The Private-Public Dance: What’s Appropriate?
December 10, 2008 by Kristina Chew, PhD
Filed under Health
Washington’s first private school specifically for autistic children, Wintros Academy, closed its doors last Friday, according to yesterday’s Whidbey News Time Reporter:
Founders of the academy say local school districts are partly to blame after months of failed talks with special education departments. It’s a problem a spokesperson with the state Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) called “common.”
In order for Wintros to receive state funding, it first needed sponsorship by a school district to be certified as a non-public agency, instead of a private school. But no Whidbey school district would sign on.
“A district would need to extend their liability to the school, which is where problems can start,” Doug Gill of OSPI said.
Wintros Academy has only been in operation since September 2nd of this year. A June 18th Whidbey News Time article described how the school was conceived of in 2005 by Brandi Matros and Charity Winkler, both mothers of autistic children.
Yesterday’s article quotes local special education administrators as claiming that there was no need to send autistic children to an out-of-district private school placement like Wintros Academy:
“We’re saying that we can provide an appropriate education, so we don’t need to pay for anyone to do anything differently,” [Gail Cleveland, Special Education director for the Oak Harbor School District] said.
But a number of parents must have felt that the school district was not providing such an “appropriate education.” A number of “children from North and South Whidbey were soon pulled from the school districts and enrolled in the new program.” This led to more instructors having to be hired at Wintros Academy, and to Winkler going to the special education departments. According to Winkler, “she was never given a candid answer as to why Wintros was denied help from the public school districts.”
Certainly if a public school district is able to provide an “appropriate” education, then parents would send their children to the public school’s programs and accept the placements offered. Certainly there’s been more than a few times over the past couple of years when the school district said their placement was “appropriate” for Charlie, and Jim and I preferred to disagree. It’s been precisely because of disputes over what we thought, versus what the school district though, was “appropriate” for Charlie that we at one point (in November of 2005) took Charlie out of his school classroom until a placement that we thought was appropriate was found (it was a private placement), and that, a few months later, we moved so that Charlie could attend the autism program in a different school district.
A recent article on School Matters on KnoxNews illustrates the nature of such disputes which, I think it can fairly be said, are endemic and no doubt will stay that way, or at least until there’s consensus about what’s appropriate, and what’s not.
Do I have to say it? What’s “appropriate” will always be the cheapest and/or what will ensure jobs for teachers’ union members. That’s why these bureaucrats are almost always against home education or publicly funded alternatives to the regular schools for disabled students. :]
I think most telling is the special ed director, quoted as saying that they provide an appropriate education, so of course they don’t need to fund anything else but their system. Because they’re *always* doing things right, no room for improvement, and no one else could ever do it better. Oh! And every student will do well in their school, because public schools can specialize and be all things to all people. Because they want ALL the money.
Bleh. Don’t get me started.
There’s no way every parent is going to be happy with every “placement,” special needs child or not. Everybody gets a bad teacher once in a while, or has a bad year–life ain’t perfect.
I’ve noticed that several parents where I live pull their autistic kids out of one public school special ed class and into whatever the new autism class is, often to later pull the kid out of that class/school to put him back into the class/school he started with. It’s just too tempting to think that the latest, newest thing might be the best. So just because kids from this district were pulled out in order to attend Wintros does not mean they were not getting an “appropriate” education in their public school. All it proves is that the parents hoped something amazing would happen at Wintros, not necessarily that the public school was “bad.”
I am a huge supporter of the public schools and am always discouraged to see them slighted this way. That’s not to say some school districts aren’t lousy–of course they are. But the same could be said for some private schools or “homeschool” environments. If there is real evidence that the schools in this county were failing their autistic students, I’d be interested to hear that. I’ll withhold judgement until then. I personally have had more problems (including outright rejection!) with private schools than I’ve ever had with the public school. Just because a place opens and calls itself an “autism” school does not meant the teachers are more caring, or the methods are more helpful, or the facilities are better.
