In 2006, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt asked the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education to “examine best practices around the country for improving the delivery of services” for children with severe disabilities. The department commissioned a study which questioned the placement of children with disabilities in Missouri and other states.
When Governor Matt Blunt requested the study in 2006, the concern was Missouri was the only state with a “state administered day program” for students with severe disabilities. Today, Missouri is still the last one standing. But as the report notes, many other states have similar programs that are locally controlled, regional services instead of state-run programs.
Sixteen states were studied in the report. They were chosen because their total populations were similar to Missouri’s.
Out of these states, Missouri and Maryland had the highest percentage of students with developmental disabilities served completely outside of the regular education classroom. In Missouri, an average of 12 percent of these students were served in a separate day facility.
Despite this, Stephen Barr, the Assistant Commissioner of the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, said he knew at least 20 other states have regional schools similar to Missouri’s state schools.
“So, even in a public school they might be in their own room, really not interact with a lot of other kids. School districts that don’t send them to the state school may send them to a private facility that might be closer by and things like that,” Barr said. “It’s just a different naming convention.”
Any separate school, though, comes up against the idea of inclusion. When the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, was created, many put emphasis on the idea of inclusion, or the integration of students with special needs into the regular education classroom. Often this consists of a regular education classroom teacher and a special education teacher working together to co-teach a class.
David Wilson, Assistant Director of Special Services for the Columbia Public School District, said costs are a concern.
“When you have two teachers in a classroom it’s obviously very expensive,” Wilson said. “It’s not about the cost though. It’s more about we want to make sure that we’re utilizing the teachers we have both as effectively and efficiently as we can.”
But the 2006 report said local districts still spend about $5,000 less per student than the state schools. Local districts spent about $24,500 each year per student with severe disabilities, while special districts including the state schools spent more than $30,000 per student.
Despite the difference, state school teachers’ salaries were typically $5,000 to $10,000 less than public school teachers. Barr said because they’re state employees, they can quit at any time and are also not eligible for tenure.
“It’s a challenge, because they are state employees they’re paid less than the typical school district pays and also different from public schools, we don’t have contracts,” Barr said.
And the costs add up. Barr said the average cost per child last year for the Missouri State Schools for the Severely Disabled was nearly $38,000. The total operational costs for the 34 facilities last fiscal year were a little over $33.6 million.
Barr said the Missouri state schools provide a different option, especially for parents who are concerned about bullying, transportation and the value of their child’s education.
“There’s a lot better feeling for those kids in the classroom, and so it’s probably a more successful model than just maybe having been pushed by some people who think that maybe inclusion is right for everybody. It isn’t,” Barr said.
In a survey back in 2006, 80 percent of parents of children in state schools were satisfied with the therapies their children were receiving, while at local Missouri public schools only 59 percent of parents of kids with disabilities were satisfied.
But, many benefits of including students with disabilities in the regular education classroom are outlined in the report’s introduction. The National Dissemination Center for Children with Disabilities said inclusion helps children with disabilities gain social skills and friendships. It also said it brings a positive attitude change to teachers and regular education students.
But inclusion isn’t actually written into the law. Instead, schools are required to provide a free, appropriate education in a least restrictive environment. But what’s appropriate? What’s restrictive?
The answer- it depends. The state, school district, or the parents define these terms.
Dr. George Giuliani is the executive director at the National Association of Special Education Teachers. He said understanding the definition of least restrictive environment comes down to the child.
“It’s the requirement that children with disabilities must be educated with those without disabilities to the maximum extent that it is appropriate for that particular child,” Giuliani said.
He said the concept of “free appropriate public education” was the focus of a 1982 court case, Petitioners v. Amy Rowley. While the school felt Amy was doing fine, her parents thought she could do even better with a sign language interpreter. But the court decided that wasn’t the expectation of the school.
“What is the standard? And in a sense should we be maximizing the potential of students with disabilities? And it was the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court that that was never the intention of Congress, to maximize the potential of students because that’s not the standard that we use for general education students. The standard is we have to provide an appropriate education not a best education,” Giuliani said.
Ideally, Giuliani said the law would be more specific. But he said requiring a poor rural school to live up to rules set by a rich urban school wouldn’t work, either. So the law remains broad with specific mandates to ensure the rights of children with disabilities.
“They lay out, very specifically what is mandated in terms of what teachers and administrators and school districts must do for children to protect their particular rights,” Giuliani said. “But in terms of how to do it, that’s often left broad and left to the states, actually.”
And while inclusion isn’t written into the law, Giuliani said not including students with disabilities in the same building as regular education students isn’t the norm.
“We want these students in our buildings now, the idea of segregation of children with disabilities is really now a very foreign concept because what is known is that 95 percent of all students with disabilities are educated in the general education building,” Giuliani said. “And that’s tremendous when you look back 50 years ago that just was not the case at all.”
Despite the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled being unique to the state, 2.9 percent of students with special needs in Missouri are served in separate schools, which matches the national average.
The 2006 study found 78 percent of the 36 U.S. states that responded to the study had “multiple entities responsible for administering educational services to students with severe disabilities,” including single school districts, multi-district cooperatives, and state agencies (including schools for the deaf and blind).
Nationally, self-contained classrooms in local school districts were the most common placement for students with severe disabilities. Twenty-one states said this placement “was either always or often used,” and 13 other states said it “was used sometimes or rarely.” Regular education classrooms with supports such as paraprofessionals, who work one-on-one with the student with special needs, or co-teachers were the second most common placement.
Last year’s annual report showed 94.8 percent of students with disabilities in the nation were served in the regular education classroom for at least part of the school day in Fall 2012. Missouri fell just one percent below the national average, with 93.8 percent of the state’s students with special needs making it into the regular education classroom.