A report recently revealed that many students with special needs in the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) have not received the required special services since schools closed in March due to the pandemic.
The “Speak UP Survey for Parents of Students with Disabilities in LAUSD” analyzed data from more than 125 parents in the public schools of the Los Angeles School District, which is considered the second largest in the nation after New York.
About 80% of the special needs students of the surveyed parents attend traditional public schools, while 20% of them attend charter schools or private schools.
Lisa Mosko, director of advocacy for special education at Speak UP, said she was alarmed to see that after LAUSD schools closed, students with special needs and / or Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) were not receiving services suitable.
“I spoke to a special education division in LAUSD and said that they should assist parents directly because I was seeing a lot of inconsistencies,” he said. “And they said, ‘Well, we really trust the local districts and what the principals report to us.'”
The problem is that local districts were not communicating enough. Some of the inconsistencies included that the school said parents refused services while their child was home, while parents said they called the school without success.
So Speak Up with a group of parent advocates created a survey to elicit responses from parents.
Among the most important data, it was revealed that more than half of the students with special needs of the surveyed families received minimal services or did not receive any services in the spring, and 70% of them did not receive services in an adequate format.
More than 70% of families with children with special needs received insufficient communication from members of their children’s IEP teams.
About 20% of the same families received little or no communication from teachers. Many parents reported interrupted services, unanswered calls, and only occasionally a voice message from service providers.
Student without sufficient resources
For Mrs. Tania, the unexpected change in her son’s educational course at the beginning of the semester was a hard blow for the family.
The 10-year-old boy has autism and has no verbal communication, often cries and when he despairs he screams, said Tania, who preferred not to give her last name for fear of retaliation.
She added that her son takes special and also general classes.
“To include him in regular classes I had to look up the teacher’s information and speak directly to him,” said Tania.
“The other classes like adapted physical education, public speaking class and occupational therapy he didn’t take. I only received email connections. ”
He indicated that for the summer classes the child missed the first week because they did not notify him of the beginning of the courses.
“Then I spoke to the school and they told me to call the District directly because they couldn’t help me,” he said.
The mother said that it is very frustrating to see how her son needs help and experts on this matter are not available to support parents.
“I think the teachers need a lot more training because even though they wanted to, I think they didn’t know how to help us either,” he added.
Mosko said that 13%, or about 60,000 to 70,000, of LAUSD students have IEPs due to a developmental or learning disability.
The Speak UP survey confirmed that it is unacceptable that students with special needs do not receive their services.
The IEP is a legal document mandated by the federal government and the services outlined within the IEP must be provided to ensure that all students have equal access to schools and education.
The principal added that although they do not have exact numbers of the participating schools, they did receive a significant number of surveys of parents from the South and Southeast areas of Los Angeles.
After conducting the survey, Speak UP said, among several recommendations, it hopes that during the seemingly virtual fall semester, LAUSD will ensure that special education services and modifications for all students with IEPs will be provided in a format suitable for planned therapy and adjusted to established practices according to the specialty area.
In response to this survey, LAUSD said in a statement that plans for the reopening of the school are still being finalized.
However, Superintendent Austin Beutner has repeatedly stated his commitment to provide additional support to younger students, English Learners, students with learning disabilities and disabilities and those who were already struggling before the facilities closed. schoolchildren, ”says the statement.
