Parents, Faculty Ask School Board to Not Cut Special Ed Positions (CT)

February 7, 2011

Dozens of residents addressed the Board of Education Thursday night at Dolan Middle School as the public had a chance to comment on the school district’s operating budget for next fiscal year. Most speakers voiced concerns about what many referred to as "disproportionate cuts" to the district’s special education department.

"To target only the special education department is unfair," s aid Stephanie O’Shea, co-president of Julia A. Stark Elementary School’s parent faculty organization and mother of a second-grader in the school’s special education program.

O’Shea noted that Superintendent Joshua Starr’s budget presentation, which kicked off the public hearing, showed Stamford’s special education student-to-teacher ratio is lower than other comparable districts.

"Obviously this is a good thing, when you see the (Connecticut Mastery Test) charts comparing us with other schools in Connecticut, we are the highest," she said.

"My concern is that if we rush to cut 21 positions now, we will find our test scores falling, because we didn’t take the time to thoughtfully reorganize," she said.

Starr’s proposed budget of $232 million for 2011-12 represents a 3.9 percent increase over this fiscal year, and includes several cuts to the district’s special education program, including 12 special education teacher positions, five social workers and four speech and language pathologists, as well as one special education administrator.

While few details had been made public about which classrooms these cuts would affect, Starr said Thursday there would be no change to the autistic spectrum disorder program. Additionally, the cuts would not affect pre-kindergarten programs and services or occupational therapy and physical therapy services, he said.

Ann Zorn, a special education teacher who has taught at Stark for 15 years, was the first of 50 people to address the board in front of an audience of roughly 300 people.

"I urge you not to cut the special education staff," Zorn told the board.

According to Starr’s budget, there are six special education teachers at Stark; two will be removed if his proposed budget is passed, raising the teacher-to-student ratio from 1-to-4.8 to 1-to-7.3 for students receiving individualized education plans.

"Special education teachers are not only working with IEP students," Zorn said. "We are also providing interventions to non-IEP students so we can prevent the over-identification of special education students."

Zorn said she provides interventions to 24 students in addition to the IEP students she serves.

"The numbers that have been provided to you, the public, only show a part of the big picture," she said.

While the Board of Education’s Fiscal Committee originally scheduled three meetings to review the budget before Thursday’s meeting, the committee has only been able to hold one thus far due to weather-related cancellations. The board is tentatively set to vote on the budget on Feb. 28.