Resigned special ed teacher: Program changes 'illogical and irresponsible'

Five special education staffers will not be returning to Burlington High School when classes resume next week. Four cited problematic program changes in their letters of resignation to the district. The fifth confirmed he retired for the same reason.

OnTop's special education was housed together with the Horizons drop-out prevention program at the Elihu B. Taft School on South Williams Street until fall 2016. The programs were relocated to separate buildings, but the two sites continued to share one full-time administrator and one full-time director. 

A former special education teacher with 35 years experience, Edgar Murray, said without continuous on-site administrative presence to de-escalate potential crises, precarious situations arose within the "vulnerable student population" at the high school's OnTop program.

"I’d be teaching math to three students and have to abandon the lesson to paraeducators to go help a student who was having a meltdown," Murray said Wednesday.

When School Board began in 2015 to search for a new place to house OnTop, the program's Director Lynn Kennedy wrote to the committee tasked with that search that "ONTOP students need constant supervision" in order to meet program requirement.  

The OnTop program serves about 27 students who have a variety of social, emotional and behavioral needs. Each student has an Individual Learning Plan or ILP, which tailors lessons so student's can achieve regardless of academic or psychological issues. 

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Former BHS teacher Tom Emery said the location change created what he called a "blatantly inequitable situation."

OnTop was moved into Burlington High School's Building A, while Horizon's was moved to the St. Mark’s School Building on North Avenue. The district made a cost saving deal to lease the aging Taft building to the University of Vermont for up to 160 years for a one time sum of $1.6 million. The move saves the district $130,000 per year, according to district documents.

Emery, who taught special education for 23 years, said placing OnTop students in a cafeteria with limited supervision and 300 high school kids enrolled in standard curriculum and having OnTop students share the gym time with other kids put them at a disadvantage, according to many of their learning plans.

"The kids can’t function in a large confusing environment," Murray said on Friday, "The kids were at OnTop offsite because they were not successful at Burlington High School."

Emery added that he believes if the parents of the students were better advocates there could have been lawsuits. 

Murray who taught in Burlington for his entire career, said his decision to retire was expedited because of the work conditions.

In his resignation letter to the district Murray called the lack of program support "illogical and irresponsible," and he hoped the staffing decision would be revisited before the 2017 school year began. 

Kennedy, the former director, confirmed she also retired earlier than she had planned because the students needed more support.

In addition, letters of resignation obtained by the Burlington Free Press indicate that OnTop teachers Allison Curran and Paul Adams resigned due to what Curran wrote in March as the "chaotic move" to the high school and lack of administrative support.

The district, according to Murray, told staff to borrow an administrator from the in-house pool as needed, but Murray said the general administrators didn’t know the OnTop population.

"The population is high risk kids — emotionally difficult," Murray said.

But Superintendent Yaw Obeng said on Monday he didn't see why the district was segregating the group. Obeng said he recognized the opportunity for a "shift to incorporate the other" and for cost savings by centralizing student support in a collaborative environment.

"We aren't going to just react," Obeng said of the teachers' complaints. "They left. It's great they have that opportunity, but that doesn't change our focus."

Obeng's plan is to allow the new alternative education coordinator to analyze the situation and come to his own conclusions, which may be that a different kind of support would be needed. The Director of Special Education for the district Laura Nugent indicated in an email that the new team will be making "recommendations for increased supports as needed."

The New England Association of Schools and Colleges said in a re-accreditation report this spring after interviewing special education teachers over a period of two years that additional staff was needed in the special education department to support students.

The report also praised the inclusion of students with English language learning and special education needs within the regular population, which is a district goal in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

According to national and state law, students should be educated in the least restrictive environment possible.

"The ideal is to have students with their peers as much as possible," Vermont Family Network Director Karen Price said on Tuesday.

Price wouldn't comment on the Burlington School District programs but explained a continuum of special education placement ideas range from a one-on-one classroom aid to full external classrooms for special education.

The state defines special education as "specially designed instruction that cannot be provided within the school’s standard instructional conditions or provided through the school’s educational support system, at no cost to the parent, to meet the unique needs of an eligible child with a disability."

In a January 2016 interview Obeng said, "One of our goals in the facilities' plan is to accommodate the needs of all students and in particular students with special needs that we are currently sending out of District for services."

The district is in the middle of planning to either renovate around the current building or build a new high school facility to catch the district up to contemporary standards of technology and learning.

Contact Nicole Higgins DeSmet at ndesmet@freepressmedia.com or 802-660-1845. Follow her on Twitter @NicoleHDeSmet.