Special Education

With little more than four weeks until the start of the new school year, Chester County educators are trying to figure out the state of special- education programs affecting about 5,500 children across the county. On Wednesday, superintendents and their representatives from the county's 12 school districts met with officials from the county's Intermediate Unit to learn what the IU would charge to continue running special-education programs. The meeting was closed to the public and the media, but afterward, several of the superintendents said they were finding it difficult to make decisions so long as the state budget process remained deadlocked.

When Lavelle Patterson and Kenneth Blake joined a picket line set up by members and supporters of Chester's Concerned Citizens for Educational Renewal last week, each said he had a personal reason for protesting the treatment of special-education students in the Chester-Upland School District. "I was in special-education classes from third to 11th grade, and I shouldn't have been there. I am concerned that there are other students in special ed that don't belong there," said Patterson, who added that after getting out of special-education classes, he ended up graduating in June from Chester High School with honor-roll grades.

All last year, parents of special-education students attended Gloucester City Board of Education meetings and complained that their children were not making progress in reading and writing and that the school district was failing to meet their needs. Their persistent complaints have brought state monitoring and a 10-point corrective-action plan to the special-education programs run by the Gloucester City schools. The district had, until now, consolidated its special-education classes at a single school.

After a yearlong study, a committee has recommended that the Wallingford- Swarthmore school board increase staffing for the district's special- education classes. The Community Curriculum Committee for Special Education, which was appointed by the school board, made its report at a board planning session Tuesday night. The committee, composed of teachers, parents and residents, studied throughout 1986 how special education is carried out in the district. Members observed special-education classes, met with special-education teachers, and conducted a survey of teachers, parents and students in grades 5-12.

When it comes to providing special education to their students, three Chester County school districts have said they can do it cheaper and more efficiently on their own. And so, last night, the countywide Intermediate Unit - the public agency that has been providing special education for years - cut its operating staff by more than 10 percent, furloughing 34 employees. The IU teachers, speech therapists and instructional aides being furloughed work in the Avon Grove, Kennett and Unionville/Chadds Ford School Districts - the three districts that have chosen to run most of their programs themselves.

The Kennett Consolidated School District has joined other Pennsylvania school districts and educational organizations in a lawsuit filed in Commonwealth Court seeking to force the state to pay its share of special- education costs this school year. By law, the state is required to pay a portion of expenses for special- education programs. "When you're trying to encourage someone to play by the rules, you have to let them know when you're concerned, you have to get their attention," said Superintendent Larry Bosley.

A week after a community committee recommended increased staffing for special education in the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District, a parent has assailed the program as a failure. "Our school district program fails the test for a number of reasons," Joseph Rizzello told school board members at Monday's business meeting. Rizzello said teachers assigned to areas other than special education did not fully accept learning-disabled students and did not completely understand the type of education those students needed.

An expected $1 million gap in state funding for county special-education programs may force the Chester County Intermediate Unit to make significant cuts in teachers and classes serving more than 5,200 students, according to school officials. News of the funding shortfall has left parents, teachers and advocates of handicapped and disabled children worried over which programs and services may be eliminated or curtailed. Those issues will likely be decided on Tuesday, when the Intermediate Unit board meets at its new offices in the Oaklands Corporate Center at 8 p.m. The Intermediate Unit moved to the new offices in Exton off U.S. Route 30 last week.

New Jersey's standing as the nation's leader in the number of students with disabilities who are sent to out-of-district schools continues to generate debate over the costs and benefits. But as school districts in recent years have reduced the number of students they send outside, a new research study commissioned by an association of private special-education schools has found that at least a sampling of New Jersey students graduating from out-of-district schools fared better than their peers in public schools nationally.

The Haddonfield Board of Education unanimously approved a $31 million budget Monday evening containing a nearly 2 percent tax increase for next year. That translates to about $140 more on the average tax bill for 2013-14. Superintendent Richard Perry said the extra revenue was needed to finance a teacher-evaluation pilot program, state-mandated core-curriculum requirements, and new security measures for elementary schools. "What we discovered with the pilot program is we have very few administrators," Perry said in an interview Tuesday.

HELEN HANSON was the lady with the bag of books. She lugged the books throughout her 40-plus years as a teacher who concentrated on special education and reading to improve the lives of children who were underserved and often neglected by the public schools. "She sought to help children by getting them to believe in themselves," her family said. A warm and caring woman, Helen helped "her people," children in her care who were in need of emotional support or those previously termed emotionally disabled.

PRESIDENT Obama's bold call for universal pre-K for the nation's 4-year-olds during last week's State of the Union address has reignited interest and brought welcome attention to the topic. He has since traveled to Georgia to press his agenda. What would he find if he came to Pennsylvania? He'd find a state whose major strides in providing pre-K and high-quality child care under Gov. Ed Rendell has stalled, and actually lost ground since Gov. Corbett took office. He'd find a governor who's failed to put state money where his mouth is. Corbett campaigned on his support for early-childhood education and vowed that, if elected, he'd "work to find more funding.

People think William R. Hite Jr.'s new blueprint for the Philadelphia School District is "focused" and "diligent. " They say it's "thorough" and the "serious and good work" of a "thoughtful practitioner. " But on Monday, it was also judged by some local education watchers as "disappointing," "same old same old," and "lacking in specifics. " Under the broad goals of boosting academics and restoring fiscal stability, the plan calls for dozens of action items - from professionalizing the teaching force and focusing on early literacy to improving the graduation rate and providing better services to special-education students.

Sharon Scott-Hunter, 59, a retired assistant superintendent of the Chester Upland School District who spent 25 years teaching special education elementary students in Philadelphia, died of cancer Tuesday, Dec. 11, at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse. Mrs. Scott-Hunter was a "consummate educator," said Gregory Thornton, former superintendent of Chester Upland. "She certainly was ready for the task of leading the instructional reform in Chester," said Thornton, currently superintendent in Milwaukee.

  A Philadelphia parochial school teacher was killed when the car she was driving hit a guardrail on Route 309 north of Route 113 about 2:20 p.m. Wednesday, Hilltown Township police said. Abigail K. O'Beirne, 27, of East Kensington, who was due to be married Jan. 26, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. She was on the way to visit her fiancé in Perkasie, her aunt Liz Kenney said. "They were settling on a home in Perkasie next Friday," Kenney said. "She was very excited about her future.

A long-awaited overhaul of Pennsylvania's special-education funding system is on hold this fall, awaiting agreement on proposed charter law changes, according to the chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee. A Republican spokesman denied that, saying the issues were not being linked. In June, a state special-education funding bill won overwhelming Senate approval and unanimous House support in preliminary votes. But the last-minute insertion of an amendment to the state charter law sidetracked final approval.