Whose Fault is it?

Whose fault is it?

 

If a child goes to school and contracts the COVID19 virus, who is to blame?   The US is one of the most litigious countries in the world.  We sue people for hot coffee.

At the present time the Congress is considering federal law to protect businesses from liability if a person can trace the contraction of the virus back to a particular business.  Congress is seriously considering that.

As Trump presses for children to return to school, Boards of Education and local superintendents are very concerned that that there will be an onslaught of special education litigation either for contracting the virus directly or for the failure of schools to provide compensatory education for the time the schools have been on distance learning.  Everyone pretty much concedes that distance learning negatively impacts children with disabilities more profoundly than it does plain kids.

U.S. Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, has said that there would be no “waiver authority for any of the core tenets of the IDEA”.   Disability advocates have insisted that no waivers should be warranted because of Covid.  Advocates are saying that this is just an excuse for school systems to get out of providing services to kids.  They insist that as of this time there is no indication that the so-called outpouring of litigation has happened at all.  Advocates acknowledge that children with disabilities have suffered under distance learning.  They also say that school districts have not even begun to try to level the playing field for children with disabilities.

On the other hand, the School Superintendents Association, the National School Boards Association and the Association of Educational Services Agencies have insisted they need protection.  They insist that their energy needs to go towards providing instruction not toward fending off lawsuits.  The groups have not said how long they would like these protections to last.

The reality is that these same organizations have been saying for over 45 years!  that providing a free and appropriate education for children with disabilities is too heavy a lift.  In fact at the signing of EHA 94-142, President Ford said he was signing the bill into law but doubted it could be achieved.

The latest proposal from the Senate for Covid relief does include liability protection for businesses and schools.  So the question is- is this a legitimate concern or just another way to wiggle free of the responsibility to provide FAPE.  As the old saying goes, “it is an ill wind that doesn’t blow somebody some good”.

The sand is moving through the hourglass

The Sand is moving through the hourglass

 

 

Just about everyone agrees, distance learning is a lot more distance than it is learning.   On the other hand, everyone wants to be safe and not catch the virus or maybe worse pass it on to a loved one.

Trump has insisted that every child needs to go back to school.   Really there are good reasons for this insistence, and they are not all about the economy although there is that.

It is important to review the cost to the kids besides the risk of catching the virus.   First of all, children with disabilities are entitled to a free, and appropriate education (FAPE) until they are 21.   In Maryland that means to the end of the school year in which they the child turns 21.   So far, kids have missed a full quarter of in-school learning.   Based on recent announcements, the larger public school systems in Maryland are extending online learning for at least another semester, maybe longer.   So that brings us to at least three-fourths of a school year with reduced learning.   That is 7-8 months of sand through that hourglass.   No one has suggested extending the time of entitlement by that amount of time.  To my knowledge, the idea is not even on anyone’s radar.   The best we are getting is that there will be more live teaching and less canned teaching.

Let’s look at the costs to children.   Young children are missing out on the basic foundations of academic learning, those old-fashioned reading, writing and arithmetic.  These skills form the backbone on which all other learning is connected.   Children who miss out on this early learning will have all other future learning impacted.   Teachers will freely tell you they can’t do as good a job online as in the classroom.   Parents (with the exception of those who are trained teachers) do not know how to teach and reteach the skills.   If the foundation is not sturdy, the house will not be strong.

Adults with disabilities are unemployed at a higher rate than plain adults and most frequently underemployed.   One of the major activities that mitigate against this event is the work placement opportunities of any good transition program.  When high school students miss these opportunities they will be less prepared for getting a job and much more likely to face long-term unemployment that will impact the rest of their lives.

School has many values for children with disabilities.  One of the most important is the development of social emotional skills.   Through activities with other kids they learn the give and take of working in groups. Particularly for students on the autism spectrum, social skills development is a must have.   They also learn to be resilient, one of the most important skills for successful adults.

 

The calculus of whether or not a family thinks it is safe for a child to return to school is complex and not easy.  Each family must measure its own risk tolerance.  However, in calculating that risk, it is important for families to consider the other risks that cannot be seen- deficits in basic skills, reduced time of education entitlement, limited work training and loss of social emotional growth.   These are risks as well and need to be considered on one side of the equation.

