Savage Pacer (Minnesota)
April 30, 2011
HEADLINE: Changes coming to variety of special education programs - BURNSVILLE-EAGAN-SAVAGE SCHOOL DISTRICT

By Keighla Schmidt

What do NCLB, IDEA and AYP have to do with how the Burnsvi l le-Eagan-Savage School District delivers special education services? The marriage of federal programs will now have an impact on how District 191 teaches students with special needs.

Thus, when the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) met No Child Left Behind (NCLB) which requires Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District's Director of Individualized Student Services Stephanie Corbey became a marriage counselor.

"The marriage of IDEA and NCLB meant we had to respond to IDEA programs while considering NCLB regulations. To do that, we need to create the least-restrictive environment by delivering core-content subjects by highly-qualified teachers," Corbey said. "The whole structure will focus on teaching all students in the buildings in the classrooms to help schools meet AYP in special education." But the adjustment means a great deal of change for special education team of 90 teachers and 90 related-services staff.

At a March workshop of the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School Board, Member Dan Luth noted the hundreds of teachers who have been attending listening sessions before meetings concerned with the changes and making pleas to members of the board.

"I think we need to tell the public this isn't something that's going to come to the board for approval," he said.

"This is something, we as a board, have delegated to you as administrators. We have given you the power to organize your department how you best see fit." The changes include new positions, which must be approved by the School Board, and could bring as much as an estimated $1.2 million in savings next year.

Luth asked where that savings would come from and Corbey said she hadn't calculated everything yet.

"When we're talking about cutting costs - we're all dancing around it here --we're talking about cutting people," he said.

With the reduced overhead costs, there will be an ability to share supplies and resources and the many of the "replicated positions" will be eliminated of across the district, Corbey said.

Exact positions, allocations, salaries and pay structures have not been set yet. But Corbey said some of the current staff members who have their positions eliminated could apply for the new positions.

FROM 18 TO 5 Rather than 18 different special education programs in each of the district's schools, the whole district will be broken into five clusters and schools will share people and resources.

The clusters will include early childhood; high school level and three geographic areas:east (Metcalf Junior High School, Rahn, Sioux Trail and William Byrne elementary schools), central (Nicollet Junior High School, Gideon Pond, Sky Oaks, Edward Neill and Vista View elementary schools), and west (Eagle Ridge Junior High School, Harriet Bishop, Hidden Valley and M. W. Savage elementary schools.) Each of the five clusters will have a full-time special education supervisor, at least one full-time due process clerk, a psychologist, a special education teacher, related-service staff members (like occupational or physical therapists) and an assistive technologies consultant. They will work as an administrative team and travel amongst the schools in their cluster.

At the workshop Superintendent Randy Clegg said the cluster format "is not reinventing the wheel." "This is done in other metroarea school districts and in other states," he told members of the board. "There is a slack in the system right now. We need to align and tighten staff procedures." Board Member Paula Teiken, a new board member whose platform centered on her experience with her own young children in both special education and gifted education programs, said she was apprehensive about the change.

"I'm not sure how this is going to improve student achievement.

By removing the lead teachers you're taking a layer of support out," she said. "By taking that support out you're putting on more pressure … where is their support coming from?" Corbey explained one of the biggest inefficiencies is the designation of a lead teacher. Each building currently has a special education lead teacher, while it's their job to teach, they're also expected to conduct and write extensive reports.

"A report can take 20-30 hours per student," Corbey said.

"The lead teachers are some of our most experienced teachers; those 20-30 hours are spent doing paperwork rather than teaching." The cluster supervisor will replace the lead teacher and have administrative authority - something the lead teachers do not have.

Each school will still have special education teachers who will be permanently dedicated to the school, but they will no longer have administrative duties, Corbey said.

MORE REASONS Corbey and Clegg also cited the district's high transient rate as a need for the change.

Most special education teachers have a caseload of about 15 students, but when so many students leave the district or new ones enroll, the evaluation paperwork can become overwhelming. Corbey said that set of 15 can mean 20 or more different students and evaluations a year.

"I have some teachers who are coming to me saying they're here 'till 8 o'clock on weeknights and they're coming in on weekends and they're still not able to get everything done," she said. "We need to keep number one, number one and that's teaching students.

When these teachers have so much paperwork to do, that's keeping them from their teaching responsibilities." On the other hand, there are some teachers that due to staffing at the start of the year are now under worked.

"I have some teachers with too much to do and others who don't have enough," Corbey said.

The new plan will create more f lexibility between the buildings and reduce the two extremes, she said.