Plan will tackle deficiencies noted in special ed report ...

SAU 21 superintendent says ideas will be unveiled in March

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NORTH HAMPTON ? SAU 21 Superintendent Robert Sullivan is in the process of putting together a plan for addressing the recommendations made by a consultant who studied the special education programs available at the North Hampton School.

Sullivan indicated the first of the proposed action plans will be available for School Board review in March.

"We'll put together a plan of action that will be the framework of what we will be bringing you," the superintendent told members of the School Board on Jan. 17. "That way you can say 'yes' to us going forward (with ways of addressing recommended changes to the school's special education program) and let us know if something you would want to see addressed is missing (from the plan)."

Board member Tamara Le said that parents of students with special needs at the school have indicated to her that they are eager to be part of the plan's development.

"Several parents have reached out to me and asked to be part of the plans (and) actions, particularly the communication group," Le said.

Creating better communications at the school was one of the issues highlighted as significant in the report prepared for the board by Dr. P. Alan Pardy and Elaine McNulty-Knight, and released to the public in December. There were problems noted with a lack of adequate communication from the school to parents of children receiving special education services, and between the administration, classroom teachers and those supplying those services.

"Several mentioned that they felt their children were receiving services as expected and many noted that the best 'strength' of the school is the quality of the staff," the report said of the 25 percent of parents of students with IEPs (Individual Education Plans) interviewed for the study. "For a number of parents, however, there was dissatisfaction expressed with regard to communication from the school to them regarding their child's program and progress."

The board decided to hire Pardy to conduct the review in July of last year. It was touted as a way to ensure that the school was providing special education services that coincided with what parents wanted to see for their children.

"We're seeing throughout the district, the SAU, the state and the country that there does seem to be an increase in concerns among parents about whether special education programs are meeting student needs," School Board Chairman David Sarazen said at that time. "We wanted to be proactive on our side (and) check to see what we're doing correctly and what can be done better."

There is a financial incentive for meeting parental expectations, as well, in the form of reduced legal action and settlement costs. From 2008 through the end of the 2012 school year, the district spent almost $157,000 on legal fees dealing with three complaints from parents contending that the school was not doing enough for their special needs children.

So far, for the 2012-13 school year, approximately $98,000 has been paid in legal fees, or almost five times what was budgeted for this cost. SAU Business Manager Bill Hickey told the board last week that the majority of those funds were spent to pay settlements to resolve legal actions taken by parents of special education students against the school.

While the Pardy study concluded that the district "did not violate any substantive provisions of the IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) or the New Hampshire special education rules," it indicated that better communication may have forestalled some of the legal actions taken against the school.

"North Hampton's recent experience with complaints, due process hearings, mediations and one federal civil court appearance indicate the dissatisfaction of a small number of parents, and it may indicate that communications and negotiation patterns need to be improved," the report concluded. "At the very least, the school might want to look at these cases with the intention of learning what not to do in the future."

In total, the report presented 17 recommendations to the board. The issues involved ranged from communications, to data collection procedures, to the need to create "clear standards" for when and how to implement interventions and supports for struggling students, to questions concerning whether the school's "full inclusion" model is appropriate for North Hampton. That model is reflected in a policy that states that "classroom teachers accept that it is the expectation, not the exception that some students will require accommodations and modifications to access the general curriculum (and that) all students have membership in their community."

However, this approach, which often requires special education providers to work to supply specialized services within a student's regular classroom environment, may have to be re-evaluated, the report indicated.

"A full and open discussion ...; of the 'full inclusion model' is suggested," the consultants recommended. "There were several comments from general education staff stating uncertainty about how to provide services to students with disabilities and the difficulty of scheduling specific services around classroom instruction."

The North Hampton School has failed to make adequate yearly progress goals under the federal No Child Left Behind Act for a small group of special education students for the past two years. That, however, was not the impetus for the independent review of the special education program that began in August, Sarazen and Principal Peter Sweet have said.

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Source: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20130125-NEWS-301250364

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