McHenry County Blog

Yesterday, the first half of a report was published on what happened on the special ed front at the parents advisory committee meeting and the subsequent school board meeting. What follows, concludes that report.

Board member Aileen Seedorf questioned a disbursement to Scholastic Inc. for over fifty thousand dollars in the financial records. Scholastic provides Read 180.

Controller Mark Altmayer didn’t give it up and said he didn’t know.

With some persistence, other administrators fessed up and the cat was out of the bag.

Finally, Supt. Burkey confessed, saying 60 licenses had been purchased.

Curriculum director Mary Olsen said all of these licenses were to be used only for regular education students.

Tough to figure out how no licenses had been purchased a week earlier but we’ll wait for the response to the Freedom of Information request. And, if it’s unsatisfactory, I’ll file it again after January 1st when there will be actual penalties for those responding falsely.

One could still wonder why the Read 180 purchases were in a special ed classroom unpacked by a special ed student and given to a special ed student to take home to his parents.

Apparently at least one special ed student had been using the Read 180 program when none had been purchased for their use.

What the special ed parents asked for at the board meeting was

• Being able to make a presentation to the board on caseload staffing
• Parent participation on the committee coming up with revised ARRA funds spending recommendations

Seedorf tried to get the board and Burkey to agree to schedule a presentation by the parents at the next committee of the whole meeting.

Burkey and the board majority turned cold shoulders to both suggestions.

How unreasonable are such requests, considering how the Special Ed Moms have been treated this fall?

They are very reasonable.

In order to get the superintendent and 158 administrators to listen one apparently has to go door-to-door passing out flyers.

The Daily Herald pointed out how Burkey had “stone ears” in its article and how the parents distributed flyers door-to-door in order to stop this vote and get a revised spending list.

The Northwest Herald observed of the newest revision of how District 158 intends to spend the $1.6 million (which happened after the flyers hit door knobs):

“And the initiative for additional staff development –such as the opportunity to be trained in disability awareness –increased to $450,000 total.”

Parents told the board there had been other items purchased besides Read 180 and there was an internal memo indicating such.

As you might expect, administrators asked for a copy of their own memo, rather than offer to provide the memo to the board with an explanation.

Perhaps the memo has to surface publicly before its existence is confirmed by the administration.

Sort of like how the Read 180 licenses and materials weren’t purchased this year until a special ed parent brought the materials to a board meeting for show and tell.

District 158 is among the model local governments in revealing what will be discussed at their meetings. (In comparison, Crystal Lake reveals nothing more than its agenda and, then, not on a convenient basis.)

But with how it obtained the Read 180 licenses, which it apparently wants to finance with Federal stimulus money and which educational value is clearly experimental for special ed kids, “transparency” apparently means,

“Show us evidence of what you suspect and we’ll admit that’s what it is.”

Thank goodness for observant parents.

And others.

Yesterday, McHenry County Blog began a rather exhaustive report on Thursday night’s meeting of the Huntley School District 158 school board meeting on how to spend Federal Stimulus money earmarked for special education.

Today we continue the comments made by Special Ed Moms.

The plan would “continue to keep the district out of compliance,” Sara Deifucci charged.

“The district is so sensitive when it comes to regular students. It seems insensitive to special (needs) students.”

There was also this intriguing question:

“Has the district already purchased anything that parents aren’t aware of? Have you already purchased Read 180 licenses?”

“No,”

Superintendent John Burkey replied.

“If I FOI it, (will I find something)?”

“Do your FOIA (short for Freedom of Information request),” he said.

Past shyness was shed as one after another they worked up courage to speak in public about what they saw as poor judgment concerning where the money was to be spent.

Those with probing questions trained their sights on a computer assisted reading program called Read 180.

It is a program that is aimed at junior high kids. Late in the discussion it was reported that pilot program for sixty students had been conducted, but none of the students were special ed children. They were low level readers and, from the recommendation to roll out the program more widely, it must have been successful.

“It’s failed iin other districts,” another Mom said. She said her son, who has an Individual Education Plan (IEP) had told her he was going to start Read 180.

“Keep my son out of those things until it’s in his IEP,” she said firmly.

This mother even seems to have made the jump into political arena.

“We made choices by putting you in this spot. I wish I had gotten involved earlier.”

We would like to think government employees wouldn’t take money away from special ed children and use it for regular education.

Especially when money is specifically designated for special ed use.

Even if the Federal law allows such a diversion (which it does—half can be diverted).

We’d also like to think elected officials wouldn’t allow such an abuse when brought to their attention.

Then there’s what is going on in Huntley District 158.

I wonder if it would be if school administrators or board members have a special needs child.

Board member Aileen Seedorf seems to understand the long standing law which says the district is required to provide an appropriate education to every child. At the July 14th town hall-style meeting, School Board member Shawn Green did express what I took to be sincere concern about how the Federal stimulus money on special education would be spent.

