In April, Lawrence Gloeckler of the Special Education Institute of the International Center for Leadership in New York issued a report indicating several areas the district should address to improve its exceptional children's program. Reducing the number of referrals was one area.

During the 2008-09 academic year, the district received approximately 50 official referrals from school assistance teams or from parents for new evaluations. That number does not include all of the re-evaluations done of students who were already qualified for services through the program. Roach said she did not know who many total evaluations were done last school year.

The district's goal is to keep the number of referrals to no more than 5 to 10 percent of the student population, Roach said. Wilson currently has about 12,200 students.

Roach said most of the requests come at the end of the school year mainly from parents who fear their child is going to fail a grade or who already know their child will be retained. Most of the referrals involve elementary school students.

Other issues the report highlighted will be addressed by committee that's developing a strategic plan for improving the exceptional children's program.

* Increasing the graduation rate of special education students from 24.5 percent to at least 60 percent.

* Reducing the dropout rate of special education students from 13.2 percent to no more than 5 percent.

* Reducing the number of special education students who spend more than 60 percent of their time in self-contained classes from 24.9 percent to 15 percent.

* Reducing the performance gap between general education and special education students to no more than 10 percent.

According to the State Performance Plan for the academic year 2007-08, the latest available figures, North Carolina's average graduation rate for students with individualized education plans is 56.3 percent, which means the state met its target of 55 percent. North Carolina's average dropout rate for students with IEPs for that same time period was 8 percent, which means the state did not meet its target of 6.5 percent. When it comes to inclusion, the state average for children removed from their regular classroom more than 60 percent of the school day is 15.8 percent, which means the state met its target of 16.5 percent.

Wilson fell short of matching either of the three goals. But several surrounding school districts -- Nash-Rocky Mount Schools, Edgecombe County Schools or Wayne County Schools -- didn't meet the goals either. For example, Edgecombe County had 35.8 percent of its special education students graduate from high school. Nash-Rocky Mount Schools had 11.82 percent of its special education students to dropout of school and in Wayne County Schools, 26.12 percent of its special education students spend more than 60 percent of their time in self-contained classes.

Gloeckler and another consultant who works with Gloeckler, Patty Laney, have been helping Wilson County with its strategic planning process, which started in May.

Earlier this month, the strategic planning committee decided to create action teams at each school that will be charged with making sure the ideas and goals coming from the strategic planning process are carried out at the school level.

Starting next school year, the action team members will be trained in the areas the strategic plan addresses. Action team members will, in turn, train the staff at their school. The action teams should help ensure more consistency in the types of intervention and instruction students receive.

One of the key things the action teams will do is work on building stronger relationships between general education and special education teachers. Forging stronger relationships between those groups of teachers should help when it comes to inclusion and keeping more special needs students in regular classrooms. Roach said training on inclusion will start next school year. It will be the 2010-2011 school year before any inclusion changes are implemented.

School leaders are looking at creating situations where classes could have both a general education teacher and a special education teacher doing team or co-teaching. Roach said they are also looking at ways general education and special education teachers can have common planning time. The action teams will consider staffing needs and determine if enough staff is available to make inclusion work. Action teams will also determine what schedule changes need to be made.

Finding ways to let special needs children have more time in a regular classroom doesn't mean all self-contained classrooms in the district will be eliminated. Roach said they will still have some separate classes.

The strategic planning group will meet again in late July or early August. Action teams will also work on ways to involve parents in the changes happening.

Roach said she feels good about the work done thus far, but wishes they were further along.

In December, Wilson County Schools Superintendent Larry Price outlined a three-pronged plan for a complete review of the district's exceptional children's program. The plan included hiring Gloeckler at a rate of $3,000 per day. The district has paid him $21,175.15 as of this week. The money was paid from Federal Title I funding. The district receives Title I funding based on the number of low income students.

The second part of the plan included a review of the laws and regulations governing services for special needs children. The third part of the plan was the series of classroom tours conducted by the Wilson County Board of Education's Instructional Services Committee.

creech@wilsontimes.com | 265-7822 [if StoryOnly] [/if StoryOnly] [if NoName] [/if NoName]

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