Saturday, March 13, 1999
New rules released for educating the disabled
Special-ed teachers hope for simplification
BY ANDREA TORTORA
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The release Friday of new federal guidelines for teaching disabled students brought relief to Northern Kentucky special-education teachers.
Teachers say they've been in limbo since June 1997, not knowing how to handle certain situations, such as discipline, with special students. A rewrite of Kentucky's special-education rules was also on hold until the federal regulations were released.
Teachers hope the rules for implementing the 1997 Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) will lead to less paperwork and more time to spend with students.
“I think we're all glad they're out,” said Rita Byrd, president of the Northern Kentucky Directors of Special Education. “We were promised they would be out nearly a year ago, and it has been kind of a long process trying to get to this point. A lot of things were on hold and a lot of districts had been left in the air.”
First passed in 1975, IDEA is a civil rights law created to guarantee every student access to education. The 1997 changes are intended to make the law less cumbersome.
The new guidelines give principals power to remove students for up to 45 days for offenses involving weapons or drugs. Lesser offenses can draw suspensions up to 10 days.
The regulations also give principals more discretion on how special-ed students should be educated after they are suspended for more than 10 days — a gray area that will work best when principals, teachers and parents of disabled students trust one another.
Guidelines also call for other teachers to be involved in developing the individual education plans (IEPs) that are used for special students.
The new regulations carried positive news, said Marcia Hayes, Campbell County Schools' special-education director. She spent Friday print ing out the report and had a stack of paper 5 inches thick by 4:30 p.m.
Kentucky teachers have said that the state's rules are too specific and too time-consuming. For example, when federal rules say schools must create short-term goals for students, Kentucky spells out exactly what those goals are and how they should be achieved.
“Once this is in place, Kentucky can start making changes,” Ms. Hayes said. “Our hope is to reduce the paperwork. This is about kids, not paper.”
A group of special-education teachers recently asked state education officials to streamline the state's special-education rules. Johnnie Grissom, associate commissioner for special instructional services, promised changes.
Now the state will start the review process. Priorities for reform will include the amount of time special-education teachers spend with students compared with time spent on paperwork, and the disproportionate number of boys classified as disabled students.
Boys outnumber girls by a 2-to-1 ratio as special-education students in Kentucky.
The state will also look at the frequent loss of special-education teachers to nonclassroom jobs and certification programs for special-education professionals.
Nationally, IDEA changed how disabled students are treated by ensuring that more such students are moved into regular classrooms.
America's schools spend about $43 billion a year on special education, and special students are making strong educational gains:
• The number of students with disabilities receiving high school diplomas jumped 31 percent from 1987 to 1996.
• A record 45 percent of disabled students attended regular education classes in the 1995-96 school year. That began when the Individuals With Disabilities Act was passed in 1975.
• The total number of students with disabilities, ages 3 to 21, served by IDEA rose 29 percent from 1988 to 1997.
• The big growth in special education is not among those with severe disabilities, but with the more loosely defined “learning disabilities,” in which children are performing far below their potential. In 1997, 51 percent of all children in special ed were classified as learning-disabled.
The next biggest category is speech or language impairment, which accounts for 20 percent of the students; mental retardation accounts for 11 percent.
Gannett News Service contributed to this report.
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