Evanston and Skokie residents had a strong reaction to District 65’s assessment of its special education program Monday night: “Just fix it!”
“I’ve feared that special-ed classes were the last to be considered for a long time,” parent Martha Kane said. “This really confirmed it for me.”
Kane, along with about 50 others, crowded Monday’s school board meeting to hear administrators comb through a recently published report on the program.
The document lays out the district’s plans for improving ways to help disabled students. And while it does state “goals” for improvement, Director of Special Services Geneva Oatman appeared to have a positive outlook on the situation.
“We are proud of our success,” Oatman said. “And we will continue our success with students with disabilities.”
But the director’s review has come under fire in the month since her office released the report. Parents of disabled students have said the school system does not do enough to help students who are in most need of extra instruction.
In particular, residents said they were concerned about the stability of programs at different schools and communication with parents.
“We try to make sure there are programs on the north end of the district, on the south end of the district and in the center of the district,” Oatman said.
Regardless, Oatman and other administrators realize this can be difficult to accomplish.
According to Superintendent Hardy Murphy, the locations for various special-ed services such as help for deaf students or emotionally disturbed, can sometimes switch locations after when planning class sizes for the next year. Although it is a last resort it does happen, he said.
Board members accepted the reality. But they did not accept incidents like the one described by Kane. The board member said that one year she found out as late as August that her child would be attending a different school.
“It makes me think we’re pretty low on the totem pole,” she said.
Parents and administrators also said they were concerned with the degree to which students with special needs are able to interact with their average-achieving peers.
According to Oatman, the majority of the district’s students with special needs spend most of their time in a general education classroom.
Attendees applauded Chute school principal James McHolland when he described recent success in the middle school’s integrated programs.
“We have nobody pulled for reading, nobody is pulled for math,” he said. “There is one teach with support staff.”
Most importantly, parents said they want students – no matter their achievement level – to feel they have a consistent home in the classroom.
“To a child, a school is what you identify with,” board member Mary Rita Luecke said.
