Parma Special Education Meeting Draws A Crowd

April 14, 2010

Last week’s meeting for parents of special education students in the Parma district drew quite a crowd, despite being scheduled on St. Patrick’s Day.

The Ohio Department of Education, which held the meeting as part of its review of the district’s special education program, recorded 64 parents in attendance. That’s the largest turnout so far statewide, said department spokeswoman Julie Daubenmire.

More than two-dozen districts and charter schools have held similar sessions since January to hear from parents. Eventually, every district and charter will host a meeting as its turn for review comes up, a change brought about by last year’s settlement of a federal lawsuit.

In Parma, parents voiced concerns about students’ academic progress and the impact of school closings on special education, Daubenmire said in an e-mail.

The state will send the district a summary of its review within 90 days, and the district then will have 30 days to develop a plan to correct any problems. Once that plan is approved, the district has one year to follow through with improvements.

Sandee Winkelman was in the audience Wednesday. She and her husband made national headlines a couple years ago when they won a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that parents didn’t need to hire a lawyer for court cases involving their children’s special needs.

The Winkelmans fought the Parma district for years over whether their son Jacob should be educated in the private Monarch School for children with autism.

He’s a sixth-grader at Monarch now and is doing well, she said in a phone interview after the meeting. And Winkelman herself is a member of the State Advisory Panel for Exceptional Children, which gives input to the education department.

Winkelman said she was surprised by th e high turnout in Parma and praised the district and state representatives for handling the volume well. Some of the parents who spoke suggested that teachers have not gotten the training they need to deal with autism, she said.

"The testimony was very emotional, and some parents started crying," Winkelman said. "It was painful to listen to.

"But I had very positive feelings leaving there. I think some very good things will come from this."