On October 3. 2005, the Baltimore Sun published an article about a five-year "breakdown" in the provision of appropriate services to students with special needs in Baltimore's public schools. Reportedly, throngs of psychologists, social workers, and speech and language pathologists had been leaving local school districts since 2000, because the city's "child study team model" was fraught with excessive and restrictive administrative burdens. Allegedly, the time spent preparing for meetings and completing follow-up paperwork significantly limited the time and ability of the clinicians to directly serve students with special needs.
Under the "child study team model," school psychologists, social workers, and speech and language pathologists led meetings to develop IEPs for students in special education programs. "The idea behind the model was to improve instruction for special-education students by having the clinicians understand their disabilities in the broader context of their education." However, clinicians argued that instead, the model prevented their ability to work with and help students.
David McFadden, who works at Govans Elementary School, said he had little time to work with children who have been labeled emotionally disturbed. "The teachers needed me, the kids needed me, and I was down there typing away, typing the same meaningless, redundant garbage, he said.
Paula Jones, a social worker at Lyndhurst and Robert W. Coleman elementaries and New Song Academy, said she had to stop making home visits. "We all have master's degrees and we were sitting there doing date entry work," she said. "We were totally overwhelmed..."
A survey conducted among 100 members of the city's school psychologists association reported that 89 respondents felt that "monitoring of paperwork" usually took priority "over the needs of students." Forty-one respondents admitted to "sometimes" or "usually" "manipulating the data ... so that I can appear to be compliant, when in fact, I am not." Thirty-four respondents reported that they were seeking employment elsewhere.
In August, this "breakdown" prompted a federal judge to give the state control over the city's special education program. Shortly after the ruling, clinicians expressed relief that schools were temporarily lifting their administrative duties.
But the move exacerbated tensions between the school system and state officials, who weren't consulted about the decision, and it left another group of workers overwhelmed with paperwork. State officials say the setup was not working, but insist the school system shouldn't have changed it without their permission.
The paperwork burden has been shifted to the system's approximately 140 "instructional associates," certified special education teachers who already work outside the classroom monitoring whether children get the services they are supposed to receive. The system has agreed to give each instructional associate a $2,000 stipend this year and for a long as they have extra duties.
Brenda Fowles, an instructional associate at William H. Lemmel Middle School, said she is now responsible for almost all of the paperwork done last school year by two social workers and a psychologist. "We need help," she said. "I could do a good job if I just had some assistance."
System and state officials, as well as the students' lawyers, are not
so convinced that the old model was so terrible and that the new model
will be a great success. However, regardless of the cause of the
five-year breakdown, the system must provide the students with tens of thousands of hours of makeup services, which will
cost millions of dollars.
Officials must now decide how to handle the tremendous paperwork and administrative responsibilities associated with special education everywhere, and magnified in systems facing lawsuits.
Rivka I. Olley, president-elect of the Maryland School Psychologists Association, said there is no uniformly successful model in other school systems, but systems often divide the work to make it manageable. "I don't think there's an easy answer," she said.
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