Report: Place more students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms

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Overhaul Special Education Teaching, Consultant Tells West Hartford

http://www.courant.com/news/local/hr/hc-whdspecial1009.artoct09,0,694708.story

By VANESSA DE LA TORRE

October 9, 2008

WEST HARTFORD — - A firm the school board hired to review the district's special education program has recommended an overhaul of the way students with disabilities are taught.The proposed changes from the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative, a consulting arm of the nonprofit Education Development Center Inc. in Massachusetts, would place special education students — including those with autism and speech and behavioral disabilities — in mainstream classrooms.They also would require teachers in every school to work directly with special education instructors.The district now has several specialized programs within its special education system, and they are expected to rack up $8.4 million in costs this budget year. Students with special needs are often taught in separate classrooms. In a report presented to the school board Tuesday night, researchers with the firm said the division between general education instruction and special education programs stretches financial and staff resources; consumes special education administrators' time on issues such as compliance, rather than program improvement; and deprives students with disabilities who may benefit from learning in an integrated classroom.About 12 percent of the district's 9,821 students in the last school year qualified for special education.Board member Bruce Putterman said the report, which is available on the district's website, www.whps.org/whps, begins a community conversation about how the school system approaches learning for all students.Although the report lauded West Hartford's teaching efforts, it said that the district has a problem with "over-identifying" members of minority groups as having disabilities. Almost half of the students who qualify for special education because of emotional disturbances are African American or Latino, according to the report, even though the two minority groups make up 23 percent of the district's enrollment.African American and Latino students in special education also receive a disproportionate amount of out-of-school suspensions, compared with their white peers with disabilities.Stay up to date on your PC, the Web, and your mobile phone with Windows Live. See Now