DOE Affirms 8 Violations
February 4, 2010
The Indiana Department of Education has found eight violations of state law involving special needs students in the Zionsville Community Schools district.
The DOE investigated Zionsville schools after complaints were filed by a former special education teacher at Zionsville West Middle School in October 2009.
Cheryl Boyer-Schrock alleged 19 issues/violations in her complaint filed on Oct. 15, 2009. On Jan. 8, DOE concluded that eight of the allegations were substantiated and others are still under review, Lauren Auld, DOE press secretary said.
According to DOE investigator Brian Simkins, ZCS violated the following mandates during the 2008-09 school year, specifically at Zionsville West Middle School, including not having access to online classes, lack of training for paraprofessionals, failure to provide proper documentation of case conference committee meetings and communication to parents regarding their child’s change in educational placement.
The statutes were specifically violated for nine special needs students.
ZCS Superintendent Scott Robison said he was unable to comment on the situation due to it being a personnel matter.
According to the DOE, ZCS needs to contact the parents of all students who used NovaNET and offer to convene case conference committee meetings to review, document the school’s offer to convene case conferences, document efforts to schedule meetings, offer to convene case conference meetings to revise the individualized education program to reflect the proper lunch schedule, provide in-service training to all instructional assistants in the school building regarding the specific special needs and characteristics of the students with whom they are working based on the requirements in each student’s IEP, convene a meeting with all staff to review and revise policies and procedures related to organizing and scheduling case conference committee meetings, distribute a written memorandum to school building administrators and special education personnel regarding compliance with the requirements of convening a case conference committee meeting upon the parent’s request and providing written notice to parents when proposing to change a student’s placement or other aspect of the provision of free appropriate public education, and submit an assurance statement signed by the Director of Special Education stating that the school will ensure that copies of the Notice of Procedural S afeguards will be provided to parents. All corrective action is to be taken no later than Friday, Feb. 12.
Boyer-Schrock was the resource teacher at Z’West for the 2008-09 school year and resigned shortly thereafter. She had been voicing her concerns throughout the 2008-09 school year, but nothing had been done at the building level. When she tried to go to the district level, calls weren’t returned and e-mails weren’t responded "I had no other place to go," she said. "I am disappointed that it took the state to get involved before corrective action was taken."
Boyer-Schrock is not only a special needs teacher, she is also the parent of a child that is twice exceptional, a person who has a disability in addition to being gifted or has "high ability." Some of the students on her caseload at Z’West were also twice exceptional.
"I know my rights and students’ rights," she said. "Without the IEPs, the children aren’t getting a free and appropriate education and that is their right under federal law. This was something I did because it was the right thing to do for these students."
A complaint can be initiated by anyone, not just a parent, Boyer-Schrock said. According to Indiana Department of Education Article 7, any individual, group of individuals, agency or organization may file a complaint alleging violations of federal or state laws that apply to special education programs.
Boyer-Schrock said she hopes that the administration will put the resources into place that the teachers need in order to make sure IEPs are being followed and that it won’t be necessary to file any more complaints against them.
Boyer-Schrock was the program manager for the gifted and talented, part of the office of exceptional learners, part of special education and worked with title one, compensatory education, no child left behind from 1999 to 2004 in the Division of Compensatory Education (associate director) at the Indiana Department of Education for one year. She also holds an instructional license, administration licenses for director of exceptional needs and superintendent. She has been in education since 1994.
Sharon Thompson, president of Parents Education and Advisory Council of Zionsville, said she was aware of the issues Boyer-Schrock raised.
"One in five qualify for the need of some support services, according the state data," Thompson said. "Zionsville works well for some students, but special education has never been a strength at the school. Cheryl is the only one that has filed a complaint, but there are many other parents that have issues with the special education program."
PEACZ is a support group established to address special education services in Zionsville schools. It plans a follow up program on Thursday, Feb. 25, on the legal rights of parents and students with advocate Kylee Bassett.
Although some parents have issues with the special needs program at the school, Tracy Phillips, a parent of a student who had an IEP at Z’West, has seen nothing but success for her daughter. She said the school chose to release her from the special needs program due to her academic accomplishments.
"We moved to Zionsville from Lawrence Township and were very happy with Lawrence schools, but we were told by my child’s counselors that we should expect our daughter to be an average student and to lower our expectations," she said. "At Eagle Elementary and Z’West, our daughter has excelled academically and socially. She is an honor student and this was beyond my expectations. I think the system set in place between the teachers and the counselo rs set her up for academic success, and we’ve been nothing but pleased."
Phillips said she did get a copy from the DOE of the complaint report. She said to her, it reflects Z’West in a good light. For all the complaints issued, it comes down to technical and documentation violations.
"I know they will do a great job," Phillips said in regards to taking the proper corrective action.
Violations of State law
The eight violations of state law ZCS violated are as follows:
Failed to take steps to make available to students with disabilities the variety of educational programs and services that are made available to nondisabled students served by the public agency, specifically the use of the NovaNET Online Curriculum, and other educational programs and services;
Failed to provide pre-service and in-service training to paraprofessionals regarding the specific special needs and characteristics of the students with whom the paraprofessional will be working;
Failed to ensure that each student is involved in and progressing in NovaNET, to the maximum extent feasible, as determined by each student’s case conference committee;
Failed to convene a case conference meeting if either the parent or the school believes that a required component of a student’s individualized education program should be changed to ensure the provision of a free appropriate public education for students;
Failed to provide the required written notice to the parents before the school proposed to change the student’s educational placement, or the provision of a FAPE for students;
Failed to provide a copy of the Notice of Procedural Safeguards to each parent;&l t;/p>
Failed to implement the student’s IEP as written, specifically by failing to provide the required amount of speech therapy for a student, provide assistive technology to a student in social studies class, and providing the specified amount of time on NovaNET; and
Failed to take steps to afford students with disabilities equal opportunity for participation with nondisabled students during lunch period for students.
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