Vernon school board postpones Special Ed discussions

VERNON — Vernon Township School Distrct parents were disappointed when the Board of Education postponed a discussion on the district's problems serving special education students.

Currently the district has far more special education cases than the staff can handle.

This followed discussions held at the December meetings, where parents came to discuss their problems with special education. In December, the board agreed to discuss the issue at the January work session and were disappointed the issue wasn't going to be examined in depth.

Steve Dunlop, one of those parents, questioned that even though several issues were to be discussed, the director of special education, Carolyn Murano and the interim superintendent, Dr. Charles Maranzano, were not present at the meeting.

“Has the board spoken to anyone or taken any action on this at all?” he asked.

Board President David Zweier suggested the board decide what kind of information it wants from Director of Special Education Carolyn Marano and the special education personnel, and discuss the issues in February when Marano and Maranzano were available.

"This was the No. 1 thing on my agenda for this month," said board member Robert Hughes, who earlier in the meeting was unsuccessful in a bid to unseat Zweier as school board president. "This shouldn't go another month. It's an insult to this board. It's an insult to every parent who has come to us on this subject."

Zweier said it would be a bigger insult to have a discussion without the correct information and without anyone to speak about it.

However, several parents and some staff members did show up to talk about it.

Theresa Scura Coughlin came up to say that she had come out the meeting especially to talk about special education. She said she has an interest on several sides, as a professional in special education and as a parent of a child with an IEP. She was amazed by the absence of the director of special services.

“The professionals are supposed to respond,” she said. “The board should say 'jump' and they should say how high.”

Another parent, Margaret Stander, told the board of her issues with testing, how it took 7 months to get a test for her son, and how she to write to school board to get the problem resolved.

She also explained how her son's case manager is being moved to another school, while currently traveling between three different schools.

“She's always running between schools because the case managers have all quit or have been fired,” Stander said. “My son's new case manager is the school psychologist, because there is no one else to take the load.”

Personnel is a big part of the discussion, as it was explained by board members that the special education used to have 15 staff members. In the last 15 months, 6 employees have left or been fired and one was replaced and then left. The reasons for this mass exodus are not known, so the district is instituting an exit interview for employees who are leaving the district.

Liz Cleary, the head of VTEA, confirmed that there is a gaping hole in the middle school for special education services. One case manager had a case load of 100 students because of the lack of staff, she said. Cleary said she is afraid the situation might become worse, because the workload has become “impossible.”

Alison Guilfoyle, who works in the related services department, told the school board that it had in its possession a letter from Dr. M. Kavita Kahn, who had left the district last year and gave very specific reasons for her exit.

She also pointed out that after last month's meeting, where parents complained about excessive outsourcing of special education services, the staff was told that outside agency employees would be running all ID meetings, the intro meetings for the special education system.