>> We’re saying that we can provide an appropriate education
Yeah, I’ve gotten that line before too. Then you dig just a little bit deeper and maybe they theoretically “can” but they won’t … because they say, as I’ve seen, that they can’t possibly accommodate something that is absolutely required for basic safety nevermind learning/progression.
“Oh yeah, we’ve got other autistic students and they do fine” is another line you have to watch out for. Given the sprawling nature of the spectrum and how different kids are on it this more that anything exposes the speaker’s naiveté than anything. Note that depending on local privacy laws they could be totally making this up this fictional student, or “misremembering” them. They can’t point out such a student, really talk about any details, or give a name, and they know this. I was told there was a child that had happened to have gone to the same specialized pre-school as my son but there was no way to confirm it.
You have to talk hard details about what the classroom will look like and extract hard commitments. That’s thee empty platitudes will fall away and you’ll see what your child will really get.
BTW that goes for private schools too, if not doubly so.
Tyler:
Let me add: “Oh, we punish for that…”, which is the response I got from one private school when I asked how they would deal with an ASD child who was refusing to participate in circle time. At least she was honest!
I have found that this is a very old education debate that is played out at many levels and surrounds many interests – not just special needs.
I simplified the issue for myself and my son by trying to avoid the evaluation of programs and instead focusing on the evaluation of the people who will actually be “hands on” working with my son. If a person is knowledgable, passionate, and compassionate, it does not matter whether they are in the public system or private system. I wanted that person no matter where they were.
Of course it is not always this simple but it does serve as a good starting place.
LBC, if my homeschool is crappy at least it’s not paid for with your TAX DOLLARS. Just sayin’. :]
So much to hinge on the word “appropriate”—-there was a lot of different about what this word meant in terms of Charlie’s education to us and to the school district.
We’d prefer for Charlie to be in a public school, rather than in a private one strictly for autistic students—-so many more chances for interactions and more with non-autistic students, and more openness (in our experience; one does have to keep reminding the district and everyone about the need for that openness!).
There is an obligation via IDEA to provide an appropriate education. There is no mandate to provide the best education.
Even though a placement may be best for the child, the schools must pay many times what they would in their own classroom. It all boils down to money.
Mrs. C,
I support public schools because I support community-based schooling. I happily pay taxes (and would pay more, to be honest) to support public schools. As it stands, most of our tax dollars go to the military, not the schools, unfortunately.
You may be in a position to homeschool, but many parents are not. They must work outside the home, or do not themselves have enough education to teach their own kids. So for the good of all, I feel it is critical to support the public schools and make them better, rather than reject and denigrate them.
If your homeschool is crappy (and I realize that was a hypothetical question), then your children are being ripped off in their non-tax-supported “school,” and they deserve better. I’d be much more worried about your kids than about my money. Our public school system has oversights in place to protect our kids, and schools are full of eyes to see who is doing what to whom. In someone’s home…? Nobody knows what’s going on in the “classroom.”
Our public school system is not without its problems, but it still exists as a way to give every child the same opportunities and advantages. If the public schools have to start spreading their funding all over town to each specialty school that pops up, the “main” schools will flounder. This, I assume, is the real reason the school district in the story did not want to share its (more than likely) minimal funding with Wintros.
I’m not saying that I’m completely against homeschooling, just that I think it should be a last resort (i.e., the local public school is truly failing the child). However, the homeschoolers I know decided to homeschool before their children were even born. Most of them have never even darkened the doorway of their local public school, even for a tiny peek inside. The homeschoolers I know are either self-confessed “control freaks” (who feel they can do a better job than any “real” teacher), women who want or need to stay out of the workforce (some for religious reasons feel a woman should stay home), and/or families horrified to think their children might be taught about evolution in a public school. I don’t know a single homeschooler who went this route because the local school was simply too rotten to use.
