Flaws in Connecticut’s special education system are impeding the state’s ability to provide adequate services to students, according to a report released Wednesday by state Education Commissioner Charlene Russell-Tucker. Russell-Tucker commissioned the report six months ago amid concerns the state wasn’t doing enough to support students with disabilities. The findings affirmed many of those worries, revealing a system struggling with staffing shortages, arduous data collection software and a widespread lack of confidence in how disputes are resolved. As a result, children may struggle to access the resources they require for a free adequate public education — a legal standard also known as FAPE. “We didn’t do this because we thought we were going to get a … report that says, ‘You’re doing everything well,'” Russell-Tucker told the State Board of Education at its meeting Wednesday. “That was not the point. “We did this because it was a need — to make sure that we understand and uncover where the challenges are, so we can literally be having this conversation today, very clearly and concisely, about what it is our next steps need to be,” Russell-Tucker said. Representatives of WestEd, a consulting group, conducted the evaluation and presented the findings alongside Russell-Tucker at Wednesday’s meeting. Several individuals also shared views on the report during a public comment period at the meeting. Andrew Feinstein, an attorney who represents children with disabilities and a founding member of the group Special Education Equity for Kids in Connecticut, called the report “devastating.” “The fundamental problem appears to be that the Bureau of Special Education sees itself primarily as a conduit to transmit district-generated data to the federal Department of Education. It does not see itself as accountable to parents and teachers. The bureau is ineffective in improving results for students,” Feinstein told the board. Kathryn Meyer, an attorney with the Center for Child Advocacy who works with low-income families, agreed. “Right now too many of our clients are sending their children with disabilities to school — our most vulnerable students — worried not just about the quality of their education, but their child’s safety and supervision. We are seeing district by district unable to provide adequate staffing support to meet their basic needs, and our children are paying the price,” Meyer wrote in an email to the Connecticut Mirror. There was a bright spot: The report found Connecticut does routinely meet federal targets regarding special education. The problem, Feinstein told CT Mirror, is that the state itself sets those targets. If the state sets and meets a low target, the federal government won’t see a problem, he said— even if a large number of kids still aren’t receiving adequate support. That blind spot is what Russell-Tucker said she’d sought to clarify by commissioning the report. Rorie Fitzpatrick of WestEd, the consultancy that produced the report, praised the commissioner for taking a proactive approach to improving Connecticut’s approach to special education. “This was not a compelled endeavor. The compulsion here was a commitment to results for students,” Fitzpatrick told the board. The report included four categories of recommendations to the state Department of Education. That included better defining the state’s “vision” for students with disabilities to ensure everyone in the system understands the goals and mission; mapping out and streamlining how staff and workflows are organized; coordinating more effectively within the department to address staffing shortages; and strengthening legal oversight and transparency in how the state handles disputes between parents and teachers. That last category is especially important to families that feel schools are not adequately assisting children with disabilities, whether due to a staff shortage, an improper IEP or another issue. Right now, Feinstein said, the most accessible option for low-income parents is the state’s administrative complaint process. The process is free, but it suffers from extended delays, and the results can be legally suspect, he said. As a result, Feinstein said, he seldom relies on state complaints. Meyer told CT Mirror her organization has also experienced issues with the state complaint process. “We have experiences with cases where … corrective action has not been fully monitored or enforced, and that’s something that we continue to urge [the state Department of Education] to really take a look at,” Meyer said. “Corrective action is not meaningful if a district doesn’t think it’s going to be required in a timely manner.” Meyer also said she thought the report’s data on the number of complaints filed in the state seemed low. “That was surprising and doesn’t align with my experience,” she said. In the report, WestEd recommended that the state hire a legal expert to support investigators and analyze their findings, with the aim of ensuring legal integrity and determining appropriate corrective actions. Meyer said that seems like a step in the right direction. “A lot of investigators have a lot of experience and want to do well by these families, but having someone with a legal lens to support them in that process, I think, is really critical,” she said. Families who can afford to hire a lawyer can also set in motion what is known as due process. If they cannot reach an agreement with a school district, the case will eventually come before an impartial arbiter known as a hearing officer. These officers are similar to court magistrates, in that they are expected to render a finding that resolves the dispute. However, the report found widespread mistrust in the quality of Connecticut’s hearing officers, with doubts about how knowledgeable they are in federal and state law.  By way of a solution, the report recommends that Connecticut establish clear criteria for hearing officer competence and make those criteria transparent to the public to rebuild trust. It also recommends providing guidance to parents without legal representation to help them navigate the process. Feinstein urged the board to read the report’s findings and “demand that the department [of education] make fundamental change, both in the structure and operations of the Bureau of Special Education and, more importantly, by making clear that the mission is not to passively collect data, but to enhance the education of students with disabilities.” Meyer concurred. “At its most fundamental level, SDE needs to prioritize the voices of parents, students, and educators by following through on WestEd’s recommendations, particularly around monitoring and enforcement of children’s legal rights to a meaningful and safe education,” she wrote in an email. “Urgent action and accountability are needed.” ...read more read less