I’m sure we’re all delighted with your son’s accomplishments, but your experience was 180° opposite those other families’ experiences.

Unfortunately our public education system is being assembled at an equally alarming rate. Get back to me when lower public education expenditures start being reflected in lower taxes.

I have no experience as the *parent* of a special needs kid, but I’ve known a few such parents in and out of OUSD. Let’s just say that my opinion is based on *their* negative experiences.

Autism is considered a severe, life-long disability. My autistic son is now 20, and a college sophomore with a 3.67 GPA. He’s where he is today because of 14 years in OUSD receiving PEC services. (and because my husband and I were very skilled and determined advocates for the services he needed) That was pre-school, kindergarten and 1st through 3rd grade in communication handicap (CH) special day classes. In 4th grade he was ready for full inclusion in a mainstream classroom – with support from a one-on-one aide. Every year he did better than the year before. His junior year of high school his GPA was 3.67, and his senior year he had a perfect 4.0.

Sometimes the district had to be pressured to do what was needed, but they served my kid *very* well, and I saw many of his peers getting the same quality of services. It came from the teachers who were in the classrooms with our kids every single day. They are awesome. No way could a private non-credentialed “tutor” have given my son a better education or outcome (assuming our family could have found a way to pay for one, short of robbing banks and 7-11′s).

I truly hate seeing and hearing about this mess, and hope we’ll see as little impact on the teachers and students as possible. I know the teachers will work for that, and I hope the district will step up and do what’s necessary to support the teachers after this awful disruption.

Now it’s up to the families to hold the district accountable.

1. There is a perverse financial incentive for the district to do so.

2. it creates more positions and jobs

http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/education&id=7786691

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/1999/9906.worth.scandal.html

http://educationnext.org/debunking-a-special-education-myth/

I am not and never would blame the Spec Ed system(One of my own children is Spec Ed)and they do a very good job most of the time. I would say however that the parameters for student classification are a little too broad and vague.

What Jody London and Tony fail to do in terms of fighting for resources, meeting their mandatory 55% requirement for direct classroom spending or doing anything to change the 48% drop out rate for African American males, they make up for in creating lawsuits for themselves. The current attack on Special Education is a gross violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Act and the States Education Code. The law specifically prohibits these kinds of “haphazard” actions. Board members and their superintendent should be held personally liable for the backhanded way they are singling out our special needs population. The current assault is eerily similar to the disparate treatment of people of color through school closings which is the subject of another pending lawsuit.

With no regard for the years of relationships and trust built between families, general education teachers, resource specialists and other staff members, this heartless board wields its axe again and again. OUSD spokesman and house boy Troy Flint could not provide any explanation for this unnecessary upheaval – because there isn’t one! Flint could only admit “there were some major shortcomings in the way this was handled.” These “shortcomings” have real costs to lives and communities. Death by a thousand cuts. This board along with its charter school affiliations are dismantling our public education system at an alarming rate.

Students with disabilities and their families do not have the extra resources to fight this on their own. The community must stand with them and work to make sure District 1 does not return Jody London to the board come November.