2020 School Board Candidate Answers to SEPTA Questionnaire – Question 2

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Question 2

What do you believe to be the most significant issues or challenges within APS relating to students with disabilities? 

Answers are listed in alphabetical order by the candidates’ last names.

Cristina Diaz-Torres

The most significant issues stem from two core issues: inconsistent expectations and lack of resources. 

Although there are certainly bright spots across the county, students with disabilities in APS are not systematicallyprovided the rigorous instruction that they are entitled to. We can see that from the dramatic disparities in identification, consistent non-compliance with IDEA indicators, and anecdotal evidence of students and families who have not been able access the tailored instruction promised in IDEA. Although APS has a strategic goal of having 80% of students with disabilities in a general education classroom 80% of the time, only about 65% of students are in a general education setting (Arlington Inclusion Taskforce P 3). In staff surveys, more than 20% of staff across APS believed that only some or few of their colleagues had high expectations for students with disabilities (p 55) and only 55% believed that students in self-contained settings received instruction that was aligned to Standards of Learning (p 91). We need to start from the premise that all students have a right to succeed — regardless of their background, race, ability, or family context — and hold each other accountable for maintaining those high expectations. 

The second major issue is a lack of resources, particularly staff time and training. Less than 40% of special education staff believe that they have enough time to collaborate with their general education colleagues to support students (p 86). Furthermore, one third of classroom and special education teachers stated that their team did not use the ATSS framework during their PLC or CLT meeting (p 25) and less than half of staff think that  general education teachers get enough training on ATSS to be able to use it to serve students well (p 83). These are structural problems that can be addressed by rethinking what professional learning we require, how we structure our staffing, and how many positions we allocate. Ensuring that our teachers and staff have the time and preparation they need to serve our students should be a priority. 

Steven Krieger

No one expected the current global crisis in which we all find ourselves embroiled. My fear is that it will be next to impossible for APS to create equitable meaningful distance learning for students with disabilities. These inequities will last long past these next few months, and I am doing my best to prepare myself to tackle these difficult issues.

In order for APS to develop a consistent, high quality special education program in every school, further close the opportunity gaps, and prepare all students for post-secondary success, it must begin to operate as a school system, rather than a system of schools. This has been evident in so many ways, and more so now that schools are closed and all parents are struggling to educate children at home.

The site-based management model employed by Arlington Public Schools isn’t affective in ensuring parity of programs and services for all students. APS needs to strengthen its systems to ensure equity in student academic success, especially for students with disabilities and those requiring intervention supports.

The most significant challenges that APS must face to ameliorate this model?

a) Reducing the opportunity gap by increasing academic rigor and inclusive opportunities. As noted in the 2019 Program Evaluation for Students with Disabilities and Those Receiving Interventions, APS has continued to lag behind state expectations for students with disabilities educated in the general education environment at least 80% of the time and has not met the state target for the past three years. While I hesitate to put too much emphasis on SOLs or any standardized testing, it is noteworthy that the APS Strategic Plan 2018-24 requires that all students will make at least one year’s worth of growth as measured by federal, state, and/or district assessments. Additionally the plan mandates that historically over-represented and under-represented groups accessing additional services will be proportionate with student need and demographics. These goals cannot be met while students are isolated from their peers and APS continues a non-inclusive teaching environment. APS needs to make these provisions a priority and I will undertake to do so once I’m on the board.

b) Implementing a comprehensive intervention support system for all students that can be and will be provided consistently in all schools. The site-based management model that APS employs has a significant impact on the consistency of programming from school to school district-wide. Striking a balance between school level decision making and the cohesiveness and standardization required to ensure high quality service delivery is a non-negotiable in order to alleviate systemic inequitable treatment from school to school. I should not hear from parents of students with disabilities at Williamsburg and HB Woodlawn that the services are on point for their students while students at Gunston really struggle. Similarly, I should not be hearing from parents that particular elementary schools are “known” for discouraging students with special needs from attending. This must end. We need to determine what are the best practices at each elementary and secondary school, including personnel, and implement and/or enforce the best practices at every school.

c) Developing trusting and productive relationships with the parent and family community for students with disabilities and in particular these students that are of color and non-native English speakers. This requires greater effort at transparency and better cultural competency at every level of staffing in APS. Not only do we need to ensure that there are adequate teachers and administrators of color as well as ELL within APS, but we need to ensure that there are adequate minority parents and community leaders who serve as leaders on the various committees and task force members in Arlington’s diverse disability community.

