Engaging Students With Disabilities in their Education

The following blog is an installment in the DCAYA“School Climate” series where we asked experts, community members, and youth to write about the variables affecting school climate. Guest blogger Juanita Huff from School Talk, Inc. writes about the need to engage disabled students in school because they are most at-risk for dropping out. 

Students with disabilities[1] are faced with many challenges throughout their education, including becoming disengaged and dropping out of school. In June of 2002, the National Center on Secondary Education and Transition (NCSET) cited that the dropout rate for students with disabilities was approximately twice that of general education students. The problem persists, as evidenced in a NCES compendium report which specifies a 2008-2009 national status dropout rate of 15.5 percent for students with disabilities and 7.8 percent for students without disabilities, ages 16 through 24. The report links this trend of non-completion to lower earnings, higher rates of unemployment, poverty and illness later in life.

What leads so many students with disabilities to abandon their education? A publication of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) “Dropping Out and Disabilities” offers the following explanation for the higher dropout rates observed among students with disabilities

“Although they are often held to the same standard as the general population, students with disabilities must overcome serious obstacles that can interfere with their education. To graduate from high school, students with disabilities may need to work harder, study longer, or possess greater academic ability than their peers without a corresponding physical, emotional, or learning handicap. The added work and frustration associated with a disability can take its toll over time[…]”

As parents, educators, and school officials continue to collectively explore ways to ensure special needs students’ success, it is important to remember that the students themselves are valuable sources of information and insight. Students who are given meaningful opportunities to participate in their education typically display higher levels of motivation, more positive attitudes, and better behavior. Promoting students’ involvement in their education can support them in (1) creating their own academic success, (2) contributing to a caring and supportive environment, (3) clearly identifying with the connection between their education and future goals, and (4) addressing their own social challenges; which have been identified as “four broad intervention components that are important to enhancing student motivation to stay in school and work hard (McPartland, 1994).” (Cited in “Students with Disabilities who Drop Out of School – Implications for Policy and Practice”)

Students who receive special education and related services must have an Individualized Education Program (IEP). The IEP is individualized for each student and is created by a team of teachers, parents, school administrators, students, and related services personnel. Providing students with the ability to actively participate in their IEP meetings allows them to express their individual needs, goals, ideas, and interests. In an article published in TEACHING Exceptional Children Plus, author Becky Wilson Hawbaker maintains that meetings led by students promote greater parental involvement, undermine stereotypical assumptions concerning intellect, build students’ confidence and determination, and prepare students for transition to adulthood. Students are more likely to remain engaged when they are actively involved, reducing the risk of dropping out. Programs, such as I’m Determined in Virginia, have developed innovative practices for involving students from elementary to high school, and spanning all disability categories.

Support for improving students’ participation in their IEPs is gaining momentum in DC. The Office of the State Superintendent of Education and the DC Secondary Transition Community of Practice (members from OSSE, DCPS, charter schools, non-publics, community organizations, government agencies, etc.) are supporting a Student-led IEP Demonstration Project. The project team is working with selected District schools to support and document their efforts to increase the involvement of DC youth with disabilities in decision making about their education. For more information, contact Leila Peterson (Executive Director, SchoolTalk, Inc.) at leila.peterson@schooltalkdc.org.

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[1][1] The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (P. L. 101-476), defines a "child with a disability" as a child: "with mental retardation, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities; and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services." An important component of IDEA is Free and Appropriate Education (FAPE), which requires school districts to provide access to general education and specialized educational services for children with disabilities. It requires that children with disabilities receive support free of charge as is provided to non-disabled students. 

Juanita Huff is a recent graduate of George Mason University and currently works as a Transition Specialist at SchoolTalk, Inc. (www.schooltalkdc.org) Born with a mix of moderate hemiplegic and spastic diplegic cerebral palsy, Huff is familiar with the challenges that many students with disabilities face. She is passionately committed to improving the ability of youth with disabilities to succeed in education, employment, and independence.

Disengaged and Non-Traditional Learners Can Thrive Through Summer Learning

Little known fact: I didn’t actually learn to read until I was nine years old. A combination of what was then diagnosed as dyslexia, a phonetic processing disorder (I still for the life of me cannot distinguish vowel sounds with any accuracy) and frankly a unique learning style, all left me at a significant disadvantage. School was, needless to say, a very stressful place. Homework time could best be described as an outright battle of wills between me and my (in hindsight, highly patient) parents.

This reality completely influenced how I spent my summers. My parents realized early on that I could not afford to sit idle during the 8 weeks of summer. So, while other kids went to sleep away camp, traveled with their family or roamed the woods of Vermont, I was in tutoring. During the early years, it was with a reading specialist matched by additional spelling and math work with a teacher from my elementary school. To say I perfected the art of non-violent protest during these sessions is an understatement. I would sit in silence and refuse to acknowledge the presence of the tutor with the finesse of a practiced CIA agent under interrogation.[1] Growing up in a family on a limited income, wasting expensive tutoring sessions was an untenable proposition for my parents.

That’s when they got creative (possibly manipulative). During the third grade I had heard about a local theater camp organized by a group of high school teachers for elementary and middle school aged students. I was enthralled until my mother gently pointed out it would be fairly difficult to participate if I couldn’t read the script. So, we struck a bargain. I could go to KidShow so long as I also participated in tutoring.

