A changing tide: special ed services shift in-house

JACKSON – Sam Doran is 10 years old, but his parents say he has the academic skills of a child three years younger. His parents are fighting the Jackson School District for Sam — who has autism, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and sensory processing disorder — to be placed in a school that specializes in helping children with special needs.

"We don't want to pull him out, but we have to pull him out," 37-year-old Nicole Doran said of her son. "He should be in fifth grade, but he's only doing second-grade level (work)."

Sam's parents are fighting a system they say worries more about money than about children. They are convinced that a specialized school, like the one Sam attended in preschool, will help their son perform at his best.

At the same time, schools and many advocacy organizations for people with special needs are working to keep more children in their home districts.

The Jackson School District is one district of many across New Jersey that have expanded their in-house services for children with special needs and reduced the number of students sent to outside schools.

"There is a trend across the state to bring students back," said Dr. Robert Cerco, director of special education in the Jackson School District.

In the 2008-09 school year, Jackson had 154 of its students with special educational needs attending other schools. By the 2013-14 school year, that number had dropped to 89 students. As of January, only 78 Jackson students with special needs were attending schools outside the district.

To make that possible, Jackson hired inclusion facilitators and expanded services in occupational, physical and speech therapies. The district also invested in assistance technology including iPads, laptops and software to help Jackson's nonverbal students communicate effectively. Jackson also has more classrooms serving children with special needs than it did five years ago, Cerco said.

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Like Jackson, the Freehold Regional High School District has reduced the number of students sent to other schools, according to school officials. To make that possible, the district has an designated autism program, an academy that helps students with behavioral disabilities and has a workplace training program to help students with special needs prepare for life after graduation, said Chief Academic Officer Nicole Hazel.

Keeping students within the district has numerous benefits, Hazel said.

"They are ... exposed to everything that goes along with the high school experience: clubs, activities, being able to interact with nondisabled peers," she said. "For many, they're close to their home."

Statewide movement

Four New Jersey organizations that advocate for people with disabilities and the state's neediest students joined forces last year in a lawsuit aimed at reducing the number of children who are educated outside of their home districts. Disability Rights New Jersey, the Education Law Center, the Statewide Parent Advocacy Network and The Arc of New Jersey sued and then reached a settlement with the state Department of Education so children with special needs could be educated in "least restrictive" environments.

The lawsuit will push schools to educate children with special needs in general-education classrooms, emphasize instruction that is individualized and differentiated for diverse groups of students, and create inclusive classrooms and school environments. Schools will also have to plan their facilities around serving children with special needs, provide services for these students, and adapt curriculum and instruction to their needs.

Sending children outside their home districts has a number of disadvantages, said Diana Autin, executive director of the Newark-based Statewide Parent Advocacy Network, which participated in the lawsuit.

Segregating children with special needs leads to lowered expectations, Autin said. The children also do not learn how to interact with their nondisabled peers, which puts them at a disadvantage when they seek work in adulthood, she said. Some of these students spend hours on a school bus each day, she added.

In New Jersey, between 8 and 9 percent of children with special needs are placed in schools outside their home districts, Autin said. The national average is less than 3 percent, she said.

"New Jersey has a habit of sending kids out," said Autin. "It's really a habit and not based on kids' needs."

The situation results from good intentions. Decades ago, New Jersey set up schools to teach children with special needs when other states were ignoring the education of these children, Autin said. But undoing the segregation of services is difficult, she said.

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Schools also have a strong incentive to keep students within their home districts. Out-of-district placement for a student with special needs can cost three, four, sometimes five times as much as educating a general-education student within the district.

When the recession hit in 2008, public schools began pulling their students with disabilities out of places such as the New Road Schools, said New Road's executive director, Annette Hockenjos. The three schools — with locations in Lakewood, Franklin (Somerset County) and Sayreville — specialize in educating children with autism, cognitive impairment and multiple disabilities, but tuition is about $50,000 per student per year, Hockenjos said.

In 2005, about 9 percent of students in the United States between 3 and 21 years old were receiving special-education services, but in New Jersey the percentage was higher: 11 percent of all students were receiving services, according to a 2007 report by the University of Maryland on special-education funding in New Jersey.

Nationally, the proportion of students with disabilities receiving special education has risen since 1997, particularly in services related to autism and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder, according to the report. That growing population has also given many school districts the financial incentive to provide more special-education services in-house.

No clear answer

Whether to educate students with special needs in their home districts or in specialized schools divides parents.

"I am not a fan of out-of-district placement," said Patricia Perkins Donaghue, president of the Toms River Special Education Parent-Teacher Association. Two out of three of Donaghue's children have special educational needs, she said.

"Some kids it works for, and some kids it doesn't," she said. But keeping children in their home district helps "your child feels connected to your community."

Some children have no choice but to be moved to schools that specialize in meeting their unique needs. Severe intellectual or behavioral challenges and serious medical disabilities are a few of the reasons schools and parents may decide to send a child to a specialized school.

"There is a time and a place for out-of-district placement, but it should not ever be just because your school district doesn't have the reading program that someone told you your child should have," said Donaghue. "These parents are ... very scared, and they become very involved, and they want to fight for their child, but they align themselves with people who are making an incredible amount of money on these parents."

Where to educate a child with special needs "really depends on the student," said Lisa Goring, executive vice president of programs and services at Autism Speaks, a national organization that advocates for people with autism.

For schools to successfully include children with special needs, everyone — not just teachers but bus drivers, office staff and cafeteria workers — must be trained and familiar with the unique challenges these students face and their needs, Goring said.

The Dorans believe their son's school — Howard C. Johnson Elementary in Jackson — is unable to meet Sam's various needs. They say that the boy has a tendency to wander off when distracted, and that school officials do not understand how to work with the behaviors that result from his conditions.

"Is he going to be safe today?" said Nicole Doran. "Am I going to get a phone call?"

The couple filed a petition for emergent relief and due process earlier this month before the state Office of Administrative Law, hoping to get the out-of-district placement they seek for their son. Their petition was ordered back to the state Department of Education to resolve locally.

The Dorans said their next step would be to consider hiring a lawyer to help them.

While the fight goes on, Briant Doran said many children with special needs are being denied a complete education by the efforts of schools to keep students within the district.

"We got to stop failing them, or society's going to be paying for them down the road," he said. "What's going to happen to them?"

Jackson School District officials said that regardless of their efforts to provide more services to students within Jackson facilities, each educational decision is made based on an individual child's needs.

"We could never discuss the specifics of any individual student, but speaking in general terms the district would not hesitate to place a child in an out-of-district school if that school was the best way to serve his or her needs,'' said Allison Erwin, the district's spokeswoman. "That's why we have child study teams and IEP team meetings and evaluations and a due process system — so we can determine what is the best way to educate each student. Sometimes that can happen right here in Jackson. Sometimes it's better for them to go elsewhere. But whatever they need, we will work to get it for them."

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Amanda Oglesby: 732-557-5701; aoglesby@app.com