Gaskin Advisory Panel Public Hearing
November 3, 2007
PA TASH Statement to the Advisory Panel on LRE Practices
Pennsylvania TASH is guided by a commitment to educational excellence, diversity, democracy, and social justice which fosters and honors the rights of all students to learn together. We believe that when schools learn to meaningfully include students with disabilities, especially those with the most significant support needs, teachers become better educators and all children benefit. The Gaskin Settlement is a step toward honoring this commitment to all students across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.
We believe the Gaskin Settlement Agreement has created a unique opportunity for all stakeholders - families, educators, advocates, and the Pennsylvania Department of Education – to come together to ensure that Pennsylvania’s students with disabilities receive a meaningful education within the general education context. Yet, we are concerned that the intended benefits of this Agreement are not being realized soon enough and that outcomes continue to remain dismal for the families and students with disabilities engaged in our educational system.
Unfortunately, we continue to hear from families, educators, advocates, and students that inclusive education is not a priority within their schools and that administrators remain uninformed about the best practices to ensure systemic changes that support quality inclusive experiences for all students. Teachers continue to lack the necessary training to include students with disabilities, including those with the most significant disabilities, within their classrooms. Parents and students continue to be ostracized from the decision-making process. The collaboration that is essential to meaningful inclusion and which drives the spirit of the Agreement is not uniformly supported among the schools and districts across the Commonwealth. Concerns with lack of training and administrative support, poor parent education, minimal collaborative decision-making, poor classroom practices, stereotypical attitudes, and denial of civil and legal rights continue to create barriers that impede the promise of the Gaskin Settlement Agreement and the unique opportunity it offers.
Specifically, PA TASH is concerned about the following persistent issues:
· Parents are not made aware of or invited to attend school district trainings that pertain to inclusion or special education.
· Schools do not take into consideration the Oberti requirement that schools "supplement and realign their resources,” but rather make placement decisions based on staffing issues, class sizes, and other administrative and budgetary concerns.
· Students who exhibit behavioral challenges are often pulled out of classrooms or moved to another placement, rather than supported through Positive Behavioral Support (PBS) techniques and practices.
· IEPs are developed or “drafted” prior to meeting with parents at the scheduled IEP meeting, rather than prepared in collaboration with parent input.
· Students may be included in the lower grades, but as they move along their school careers, they experience more restrictive educational settings in middle and high school.
· Access to supports and services continues to be contingent on placing students into a "program" or "classroom" (i.e. to receive Life Skills supports the student
is placed in the Life Skills classroom for at least part of the day).
· Students with disabilities, especially those with the most significant disabilities, are not considered “able to benefit” from inclusion in core subject areas, such as English and Math. These students often experience “inclusion” in lunch, art and gym only. Is this inclusion according to Gaskin?
· Schools that have been identified as performing poorly based on LRE placement reporting, as per the Gaskin Agreement, are not being held accountable to change existing practices.
· Teachers, with support from their administrators, continue to think that they can choose whether to have students with disabilities in their classrooms or not.
· Union contract issues must be examined and revised to accommodate the Gaskin Settlement Agreement. Many teachers refer to their union contracts to excuse themselves from including students, and from using their prep times to co-plan with other teachers.
· More comprehensive, on-going, and on-site professional development initiatives need to be developed to prepare teachers, administrators, paraprofessionals, parents of students with and without disabilities to embrace the letter and the spirit of the Gaskin Settlement Agreement: that students should be placed in general education classrooms with appropriate services and supports, and that all children and their families should be welcomed in their schools. Professional development models such as the Arcadia Annual Inclusion Institute--a year-long collaborative initiative among a local university, local IUs, PaTTAN, and school based teams, should be replicated around the Commonwealth.
· Many schools are thinking they are “doing inclusion,” because students with IEPs are physically included in general education classrooms. But neither the teacher nor the students have any supports. Not surprisingly, teachers, students, and parents are frustrated, and say: Inclusion does not work. The message needs to get out: Inclusion without appropriate supports is not inclusion at all!
We have placed, and continue to place, great hope in the Gaskin Settlement Agreement to bring about much-needed systems change. However, our experiences and observations indicate thatthe potential of this Agreement is not being realized in practice. We call upon PDE to move forward and demonstrate leadership on the issue of school inclusion because it is not only the law of the land and the promise of the Gaskin Settlement, but the right thing to do for all of our children.
We thank you for this opportunity to provide input to the process.
Submitted by PA TASH
November 3, 2007