In an act of sheer brilliance, my parents found a summer opportunity that incentivized the horrific tutoring sessions and ensured that I practiced reading without the battles that had defined previous summers.  

The creativity my parents employed is a powerful parable. Did I need and benefit from the academic tutoring? Without question. But it was in KidShow that I thrived. For the first few summers, I remember re-reading the plays over and over again, practicing every word and eventually, sentences for hours. By the third summer, when my reading had improved and I had a speaking role, I began to learn memorization techniques and started to appreciate how the rules of grammar create the cadence of language: That a comma or semi-colon required a dramatic pause, or that an exclamation point suggested excitement or perhaps fear in the delivery of a line. KidShow not only gave me a reason to practice reading, it made it fun. It helped me discover learning strategies I still utilize today, and it built my confidence and willingness to keep trying even when faced with difficult and seemingly insurmountable tasks.

That’s the beauty of smart summer learning opportunities. Enrichment activities that blend in academic skills that can engage non-traditional learners and provide them the space to shine are priceless. They can give real world applicability to what seem – to many children and adolescents- to be entirely esoteric academic concepts. Physics takes on whole new levels of importance when learning to sail. Chemistry and fractions can come to life in cooking classes. Good artists understand not only color theory, but geometry.

All children, but especially disengaged or non-traditional learners deserve the chance to discover what I did over those 6 summers: That learning can be fun and that I can be good at it.  

(Maggie Riden, who now consumes books of all types with complete abandon, calls her parents at least twice a year to thank them for their patience and to apologize for 8 years of tears, tantrums and outright rebellion over school and homework. She would also like to note that her parent’s creativity didn’t end with school. Ask her how her parents broke the door slamming habit that emerged during her obnoxious high school years and how they dealt with epic sibling battles. Sheer brilliance.)

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[1] Brief aside: If you believe my mother/the editorial fact checker of this blog post, I actually made a special education student teacher cry when I was in 6^th grade. I was stubborn- this was no shock. It wouldn’t have been so embarrassing (for her, and frankly my Mother) except that she and my Mom were in the same Speech and Language Graduate Program. Apparently this made for some awkward lecture hall discussions. 

Maggie Riden is the Executive Director of DC Alliance of Youth Advocates and has luckily grown out of her sleeping bag moth costume. She also no longer makes teachers cry. To stay updated on youth issues in D.C. you can FOLLOW us on Twitter, LIKE us on Facebook, and VISIT us at www.dc-aya.org. 

Skimping on Special Education

Policy Director Suzanne Greenfield from Advocates for Justice and Education guest blogs on the FY 2014 Budget proposals will have on D.C. children with special needs.

According to the District of Columbia Public Schools, there were approximately 8,200 students receiving special education services, this figure does not account for the number of children receiving services in the Public Charter school system.

The District of Columbia estimates that it expects to record a savings of approximately $30 million dollars by bringing special education students back from private school placements. What the District’s budget fails to acknowledge is the cost associated with creating and implementing programming sufficient to meet the needs of those same children.

The budget as proposed by DCPS provides little reinvestment to support students with special needs. Students in the District of Columbia are not placed in private school placements solely due to the will of their parents. The primary reason is that the District has failed to provide adequate services and supports to ensure that the needs of their children are met. 

These savings are not being reprogrammed into special education. A part of the savings is being used to increase the per student formula and the other part will go to support the expansion of services for Early Intervention students between 3 and 5 who have been identified as needing special education. While we whole-heartedly support the expansion of early intervention services - it does not address the needs of the students coming back to the system. We believe that any savings should be proportionately directed to improving and sustaining effective programs, programs that will genuinely support both the students returning from non-public placements and those future students. 

Advocates for Justice and Education (AJE) provides support, education and advocacy for students with special needs. As the Parent Training and Information Center for the District of Columbia we have two major goals: to work collaboratively with schools to improve educational outcomes for children with special needs and to ensure that all children have access to a free and appropriate public education. 

The Mayor has made bringing students back to the city and cutting the cost of non-public placements a priority. While we too would like to see those students have an opportunity to receive their education in a neighborhood school, we see no evidence that the school system is developing the programs to meet those student’s needs let alone the needs of students that are already in the schools.

Special education savings need to be directed to fully funding high quality educational programs. The schools are presently struggling to provide appropriate placements, services and supports for our students – adding more to the mix without first creating programs that are capable of supporting the students they are already serving seems self defeating at best – and truly immoral at worst.

In this city neither school system (DCPS or the charters) has the reputation for ensuring that students with special education needs are being served in an appropriate way. While we have seen individual schools support the needs of their students, we have never seen the school system support the needs of the schools. The issue mirrors the larger education issue in that there is no over arching plan, decisions are not based on actual best practices, and the results are too few and too limited and nothing is sustained long enough to see value. We believe much more needs to be done to improve quality of the programs in place and to ensure that schools are meeting the needs of all their students.

To learn more about Advocates for Justice and Education check out there website at http://www.aje-dc.org/

This blog is brought to you by DC Alliance of Youth Advocates. To stay up-to-date on youth issues in DC visit our website at www.dc-aya.org. You can also FOLLOW and LIKE  us on Twitter and Facebook!