Sunday, September 26, 1999
Special needs multiplying
BY DANA DiFILIPPO
The Cincinnati Enquirer
Katie Waynick, 9 -- shown with mom Billie and sister Alex Fensley, 7 months -- has a nurse at school with her to help with the tracheostomy tube in her throat.
(Yoni Pozner photo)
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In one classroom, students with learning disabilities get extra help from teacher's aides. Down the hall, teachers gently but firmly teach students with severe mental disabilities about sharing, listening and other social skills. Another two doors down, a licensed practical nurse keeps a close eye on a student with a tracheostomy tube.
Special education used to be reserved for students with fairly basic and common deficiencies.
But advances in medicine have enabled children to live longer and healthier lives with more complex disabilities. And many educators and parents now prefer to put disabled children in traditional classrooms, rather than putting them in alternative programs or home schooling them.
Because special education typically costs about twice as much as regular education, the trend burdens many districts already struggling under tight finances.
In Cincinnati Public Schools, the percentage of special education students has doubled in the past decade, climbing from 6.2 percent in 1988-89 to about 12 percent in 1998-99, according to an Enquirer analysis.
Nationwide, the rise has been more gradual. About 11.4 percent of children ages 6 to 21 in U.S. public schools were in special education in 1996, compared to 10 percent in 1986, according to the U.S. Department of Education.
The reasons for the increase are many and mixed:
• Medical advances. Disabled children who used to die young are living longer. And students who used to be seen as troublemakers or slow learners now are diagnosed as having disorders. About 1,300 of CPS's 6,000 special-education students have learning disabilities; 800 have severe behavior or emotional problems.
• Increasing social problems. Pregnant teens typically receive inadequate prenatal care, which can lead to lasting problems for the baby. Drug and alcohol use by pregnant women also contribute. Nearly 3,000, or half, of CPS's special-ed students have developmental disabilities, and many can be linked to such social problems.
• Mixing. Many parents now prefer to place their disabled children with nondisabled students in schools, rather than in group homes or home schooling them.
The financial crunch continues to worsen because teachers increasingly “dump” children in special-education classes because they're ill-behaved or weigh down school achievement numbers, said Victoria Crook, the district's manager of training and student assignment in special education.
“Societally, we're over-identifying kids as handicapped,” Cincinnati Federation of Teachers President Tom Mooney agreed. “"Handicapped' should be reserved for an inherent, permanent problem, rather than kids who don't know how to act because nobody ever told them how to act or have emotional problems because of something that happened to them.”
That's a concern echoed by John Herner, Ohio's special education director and president of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education.
He also worries that as school violence escalates nationally, zero-tolerance policies spur more schools to push ill-behaving students into special education.
Publicity could be one antidote, Mr. Herner said. He plans to produce a study of special education statewide.
Mounting costs may force other districts to more selectively label children.
Small class size, required by law, costs more. Schools also pay for speech, occupational and physical therapists, audiologists, counselors, nurses and equipment such as Braille books and computer programs for deaf students.
Schools receive additional state aid to cover special education costs, but often it's not enough to cover what's spent.
CPS spends $3,830 per pupil on regular-education elementary students. In special education, CPS typically spends $7,160 to $12,940 per pupil, depending on disability; in rare cases when students need an ambulance ride to and from school, constant nursing care and other extras, annual per-pupil costs can top $50,000.
Such expenses have scared off some educators.
Billie Waynick of West Price Hill said several Catholic schools rejected her daughter Katie as too expensive and medically fragile.
Four years ago, doctors removed a tumor the size of two golf balls from the third-grader's brain. Katie still has a tracheostomy tube protruding from her throat; doctors removed a feeding tube last spring.
The state pays for a licensed practical nurse to tag along with Katie to Whittier Elementary School every day to suction the tubes as needed and monitor her activity.
“She needs to be with other kids; she needs to lead a normal life,” Ms. Waynick said. “It's good for the other kids, too — they're going to come across people with disabilities all their life. If you put a handicapped child in a school with mostly nondisabled children, they accept it more.”
Nine-year-old Katie agreed: “I like school. People ask me questions (about her disability), but I don't mind.”
As more kids like Katie go to public schools, some worry that educators can't keep up.
A recent survey by the Evanston, Ill.-based American Association for Employment in Education found a “considerable” shortage nationally of special-education teachers.
Special-education teachers tire of the paperwork, complex legal mandates, overprotective parents and unpredictability of students, local educators say.
“A child with special needs demands special attention, and that has an impact on many teachers,” Norwood Superintendent Garth Errington said.
Special education students make up 12 percent of Norwood's 3,000 students, up 4 percent from three years ago, Mr. Errington said.
The shortage also increases competition among districts for qualified teachers, added Brenda Long, human resources director at Middletown-Monroe School District.
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