So What are you going to do

So, what are you going to do?

 

The President has decreed that all students need to be back in school full time this coming fall.   He has even threatened to pull education funding if schools don’t comply.   Putting aside the fact that the President has no authority whatsoever regarding the opening of schools and that the money for education is appropriated by Congress so he can’t pull that either, there are some serious decisions regarding the return to school that need to be made by local authorities.

In the United States, unlike some other countries, the control of schools is a state and local affair.  Each governor and local school board needs to decide what the opening of school will look like in the next month or so.  Each family will need to decide if it feels safe to allow the children to return to school buildings.  The gains versus the losses need to be carefully considered.

In Maryland, if your school district is Garrett County, there aren’t a lot of issues  The county only has a total of about 27 cases.  So schools can probably re-open there.  But if you are in one of the metro areas, D.C. or the Baltimore metro area, the instances of the disease are much higher.

Distance learning has significant costs.   Children are losing their social connections.  There is evidence of serious emotional issues because of the continued isolation.   Learning is dramatically depressed.   Many distance learning lessons are boring and kids are just walking away from the technology.  Teachers are not as easily available to re-teach and help kids.

There are also costs to being in the school building.   The most obvious is the possible risk to health.  How safe are the buildings for students and staff?   How safe is the bus ride to school.   The American Pediatric Association has indicated that in many instances the risk to emotional health and learning is greater than the health risk.  Young people are not as likely to get the virus and when they do, they get well.  This situation may be different for their teachers.

Then there are the economic costs.   Salaries and benefits are being paid to public school teachers at the in-school rate.   But many teachers have made it clear that distance learning does not begin to require the level of time investment that in the building teaching does.   Yet teachers and unions would be highly offended were they asked to take a commensurate cut in pay.

There are also expanded economic costs.  Like it or not, one of the bigger functions of school is universal  child care.   As the economy opens up who is going to care for the children if they are not back in school?   The economic cost of the pandemic has already hit women much harder than men.   If school buildings remain closed most likely it is the women who will stay home to do child care.  

It has been several months since the shut-down.   We are not all that further along in figuring out how to manage so much.

Every school system, every school, every family is going to need to do a very concerted cost-benefit analysis and decide “whatcha gonna do”

 

 

No One Will Save Us But Ourselves

No One will Save us but ourselves

 

Effective on July 1, Maryland will have a special education ombudsman assigned to the office of the State Attorney General.  Isn’t that a great thing!  Now families with concerns about failure of schools to provide a free, appropriate public education (FAPE) will have some place to take their concerns.  FINALLY!

Oh wait, for the last 20 years, yes that is correct 20 YEARS, there has been an ombudsman in the Maryland State Department of Education for that exact same purpose.   The MSDE ombudsman is supposed to research parental concerns and act as an intermediary between the families and the local school districts.  And this person is supposed to act with the power and authority of the State Department of Education.

How’s that working for you?  Thought so.   In fact I would guess that most people reading this were not even aware that such a position existed at MSDE.  After the job was created by state and federal legislation, the responsibilities were added to those the individual already had.  So it was not a dedicated position.  The woman who had the responsibility did a decent job because she really cared.  She retired a number of years ago and today it is unclear exactly who has that responsibility.   In any event, the name of the person and the assignment were never advertised nor made known to the disability community.

Now comes a similar position, this time attached to the Attorney General’s office.  We do not know if this will be a separate individual position of a task added to someone’s other duties.

Here is what we do know.  No one will save us but ourselves.  The disability community has a great deal of work to do.  Tremendous energy has been expended on getting every child the right to an appropriate education.  That has been happening since 1975.   We are 45 years into the fight, and yet the employment of people with disabilities is WELL below any other minority group.   The situation is really bad if you are “twice blessed”, have a disability and be a person of color.  What is the point of working toward a good education if the individual does not have a financial future.  We need to stop depending on ombudsmen who create a feel good moment but no real change.  No one is going to help the disability community but ourselves.   It is past time for us to get moving on part two of the journey.