By Mary Welander
State Rep., D-114
Mary Welander
There has been a lot of confusion around the proposals coming out of the legislature’s Select Committee on Special Education lately, so I am hoping to clear some things up.
To start, a ‘select’ committee is a temporary one created for a set period that operates under the cognizance of a permanent committee. In this case, SED is under the Education Committee. The rules of a select committee are decided and agreed upon by the leadership of both chambers and both parties and are included in the joint rules that the entire legislature votes on at the beginning of each session year.
This year, the SED was charged with creating the language that would become the number one House priority bill (HB5001), and the Senate number one priority bill (SB1).
The SED recently voted a draft of the special education proposals out of committee – but what we voted on is not the final language of the bill. Any legislation drafted in the SED must be referred to the Education Committee before it either is referred to the Appropriations Committee if there is a cost, or directly to the floor if there isn’t. This was just the next step.
This is still a work in progress. No final language has been agreed upon, and it will be worked on a lot over the next month.
The process of creating this legislation has been incredibly frustrating. I have had the honor of working on priority bills in the past (such as the landmark children’s mental health legislation). Unfortunately, for many different reasons, the process of creating legislation around special education has not gone as smoothly and has resulted in more uncertainty and confusion than expected. Also unexpected: certain advocates and others (many who stand to profit over an unchanged system) have been deliberately misleading or misrepresenting information to vulnerable families, leading to high levels of fear and distress.
I promise this: there was never any intention of closing any schools or preventing any child from receiving needed services. I always strive to put the needs of children and families first, especially when it comes to education, safety and support. This has not changed and will not change.
What does need to change is the trajectory of costs of special education services. Despite serving roughly the same number of children, the cost has increased by roughly $150 million over the last few years. Why? Is it the type of services provided? Increased severity of needs? Fees or tuition charges? Have transportation costs gotten out of control? We don’t know for sure.
Our goal was to create policy that increased transparency and accountability over the costs of special education and hopefully make the process simpler for families and schools, find ways to support our special education teachers and ensure that taxpayer dollars are being used properly. But most importantly, our goal was to ensure that our children get the best chance at success. I will continue to keep you updated as this work in progress continues to evolve.
As an advocate, I am alarmed by the two bills that (just barely) made it out of the Select Committee on Special Education (No. 7277 and No. 1561), as they do seek to reduce legal rights and protections for kids with disabilities. For example, what is the child-based reason that Section 44 eliminates from the IEP “service implementer?” If a child’s IEP includes reading instruction, shouldn’t the PPT decide whether the instructor is a special education teacher or paraprofessional or certified structured literacy specialist? Removing the “implementer” portion of the IEP is the opposite of “transparency and accountability.”
I am a former classroom teacher in CT public schools, an advocate, and a mom to two children who require special education services. I appreciate that the CT legislature would like to improve the quality of special education services and how they are delivered in CT. However, HB-7277 and SB-1561 do not reflect “transparency and accountability”. I am not uncertain or confused about the potential impact these bills will have on special education resources and services in CT. If passed, they would very clearly make an already difficult journey even harder for parents of children with disabilities to navigate.
Section 44 of the bills “…develop a new individualized education program form that is easier for practitioners to use and easier 1585 for parents and students to understand.” intentionally removes “transparency and accountability” from the Individualized Education Plan (IEP), simultaneously removing parents’ rights to know WHO will be held accountable for providing the required specialized services to their child. If the Service Implementer column is removed from the document, parents and staff may end the meeting without knowing who will provide the required services listed in the IEP. Parents will also lose the ability to request prior written notice (PWN), one of only a few procedural safeguards a parent of a special education student has when told “no” by the school team at a PPT if the “service implementor” column is removed from the IEP.
Stating that “…many who stand to profit over an unchanged system” is insulting. We do this work as advocates to fill a need for families who have often spent years begging their school districts unsuccessfully for help for their children. We help parents hold districts accountable for providing special education services that they are required to provide but haven’t.
If “strive to put the needs of children and families first, especially when it comes to education, safety, and support.” Is the intent of this legislation, then, I ask why there is not an emphasis on Higher Education? We must invest in the workforce (teachers, related service providers, paraprofessionals, etc…) and provide scientifically based, peer-reviewed professional development opportunities, not these one-off half-day trainings with a boxed program that have proven time and time again to be ineffective (look on the top shelves of most classrooms! Several old programs collecting dust).