Special education classes understaffed

 

Parents, teachers, and students from all over the district have noticed a significant decrease of staff in special education classes. The situation has frustrated both parents and educators alike as they start to feel the impact of the predicament.

Since the start of the school year, special ed classrooms faced issues caused by a lack of teachers and aides in each class. Many parents blame the district for making budget cuts in the special ed department that resulted with many teachers and aides being dismissed. The district, however, claims that the understaffing is caused by a plethora of incidents that occurred at the same time, including the late resignation of the district’s former director of special education.

“As student-teacher ratio goes up, the amount of time and energy I have to devote to each student to support them and their needs is lessened per student, so students are suffering and not getting the services they would get before,” said Adam Fisher, a special ed teacher at CVHS.

The special education department at CVHS currently has two job openings, so current teachers in the department are forced to take on a heavier workload in order to accommodate all the students.

Special education teachers are not able to focus on students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) as much as they used to, because they now have too many different students each with their own set of needs and program.

The understaffing has been a growing issue at CVHS.

“In any of the four years I’ve been here, there has not been a full, permanent staff. We’ve had people before, but they were either probationary or temporary and tended to pass through,” Fisher said. “Ideally, we’d have a full staff with permanent teachers who have been working together for a number of years.”

The district board acknowledged the situation as a district-wide problem at the Oct. 9 board meeting.

The board members expressed their sympathy towards the parents, but they also commented that the board should have been the last group the parents talked to if they wanted to reach a solution.

Board member Jo Loss related to the parents by mentioning her own children and her own willingness to do what’s best for them.

“Sometimes, the governmental process absolutely sucks,” said Loss.

Despite the board members’ effort to show the audience they are working on a solution for the understaffing, parents continued to voice their agitation at the meeting. They do not believe the board has done anything helpful for the students in the past month.

Mother Debbie Ross-Smith went as far as to say the substitutes currently teaching the students are “just bodies to fill a position,” as they do not have the proper training required for a special ed classroom.

“The morale in the special ed department is extremely low, because of the feeling that people in higher positions are making decisions that impact us without coming here asking us or collaborating with us on how to solve problems,” criticized Fisher, as he hopes for improvement in the weeks to come.