Hope Public Schools special education program meets needs

The special education budget for 2008-2009 approved Monday by the Hope School Board provides services for 10 percent of the student population of the Hope Public School District.
“Our biggest expenditure is paying for teacher salaries and classified personnel,” Assistant Superintendent and Special Education Supervisor Charlotte Briton said in an interview following the meeting.

Briton said the special education program employees 14 certified teachers and 8 para-professionals. They employ a licensed speech pathologist and contract out with speech and occupational therapists, according to Briton.

Federal money available to the program is $544,000 and the state and local match is $715,000. Briton said Hope Public Schools can also recoup Medicaid funds at times when the student has Medicaid.

Briton said the school district provides whatever services the special education committee and herself determine as needs.
“Whatever we feel like the child needs, that’s what we will get,” Briton said.
Briton said another expense for the program includes any materials regular education teachers may need for the special education student. Special transportation is also a service and expense.

“All of our students go to regular classes so we provide the regular education teachers supplies in order to work with our students. A majority of our kids spend the biggest part of their day in regular classes, but everything is individualized. Everything is looked at as to what this particular student needs,” Briton said.

Briton said 10 to 12 years ago the percentage of special education students in the HPSD was at about 12 percent; but, since then many have been re-evaluated and retested.
Currently HPSD has 248 special education students in kindergarten through 12th grade. HPSD schools provide services to special education students in three private schools and one home school student, according to Briton.
“We are very conscious, making sure they qualify,” Briton told board members Monday. Briton said they were concerned at one time about children being placed in special education due to an inability to speak English.

“We are careful about not placing a Hispanic student in special ed simply because they can’t speak the language very well,” Briton said.
Briton said they also occasionally have students who have come to Hope with little or no previous schooling.

“The important thing about Hope is our ESL (English as a second language) program takes these children and works with them,” she said. “We are working closely with Clinton Primary. If they see students are lacking not only with English, but also lacking when they give them something in Spanish, then we try to cooperate in that area. We make sure we are not missing any students in that respect.”

Briton said statewide the number of special education students is at about 13 percent, but that number has dropped.
“Statewide the number of students being placed in special ed has been going up every year, last year it dropped for the first time in a long time,” she said.
The number of autistic children is growing, according to Briton. She said autism does not always mean the student will placed in special education.
Hope recently required one special education teacher to attend training for autistic students and for the first time has a trained autism instructor on staff.

Diversity is an issue that also has to be considered in special education, according to Briton.
“For years we were over-identified with black students in special education,” Briton said.
 She said “over-identified” means the percentage of black students in special education was larger than the percentage in the total school population. Briton said currently this is not the case in the HPSD special education program.

“The formula does not say you have to match up completely but if your percentage is way above what the regular education percentage is, then you are over-identified,” she said. Briton said the special education program is slightly under-identified in Hispanic students.

“We are working closely with that group to make sure we are not missing any Hispanic students that need be in special education,” she said. “I feel like besides making sure Hope school does what they need to do, I am an advocate to make sure these children have everything they need and they are not discriminated in any way. That is a big part of my job.”

Briton seemed to feel good about how HPSD offers special education.
“In fact, we have people calling from other school districts wanting to come to Hope to get into the special education program,” Briton said.

A shortage in special education instructors sometimes causes the programs to be lacking, according to Briton. She commended Hope schools for their efforts in dealing with the shortage.
“We offer special education sign-in bonuses and an extended contract. The board agreed to do that because there is such an area of shortage. We have had that two years and it has helped tremendously,” Briton said.