LBC,
here is one homeschooler who doesn’t fit your description (well, granted, I just might feel that I am doing the better job of educating my son than most of “real” teachers we encountered). I work full time (but with flexible schedule and opportunity to telecommute). I am agnostic. I not only want my children to be taught about evolution, but find some aspects of state mandated curriculum to be too conservative for my bleeding heart liberal taste.
In our case, schools were truly too rotten to use and we did hold up for quite a while – I only started homeschooling in the middle of the 3rd grade, so that’s 3 and half years of putting up with the system, trying to work it and hope it will get better. It didn’t. I had on my hands child which was mercilessly bullied, in tears all the time, unable to do the work he is capable of doing. All those eyes watching “who is doing what to whom” didn’t help, quite the opposite…
While not everyone can homeschool and we do need decent public school system which will not fail *anyone* I will not apologize for voting with my feet in our particular case.
“As it stands, most of our tax dollars go to the military, not the schools, unfortunately.”
Not unfortunate at all. And if our public schools were as efficient and effective as our military, I wouldn’t mind paying more for them either.
I have often noted that it does not matter what sign is in front of the school, but who is inside the building. Even some high performing schools (private or public) will change and become disappointments, while not so good schools have been known to improve greatly with a change of personnel.
One would have to dig more into the personalities of those involved to see what is really happening. There are private schools in this state that public school children are placed:
http://www.childrensinstitute.com/96144.ihtml
Also, Oak Harbor is a Navy town (Naval Air Station Whidbey). It may have a more transient student population than other closer school districts (though possibly not as much as an Army town, the Navy does not transfer families as much as the Army), and that may mean some other differing personality issues (I was an Army brat, these things occur to me!).
By the way, I have a friend with an autistic 8th grader who is homeschooling him with the help of the State of Washington. He is very intelligent, but has anxiety issues in large groups. They were provided materials and help to let their son learn at home with help their local school district in Thurston County. She told me the program name more than once, but I cannot remember it!
By the way, it does take a special personality to homeschool. One nice homeschooling family we know was my oldest son’s last private speech therapist (her son was on younger son’s soccer team).
I don’t have it in me to homeschool, I’m afraid the kids may not make to bedtime alive. I have some very stubborn children, and I am so unqualified for my oldest disabled son (who is presently getting disability services at the local community college). What really pointed out what kind of a failure I would be was when younger son was in mom-tot swim classes (he is now 18 years old). He would not do anything for me, he would not jump to me from the side of the pool or even blow bubbles. He would just let go of me saying “I swim this way”, and then promptly sink to the bottom of the pool (all smiles when I pulled him up). When he started 3-year-old classes, he did everything the instructor told him to do! (he is now a lifeguard and teaches swimming, little kids love him!)
I would definitely encourage folks to read the article. What sticks out is “South Whidbey’s Johnson contends that Wintros founders didn’t appear to have a good business plan and gave little evidence that they could provide a stronger program.”
Then read the one comment, which includes (edited): “When my Autistic son was 6,….told me to find an live-in institution for my son…luckily in Oct 2001 we were transferred to Oak Harbor … He was treated like any normal child. He was in a normal classroom with pull out help for reading and writing. He is now 14, reading at almost his age level, doing complex math… if you met him on the street you would have no idea he is Autistic… I fully credit the Oak Harbor School District for not turning their backs on my son..”
I guess it all depends on who you talk to (and the degree of disability).
(and wow, a military family staying in one spot for over 7 years, unheard of for this Army brat — I graduated from the 9th school district I attended!)
LBC, I don’t mind paying taxes if they’re used well, but my kiddo was locked in a closet on more than one occasion in ps. I FIRMLY believe this happens way, way, WAY, WAY more than is reported in the media. Mainly because of some of the reasons you describe… not every parent feels s/he CAN homeschool or has money for private ed. They stay and try to make the system better. They hope next year, next teacher, next program might be better.
If I learned one thing through my experience, it is that the responsibility to educate my children rests with me whether I choose public, private or home school. The state does not own them. Why does anyone need to know what is going on in my classroom?
