Public schools in Champaign are revising their approach to teaching students with disabilities. The changes are the result of one board member’s quest to find out what was hurting her nonverbal daughter.
Amy Armstrong noticed her daughter was acting differently. She was self-harming and refused to go to her high school.
“She refused to go in that building,” she said. “When you have a child who is not verbal, giving you every indication that something is going catastrophically wrong…”
Armstrong said “appalling” conditions in her daughter’s classroom caused her to begin hurting herself. As a Champaign Unit 4 board member, she decided to reach an agreement with the district that required them to investigate systemic problems in their special education programs.
A report on those issues and how to fix them was released to the public Tuesday night.
Daniel Cates is the former school psychologist and superintendent hired to lead the investigation. He visited Unit 4 twice a week for four to five months to observe different programs and meet with parents, teachers, assistant teachers and administrators.
Cates said it was striking how much everyone, including the district, wanted to uncover and fix issues for students with disabilities.
“I found that very encouraging, that people are genuinely interested in sharing what they see and hear at a very candid level for the purpose of improving, even when it was [the] district,” he said.
The district also hired special education attorney Neal Takiff, who combed through surveys, documents and data.
Some of Cates’ recommendations are already in progress. That includes temporary, separate classes planned for eight of the district’s elementary schools for kids with autism who need help adjusting from preschool to kindergarten.
What makes an effective special education department?
In advance of the report, IPM news reached out to an outside expert, Northern Illinois University associate professor Natalie Andzik.
Andzik said a district does not have to make significant changes to its budget to improve its special education department.
“A lot of fear in districts is about how much this is going to cost,” she said. “It is not about hiring more staff. It really isn’t. It’s just about building up the people that you have.”
Andzik emphasized many of the same themes as Cates did in his Tuesday evening report.
She said effective special education departments have to be highly individualized to match the many types of disabilities found in a student body.
Cates said that many Champaign schools, especially the elementary schools, are missing programs for students who need more intense support. He said teachers, assistant teachers and assistant principals want to help fill this gap but have not received effective, individualized training on how to do so.
Andzik said each school should have access to at least one certified behavioral analyst, who can then help train the assistant teachers or paraprofessionals directly responsible for teaching students. She said few school districts invest in training paraprofessionals, but one district did it well by creating a yearlong series with the incentive of raises as the staff members completed units.
Almost half of the students who receive special education and related services in Unit 4 are Black. Four board members and multiple public commenters at Tuesday’s meeting emphasized that they want Unit 4’s special education services to work well for Black, Latino and multilingual students.
Andzik said white, affluent families are overrepresented among special education advocates nationwide. She said districts can overcome this hurdle by providing free trainings to families about how to advocate for their child. She said those trainings need to be in the evening, recorded and uploaded to a district’s website to be effective.
Cates and Takiff found that two-thirds of the families they surveyed did not know that Unit 4 offered parent information sessions. Administrators said they are communicating better now with parent advocates and are hoping to work with them to spread the word about the trainings.
What’s next?
Armstrong said she felt emotional during Cates’ presentation of the report at the board meeting on Tuesday.
“It’s overwhelming as that’s my lived experience that they were just referring to, and it’s the lived experience of many, many people that I have been friends with, spoken to and advocated for,” she said. “And this was a culmination of a long, hard road.”
Armstrong said her daughter is no longer at the high school and she is doing much better. She hopes the board and administration will work together to help others.
Administrators will present more next steps on improving special education programs at a board meeting on July 28.