department spokesman.

School districts have to follow procedures and regulations that are part of the Mattie T. Consent Decree, which requires all students with disabilities are identified and receive services to help succeed in regular classrooms, if possible, and that minority students are not disproportionately or wrongly placed in special education.

Problems in Covington County Schools generally were found in one or two of 16 student records reviewed, with one exception.

In about half of the files pulled, discrepancies were found in the information used to determine whether a child was eligible for special education. For example, one child was deemed eligible in math reasoning, which contradicted a statement from a teacher saying the student had no problems in math, according to the report.

The school district plans to institute changes to ensure parents and teachers are included in the team that assesses whether a child needs to be in special education, said Rachel Rogers, director of special services for Covington County schools.

Teachers in the district have had more training on the entire process, from the initial consent for an evaluation to the development of an individual education plan, Rogers said.

"A lot of the things that they found during our monitoring was caused by miscommunication," Rogers said.

More checks and balances will be put in place, she said.

"I think that's going to take care of the bulk of our issues."

In DeSoto County, the state Department of Education team found inconsistencies in five of 111 files they reviewed, including a failure to get parent and teacher input and some missing data.

District officials responded by reviewing all 111 files, said Katherine Nelson, a spokeswoman for the school district. There will be more training and district leaders are looking at ways to continue to improve special education and related services for children who need them, she said.

The review team found several problems in the special education program for Senatobia Municipal School District. In two of 15 files pulled, there was no qualified professional - such as a school psychologist - on the team that determined whether a student was eligible.

"We're not really surprised by what they found because we had found those errors," said Lisa White, special education director for the Senatobia Municipal School District. The district had pulled the 15 files the team reviewed and began working to correct the errors they found.

Calls to Greenville Public Schools' special education director, and superintendents in Coffeeville, Greene County and Holmes County were not immediately returned.

In Jackson Public Schools, some students were not identified as having emotional disabilities. District officials have said the problem was the result, in part, to employee turnover and that there will be more training to ensure the correct referral process is followed.

Parents can sometimes be a child's best advocate, Roby said.

The Mississippi Center for Justice has handled cases where a child should have been on a behavior plan or undergone an evaluation, but that didn't happen, Roby said.

Each year, the number of calls from parents of children with disabilities or who need special education services has increased, Roby said, but she said the reasons are unclear.

Coincidentally, the center's partner groups - organizations that advocate for people with disabilities - have also referred more cases, Roby said.

There are more children in situations similar to Jonathan's, Ray said.

"I don't want any child to be left behind," she said.