Keep It At the Local Level: School Placements

When it comes to my son's education, placement is key. He has Spring Break the week after next and we're all preparing ourselves for the big change in routine vacation from school entails. We'll all be glad, as in relieved, when the break is over, and more aware than ever of how important school is for Charlie's life, and ours. So it's vital that we as his parents have our say, and a very big one at that, about where Charlie's go to school and that students with disabilities who are able to participate in an IEP meeting learn to self-advocate for themselves.

So I'm not happy to hear that students here in my own state of New Jersey could be deprived of their right to an appropriate school placement and services under "fiscal accountability" regulations (N.J.A.C. 6A:23A). Under these emergency regulations, executive county superintendents are allowed to review placement determinations when the local IEP team is considering an out-of-district placement---that is, they're allowed to intervene in the IEP process. Further, the regulations were finalized without giving the public an opportunity to comment on December 18, 2008 by the New Jersey Department of Education.

The thought of an executive county superintendent---who's not even an administrator in our own local school district---intervening in the IEP process does not sit well with me. Such an official would not, I believe, be able to make an informed decision about an appropriate placement for my son. While my son has done very well in his current placement in an in-district public school program in New Jersey, previous placements in other school districts were inappropriate and led to my son significantly regressing in his academic learning, cognitive development, and behaviors. (And to him briefly attending a private out-of-district school---a placement secured for him after Jim and I had assiduously rejected our former school district's recommendations for a public out-of-district placement.)

To make decisions for my son, and certainly something as essential to his life and well-being as his education, you must know my son. To do this, you must spend time with my son: Must be with him, teaching, observing, assisting, laughing with him, sitting with him through the hard moments, day in and day out. This is what Charlie's teachers, therapists, and aides do, day in and day out, and it is what Jim and I do, day in and day out and nights too. Charlie's IEP meeting will be in the next couple of weeks and (while these meetings are not without their stress and tensions), I do look forward to speaking about Charlie's education and learning with those who know him well and who make it the work of their days to teach him.

But an executive county superintendent who only knows Charlie through the documents about him---documents which tend to say a lot about Charlie's "behaviors," "deficits," and the like, without conveying the sweet silly guy who's eager to learn and tries really hard and sometimes just seems to explode and regrets it immediately----cannot know enough Charlie to make such an important decision. I try to convey as many facets of Charlie as I can here but IEPs with elaborately written Behavior Intervention Plans don't convey that. Nor do they capture what it might mean for Charlie to go to school in the same school as the other kids his age in our town, or his fondness for his teachers and aides, or his burgeoning interest in art and how he's drawn to colors and shapes and textures, or his liking (just like the other boys in his class) for Coldplay. Though no one's going to admit it, it's often the budget, not the needs of the student, that determine placement, and we know which one administrators look at when push comes to shove.

It's disturbing simply to think that New Jersey's Department of Education passed this regulation without providing the public an opportunity to comment. On April 16th, there will be a meeting of the Senate-Assembly Joint Committee on the Public Schools, which is devoted to the special education provisions of the Education Department's "Fiscal Accountability" regulations. NJ residents: You can provide the Committee with testimony, and/or you can attend the hearing, which is scheduled for 11am in Committee Room 6 of the Statehouse Annex in Trenton.

I can't attend so a version of this blog post is being sent to the NJ Legislature, the Governor and the Department of Education.

A press release from Autism NJ has specifics:

- The Fiscal Accountability Regulations mandate that each Executive County Superintendent (ECS) review placement determinations when the local IEP team is considering an out-of-district placement. The local IEP team must give the ECS the age of the student and class type needed. The ECS then provides the IEP team with information on available placements in other school districts, and if none are available, information on public regional programs. There is no requirement to provide information on private placements. If a local IEP team decides on a different placement from those recommended by the ECS, a written explanation justifying the decision must be provided.

- Under IDEA, placement decisions are to be made by the IEP team not an outside administrator. Authorizing the ECS to recommend placements and require districts to justify non-recommended placements may intimidate IEP members from making appropriate placement decisions. This is contrary to federal law and could lead to increased litigation by parents for appropriate placements, and increased special education costs.

- The regulations do not require the ECS to provide information regarding the entire continuum of placement options.

- In 2007, nearly 23,000 students with disabilities in New Jersey were placed in out-of- district programs. It will be impossible for each ECS to review this many requests. The situation has the potential to cause violations in time line requirements and defeats the purpose of the ECS to help ensure efficiency and cost-effectiveness.

- The ECS may recommend the establishment or expansion of public regional providers such as special services school districts, educational services commissions and county child study teams, which will result in more district failures to comply with the special education law's "least restrictive environment" mandate.