1,047 in special education

Published 12:09 am Friday, February 27, 2009

By By JOHN EBY / Dowagiac Daily News
In Cass County, 1,047 students receive special education services, including 346 in Dowagiac, 308 in Edwardsburg, 141 in Cassopolis and 91 in Marcellus.
Plus, 161 students are served directly by Lewis Cass Intermediate School District (LCISD), Special Education Director Louis Chism told Dowagiac Rotary Club Thursday noon at Elks Lodge 889.
"Many of the early childhood developmentally delayed students will go on into general ed kindergarten after they complete services with us," Chism said. "It's not growing. It's pretty consistent. We're right in line with state averages" of 11 percent.
Chism, a South Bend, Ind., native (he was a classmate at Washington High School with the current principal) who became director in July 2005, was influenced in his career path by a cousin with Down syndrome.
He started his career teaching educable mentally impaired students at Sam Adams in Cassopolis, but went all over the country before returning in his present role.
With a wife in hospital administration, he worked in Ypsilanti, Phoenix, Ariz., and Long Beach, Calif. He came to Cassopolis from Connecticut.
The population at the LCISD is made up of 42 cognitively impaired students, 33 speech and language impaired students (mostly ages 3-5), 18 severely multiply impaired students, 14 early childhood developmentally delayed students, 15 autistic syndrome students, eight otherwise health impaired students, eight severe specific learning disabled students, two hearing impaired students, one physically impaired student, two students with brain injuries and one student identified as deaf and blind.
Chism attributed the increase in autism diagnoses to, "The public is becoming more knowledgeable and getting students identified earlier. A lot more at the preschool level than in the past. We as educators are becoming more knowledgeable about the characteristics. Now we're not saying, 'It might be developmental,' we go ahead and conduct assessments to make sure. It's a combination of both."
Chism said directing more money to early childhood education could reduce the need for expensive special education services.
"We know that if a student receives a preschool experience," he said, "they have a greater chance of being successful, as opposed to those who don't."
Added retired Dowagiac superintendent Larry Crandall, "Regardless of people's political feelings on the stimulus, there is a fairly significant provision in there for early childhood education. Another part at the state level is a mandate that will be phased in" for full-day kindergarten.
"All of that speaks to research on early childhood intervention," Crandall said.
Chism is working with the county Human Services Coordinating Council on an early childhood collaborative grant to stretch limited resources.
"We have a lot of services for early childhood students right now in Cass County. Unfortunately, everybody's doing their own thing."
Chism thanked Rotarian Herb Phillipson, the retired probate judge, for helping start the "very beneficial" HSCC that "brings everybody together at one table to take it to the next level."
The LCISD operates 12 classrooms. Four found at Brookside Learning Center on Dailey Road include two for preschool. "We run two sessions of each of those. We have approximately 24 in each classroom – 12 in the morning and 12 in the afternoon. We also have one classroom that contains students with moderate cognitive impairments and one classroom of students who are severely cognitively impaired and multiply impaired."
North Pointe Center between N. Orchard, off W. Prairie Ronde, and Front streets (M-51) in Dowagiac contains four classrooms as well.
"One classroom has severe cognitively impaired students, one classroom with moderately cognitively impaired students and then one of transition students. These students may have been in the local school district at one point, but they didn't graduate. They participated in the graduation experience, but their certificate of completion allowed them to continue to gain more skills. In that classroom, we focus a lot on the vocational aspects so they can learn employment skills. After they leave school at 26, they can become employed and be a productive member of society. We feel really good about that class. Another classroom is designed to meet the needs of emotionally impaired secondary age students. Many of these students were enrolled in districts. Due to their disabilities, they could no longer be educated in that regard, so they come to us," Chism said.
Four other classes are located in Cassopolis Public Schools – one for primary emotionally impaired students (Frank Squires), another for intermediate age emotionally impaired students (Sam Adams) and two at Ross Beatty – one for cognitively impaired students who also have hearing loss.
Each class has a certified teacher and two paraprofessionals. "With the exception of the hearing impaired classroom," Chism notes, "which also has an interpreter. That's because all of these students participate in general ed programming to some degree. We also run an infant and toddler program, which is designed for those students who qualify for special education services who are ages 0-3. Hopefully, in that environment we can provide some intervention services to help remediate some of their deficiencies so those kids can enter into a typical preschool classroom and be successful."
Chism said the LCISD also provides ancillary services.
"We have three speech and language pathologists," he said. "Two of them work primarily at Brookside, one with the 0 to 3 population. She also has some other responsibilities to our classrooms in Cassopolis. One works primarily with the preschool population and the other two classrooms located there. One is located at North Pointe. He provides services to students there. We have three occupational therapists, which involves fine motor development. One serves Lewis Cass ISD students. Two serve local districts. Their jobs are split between Marcellus, Dowagiac, Cassopolis and Edwardsburg."