I have written about how the administrators have proposed how to spend the Federal Stimulus funds.

A lot of the money is still being recommended to expand a reading program used in regular ed which the special ed parents don’t want.

The moms and dads don’t want it because there is no vendor-independent research that shows it works with special ed children.

The attention spans required for the programmed instruction are about 20 to 30 minutes. That’s a long time for challenged kids.

It seems likely that the massive expenditure will be redeployed into regular student use when it becomes obvious that the program doesn’t provide much benefit tospecial ed students.

The special ed parents want programs that will work for their children.

From what I heard at the July 14th town hall-style meeting with administrators and school board members, those parents would give those decision-makers the old grade of “needs improvement.”

It would take quite a reporter to capture their disillusionment.  I surely am not skilled enough to convey it.

But, it is clear to me that administrators need to listen to the parents of special education children and not spend a huge sum on a reading program the parents don’t want and for which the parents can find no credible research that says will work.

I remember the education I received from a District 300 mother back in the 1970’s when special education laws were being crafted.  I remember her every time I drive past her Huntley Road home on the way to Spring Hill Mall.  She said to finance her son’s education at Summit School, they had subdivided their property and would sell of the lots.

Unfortunately, most of the parents with special ed kids in Huntley School District 158 don’t have similar resources.  If the Huntley School Board doesn’t provide for their children’s education, ones who might be able to cope in society will just “slip through the cracks,” as the trite cliche says.

It’s really much more serious than that.

Ask a parent.

I went to one of the town hall meetings put on by Huntley School District 158 in mid-July.

Discussed were how the extra federal dollars for special ed from the Federal ARRA Stimulus Funds should be spent.

Parents had all kinds of practical suggestions on how the money should be spent to improve student learning.

It took months of waiting for top administrators to come up with their revised list.

Did the paid government officials listen?

Doesn’t look like it.

The parents are getting plenty of money recommended to be spent on the reading program.

But, they said they didn’t want the money spent on that.

Administrators are recommending among other things, the purchase of the items below for $80,550.

It reads more like an office equipment list not a special ed budget.

Almost ten grand for filing cabinets sticks out.
The whole list can be reviewed here.
Type in page 115 for the electronic page number after it downloads.  The download is about 31 Mb.  It may be slow.

Some of what you will see;

• Refrigerator for social workers, $200
• Tables for social workers, 15 @ $200   $3,000
• Printers for Speech Dept, 15 @ $500 each.  $7,500
• Printer for Speech Dept, 1 $1,000
• Laptops for Speech Dept, 2 @ $2,000 each   $4,000
• Computers for speech students, 10 @ $1000 each
• 6 locking lateral file cabinets, $4,800 at $800 apiece for Chesak School
• File cabinets for Conley School, $5,000
• Printers, administration building and high school, 10 @ $900 each  $9,000
• Printers, 2, Conley School  $700
• Printer ink, Conley School $400
• Ink Cartridges, Leggee School  25 at $50 each  $1,250
• Tables and chairs, Conley School $1,500
• Tables, 5 , Marlowe School $800
• Laser Printers, 5, Marlowe School $2,000
• Plenty of binders.  Conley $800.
• Copy machine and printer $1,600
• Laptops, 10 for Chesak School  $10,000
• Laptops, 10 for Heineman School  $10,000
• Laptop for conference room, Leggee School $1,000
• Laptop for conference room, Mackaben School $1,000
• 3 Laptops for students, Mackaben School $3,000
• Room dividers, Marlowe School $1,000
• Mileage reimbursement for staff $10,000

That’s not all, of course. Just a tad over $80,000.

$1.5 million came to the Huntley School District for special ed.

Want to see where the rest is going?

Take a look for yourself.

The special ed parents are.

I hope no Congressman or U.S. Senator representing this area brags about how all the money went to help special education students.

Maybe you’ll read it here first. Increases in money to local school districts have been decided.

The information is online at the State Board of Education’s web site.

Begin the gnashing of teeth.

Or will it be sighs of relief?

Some school superintendents preferred to pretend the $160 increase per student was going to be zero.

Result?

Outlook “bleak.”

When you pretend it’s zero then you can publicly say the outlook is “bleak.”

I was at a meeting last week where the special ed parents weren’t buying into Huntley Supt. John Burkey’s desire to appropriate $800,000 of IDEA (special ed) federal stimulus funds to balance his proposed budget.

By my quick math, the foundation level increase is more than $1.25 million for Huntley School District 158.

This is a far cry from the “zero” that board members approved in the district’s preliminary budget.

And, this is not the first time a school district has predicated actions on no increase in state aid to education.

Remember the last District 300 referendum?

Now, the cat’s out of the bag.

The foundation level increase is $160 per student.

Unrealistic projections are just that.

There is nothing “fiscally conservative” about being purposely unrealistic.