Countywide : Cuts in Classes for Disabled Criticized

Parents of severely disabled students told county education officials Tuesday that cutting their children’s summer education will do little to ease budget woes and may be in violation of federal statutes.

The parents told Orange County Board of Education members that reducing special education classes from six to four hours during the summer is a poor cost-reduction move because teachers would continue to draw salaries for a full day.

“How does that save money?” asked Sue Eaton of Huntington Beach, who has five disabled children, four of whom are in the county’s extended-year program. “The only ones who lose are our kids. I really think you all need to find some other place to cut money.”

But county schools Supt. John F. Dean said the move will cut costs if more of the 80 extended-year teachers voluntarily limit their own hours, a move many about two months ago said they would consider.

So far, Dean said, 10 teachers have officially agreed to the cost-saving move, which he said would probably save at least $50,000. He said he was disappointed that more teachers didn’t follow up on their earlier interest in the effort, which could have pushed the savings to $200,000.

“This is not the program we want to cut. We don’t want to cut any of them, actually. Unfortunately, we have to cut all of them,” said Dean, adding that 120 layoff or contract limitation notices were mailed out last week.

The extended-year program teaches basic skills to about 800 students, ages 3 to 21, and is spread out over 23 county sites. The students are those whose disabilities are too profound to be handled by district schools.

Some of these are the “kids that can’t sit, they can’t stand, they don’t talk, they can’t feed themselves, they are not potty-trained,” Eaton said. “It takes an hour and a half to feed the group of them on a good day, so what are the teachers supposed to accomplish in four hours?”

Federal statutes outline an education plan for such developmentally disabled students called the Independent Education Program, which guarantees free education with annual goals charted out by teachers and parents.

For the children in the Orange County program, the IEP goal agreements for this year included an assumption of six hours of daily instruction over the summer, said Rhys Burchill, executive director of the county’s California Development Disabilities Area Board.

“My first reaction when I heard (about the cut in hours) was that this would place them out of compliance,” said Burchill, whose board was one of 13 created by state lawmakers to advocate the rights of the developmentally disabled. “I was frankly just stunned.”

Three parents, including Eaton, have filed complaints with the state Department of Education. An additional five families have filed for the state department’s fair hearings procedure, which involves the intervention of a state mediator.

Dean said that education officials and attorneys examined the issue “14 ways to Tuesday” before making any moves and that he believes the cuts to be within federal guidelines.