I’d like to think that we don’t live in a Nanny State where I or my children should be examined to live up to some state “standard.” If I’m not receiving any funds, I shouldn’t be accountable to anyone at all. Once you go down that path, you realize that the state could make sure you’re serving nutritious food to your kids next. Or providing adequate health care. Or getting the children enough sleep each night. Or whatever.
And all these things are GOOD things, but I stand on my Fourth Amendment right at the front door. There just comes a point where the state needs to mind its own stinkin’ business.
PS. I do have two older children in public schools, and one of them is autistic. So happens that in THEIR cases, it’s working reasonably well. So, I’m not really at odds with you per se. :]
Just remembered something… in the first sentence you, Kristina, wrote “Washington’s first private school specifically for autistic children,”
YET! A past posting of yours disputes that:
http://www.autismvox.com/a-school-that-just-accepts-autistic-kids/
You wrote that last June, that predates the September opening of Wintros.
Thanks for catching that! Though it seems the Academy for Precision learning isn’t only for autistic students? Calling on folks from Washington to sort it out!
This kind of pissing contest among public school districts protective of turf is reminiscent of the unfortunate demise of the ASPIE School, founded by parent and self-advocate Valerie Paradiz. The ASPIE School had to close, after the school districts funding it pulled out.
Kristina said “Calling on folks from Washington to sort it out!”
:-p
Does it really matter? Especially with the changes in diagnosis in the past few years? Plus, Whidbey is really way up there in what is essentially the boonies! (and don’t forget it is a military town, not unlike Ft. Dix, NJ). It is not the same population density that surrounds the area near King and Pierce County (note that I included the link to CHILD, which is right there in the midst of the largest county in the state!).
Really, it is not a big deal.
Plus, there are some interesting state wide funding clauses that favor small districts (Washington residents look up “John Rogers”, the political person, not the schools named after him!).
I’m always amazed when I hear stories about children being locked in closets and restrained. It makes me thankful for the schools my children attend and the personnel who work with them every day.
I’m a former teacher and I have to admit that I, like Chris H., don’t think I’d be able to homeschool my kids. I mean, I *could* if I really needed to, but I think it’s important for my kids to have that separation between school and home. They need that act of physically going somewhere else to get in to their learning mode, if that makes sense. I mean, they learn at home but in a less structured way. When they’re home they’re able to be more on their own agenda and it’s important I think for them to have that outlet. It teaches them self regulation – i.e. I can get through my school/work/whatever because I’ll be able to go home at the end and relax. Home is my safe place to truly be myself.
I’m with you, Siliconmom. Home is my place to be myself. Hs-ing works for us because Elf has decided that “learning mode” happens at 7 a.m. every weekday. Except maybe on Christmas. He’s ready. :]
But my older child G is more like what you’ve described… his “learning mode” has to be at school. I told the school to forget the homework; I’m NOT doing it any more. Two hours of screaming and rolling on the floor (the kid, not me LOL!) are not worth it for a two-sentence paragraph or whatever. Hopefully the teachers understand.
IMO, (and I don’t know whether you’ve ever covered this aspect or not, Kristina,) the children who are mentally incapable of being in gifted-type classes… the staff seems to “buy” that those kids are autistic. They seemed to think Elf was “manipulating” all the adults. Like, he woke up that morning thinking of all the trouble he could get into because he had the wrong pencil or someone touched a red crayon he was using. Mmm hmm.
>> siliconmom
I don’t HS (yet, it is getting considered as an option because of a work move). If it ever comes to HSing for you I’ve heard that some people purposely set up a separate physical space that is the “school” zone in their house. It doesn’t have that distance from home aspect but it might give.
As for interaction among other kids it seems pretty common among HSers to organize loose groups of other HS parents where they can to give that to their children.
It doesn’t have that same physical distance from home but it might give enough separation in their mind for your kids.
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