Sandy Munnell

It goes without saying that any school division faces significant challenges in meeting the requirement to provide a free and appropriate public education for all students regardless of the special challenges each student brings with them. In APS, the continuous growth of our student population puts special stresses on our resources: teachers and classrooms. Special education teachers are in high demand everywhere. This is exacerbated by the increasing shortage of teachers overall.
In an effort to ensure that the core courses are integrated, too many students with IEPs are assigned to a single section, or grade level. In the high school, it is not uncommon to have a 50-50 split which is not advantageous to any of the students or teachers. This happens when there are not enough of those resources: special education teachers and classrooms.

Scheduling time for the co-teachers to plan together is not always a given in each of our schools. FLES provided that scheduling opportunity. I am now concerned how planning will be accommodated without the FLES program.

Providing general ed teachers and special education teachers help in developing co-teaching strategies is essential to successful classroom practice. Not enough of that is happening; most of it is learned on the job. So I was excited to see the proposal for increasing the number of Student Support Coordinators (SSC) put forward by Dr. Krug in the Interim Superintendent’s proposed budget. This position is designed to provide sustained professional development and support for the school staff. Why the emphasis on sustained? Professional development is not an inoculation. Taking the training once does not make one experienced and confident in deploying new strategies. Sustained, in the school, just in time, support will make the teachers better and the students more secure in their learning. Now that the budget will be infinitely more constrained, as a School Board Member I would still push for increasing the number of SSC’s across one to three years, ensuring that each elementary has one first.

David Priddy

First, we need to change the messaging that was previously thought of when talking about students with disabilities. We have to have high expectations for them.

We can do that by having consistent goals for high expectations and providing the support they need.

Second, we need to make sure teachers understand that each child learns differently. We need to ensure proper training towards this so that it sets the teachers up for success on how to manage an inclusive classroom.
Lastly, we need to work on inclusion. We need to continue to support the restructuring of the Special Education Department so that the change will be a top down approach. Included in this top down approach is having the principals add inclusion to their School Management Plans. Once inclusion is in the Management Plan, we can better measure and hold people accountable.

Terron Sims

The most significant issue and challenge within APS relating to students with disabilities exist due to a flaw in APS policy that affects how our students and parents receive services and instruction and how students are assessed both academically and with respect to their disability. Additionally, disability resources should not be finite. Because enforceable standards do not exist, quality of service and instruction varies from school to school. APS administration needs to trust that parents know their children and sincerely work with them when crafting instruction and apply evidence based strategies to reach and teach all children, and do so with fidelity. 

S. Symone Walker

The most significant deficits APS has relating to students with disabilities are culture and consistency.  The biggest current challenge that APS has is that it lacks a bona fide culture of inclusion, and lacks consistency with implementation.  APS sometimes issue spots well in terms of what it should be doing, but often falls short on execution. APS typically knows how to convey the right messaging and utilize the right “buzz phrases” to convey that it cares about inclusion, equity, and nondiscrimination, but its actions often do not align with the messaging, or is wildly inconsistent among schools.  Developing a culture of inclusion requires intentionality, and will not succeed unless and until APS reckons with its disability shortcomings and decides to atone for its missteps by hiring an independent expert to conduct a disability and accessibility audit of its practices, policies, and buildings, and prioritizing in the budget for amelioration across the district. Such an audit can be accomplished by a study or task force looking more broadly at systemic issues through an equity lens than what the Public Consulting Group (PCG) program evaluation was designed to do.