Of three physical therapists, one serves in the local districts. The others serve populations at Lewis Cass and in local districts.
"We not only provide services for Lewis Cass, but ancillary services for local districts as well," Chism said, "although the local districts all have their own speech and language people."
The LCISD employs three school social workers. One serves Lewis Cass ISD programs. The other two divide their time between the four local districts.
In addition to four school psychologists there are is a psychology intern.
"These individuals are divided between Lewis Cass ISD programs and the local school districts," he said. "The fourth person we have, we've designated him as our early intervention specialist. He works with the local districts to develop an RTI (Response to Intervention) process. The (2004) reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEIA) embedded RTI into some rules and regulations. RTI is a scientifically-based process where we use research-based materials to help those students who may be struggling academically and behaviorly so we can try to set up some kind of system to help them using differentiated instruction so that they may not be referred to special education programs. We're presently working on our process for RTI in Cass County.
"The change in the regulations regarding identification of students with specific learning disabilities requires that you no longer use a discrepancy model. A discrepancy model compares the student's ability level or I.Q. with their achievement level. We were using a 15-point split between the two to say a student is eligible to receive services as a specific learning disabled student. The federal Office of Special Education Programs is looking at what we're doing to really eliminate the possibility of children being referred to special education. They've come up with the use of RTI. We can now use patterns of strengths and weaknesses as well as I.Q. and achievement tests to determine whether or not a student is eligible to receive special ed services as specifically learning disabled.
"We also have transition services coordinated by Susan Searight," Chism said. "She is actually split between special education and CTE (career and technical education). A employment training specialist works with her. What they do is, all students age 14 and above, we have to construct a transition plan for them. This transition plan identifies their post-secondary goals – want they want to do after they leave school. Some of them in the local districts want to go to college, so we construct them a study that will help them achieve that goal of being productive on a particular job. We arrange for them to have vocational experience. We provide a job coach who goes out and analyzes the job and follows those students for a period of time to see what training they need to be able to accomplish that job. This is for all students in Cass County, as well as Michigan. They all have to have a transition plan beginning at age 14."
In addition to himself as special education director, Chism has Peter Bennett as supervisor. He's responsible for all classroom programming except preschool – including North Pointe, Brookside and Cassopolis.
Bennett is also responsible for curriculum development.
"We have been directed by the federal and state governments to make sure we won't have a 'special ed curriculum,' that all students receive a general ed curriculum, of which we do a modified form using EGLCE (Extended Grade Level Content Expectations).
Bennett also coordinates annual testing and works with districts overseeing the "quite involved intake process" to insure local districts exhaust every option before releasing students to Lewis Cass ISD.
"Our programs are for the most severe students in Cass County," Chism said. "We want to make sure we target appropriate students so we don't limit their educational abilities."
Tina Wimberley is the monitor and early childhood coordinator.
"She is responsible for all of the zero to five population programs – two preschool classrooms, our Early On program for zero to three, as well as our infant childhood program. Her monitoring role is much more extensive because it's countywide. She trains and provides direction for the local districts so they can do a self-assessment. That system is designed not only to meet the compliance requirements of the state and federal governments, but also to help districts improve how they deliver services to the special ed population. She's our complaint investigator for any concern a parent may have with what services their child is receiving. She completes a report the state analyzes to see she addresses all of the issues."
Chism's job is also countywide. "Not only do I have the responsibility of Lewis Cass iSD, but also to the local districts. Anything that involves special ed, as the ISD director I am involved with at some level. Most of the time the districts call me and let me know if they need technical assistance or any interpretation regarding legal aspects."
Edwardsburg is the only district which employs a fulltime special education director.
Dowagiac did, but now uses two individuals – one at the elementary level and one at the secondary level. Marcellus uses its middle school principal. Cassopolis turns to the Frank Squires Elementary principal.
"I am basically a liaison between the Office of Special Education and Early Intervention Services at the state level and the local districts," he said. "I'm responsible for giving them all of the information involving changes in the laws, policies and procedures which change at the state level and the implementation of special ed programming in Cass County."
Chism said this is but a snapshot overview of special education and that he could come back and give another program on broader aspects.
"There are some things happening now in special education that you may need to be aware of," he advised Rotarians. "One I'll touch on is that with the reauthorization of IDEIA came some accountability. The federal government said every state has to have a state performance plan that involves 15 indicators for Michigan. We are expected to meet a majority of them at 100-percent compliance, so it's a big issue. Every district in the state is affected. We earn rankings from one to four, which is not good. One, we met all requirements. Two, we require some assistance because we didn't quite meet the standard, but we were close. Three, you need assistance from the state. You don't ever want the state to have to come down and tell you what to do. We want to implement those things ourselves."