Report recommends SAU shakeup in special ed; company presents Wednesday

Let's hope our Winchester officials are paying attention.. Bring this to their attention.

By Isaac Stein Sentinel Staff
 

An outside contractor hired by School Administrative Unit (SAU) 29 has recommended a series of changes regarding how local schools deliver special education. Among the recommendations are: Hire a director of student services, eliminate some special education administrators, “decrease reliance on … tutors and paraprofessionals,” and consider using technology to assist special education students in lieu of one-on-one staff.

But, only one of those recommendations — hiring a director who will oversee special education, guidance, and other departments — is definitely going to happen, according to District Superintendent Robert H. Malay. He also called a public meeting slated for this Wednesday, where representatives for the company that wrote the report will be able explain their recommendations at length.

Malay said he hired Tallahassee-based Evergreen Solutions LLC, in July, at a cost of about $30,000 to the SAU, because he wanted “a clean opinion from an outside lens on the services we’re providing … to have better answers on what we’re doing to support our students,” emphasizing that he thinks staff works hard to meet student needs, and does a good job of it.

The language of the report echoed some of Malay’s positivity, commending the SAU for operating with small staff to student ratios, recognizing that general education teachers can support “high levels of achievement of students with disabilities,” and saying that Malay and staff are committed to improving special education services, among other points.

Malay added that the SAU, which includes the Chesterfield, Harrisville, Keene, Marlborough, Marlow, Nelson and Westmoreland school districts, isn’t obligated to implement any of the recommendations. Malay also said he was concerned about the idea of eliminating special education administrator posts.

According to Malay, the SAU has five special education administrators: Elizabeth Dunn, Joanne Mulligan, Kristen Stroshine, Megan Battaglia and Rand Lounsbury.

Linda Recio, the president of Evergreen Solutions LLC, said she believes that there’s a trade-off; that more money for administrators means less for instruction.

Recio added that the report didn’t recommend a specific number of administrators to let go, as that would be the discretion of the incoming director of student services.

Offering a different perspective, Cari Christian-Coates, assistant director of student services for the Contoocook Valley (ConVal) Regional School District, said (special education) administration is “valuable in that it guides, supervises and supports people in other positions, like coordinators and special ed teachers.”

Members of the public have shown a mix of interest and concern since reading the executive summary of the report, dated December 23.

Susan Fratus, a Keene resident with an extensive education background — she was a school counselor from 1988 to 2000 at Symonds Elementary School, and served on the Keene School Board from 2013 to 2016 — said she just wants people to show up at the public meeting on Wednesday to discuss policy ideas.

“I have no preconceived notions about what I’d like to see happen; it’s just really the idea of the public being informed that I think is so important,” Fratus said.

Others were more critical.

Keene resident Virginia Somma wrote a Jan. 26 letter to the editor to The Sentinel in which she argued some of the recommendations would be bad policy; she declined to comment for this story.

“It seems to me that increasing inclusion rates while simultaneously decreasing the number of tutors and paraprofessionals to assist the students is a recipe for classroom disaster,” Somma wrote in her letter.

In special education parlance, inclusion is the idea of enrolling special education students in at least some regular education classes, with varying degrees of support; it replaced an older term, mainstreaming.

According to Coates, Malay and Recio, policies that aim to increase inclusion have been a trend in education for more than a decade.

However, Malay qualified that by saying that full inclusion — the idea of including all special education students in regular education classrooms — is something that needs to be addressed on a case-by-case basis, and he’s not sure it would work in SAU 29. Coates added that in very rare cases, students in the ConVal coverage area who have severe disabilities may go out of the SAU to receive education services.

Many of those points may surface at the public presentation that starts 6 p.m. Wednesday at Keene High School, where Recio will explain Evergreen’s recommendations and research.

Malay said he called the meeting to be transparent.

“This is nothing more than taking a look at a study that was done to see how we can do better. … I think what our review is saying is we should be looking at how to re-purpose some of our existing staff so that students who do have a disability and an (Individualized Education Plan) have better access to classroom settings,” Malay said.

Isaac Stein can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1435, or Istein@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @ISteinKS