‘In survival mode’: How SC is handling special education during COVID-19 school closures
As parents across South Carolina have taken on de facto teacher responsibilities, Amanda McDowell and her husband have had to also take on numerous other roles.
Between teachers and various therapists that their three children receive services from at Horry County Schools, McDowell said they’re interacting with 10 different employees on a regular basis since coronavirus forced the closing of public K-12 schools..
“They’re all requiring different things, different meetings, different correspondence,” she said. “It’s a lot.”
The couple has three elementary school students in the district with very different needs: a fifth-grade general education student named Jase; 9-year old Adaya, who suffered a traumatic brain injury; and Kamden, 8, who is on the autism spectrum.
“There’s just no way I can provide them what they get at school,” McDowell said, pointing to services including physical, occupational and speech therapies.
Complying with IDEA
In the wake of widespread school closings nationwide, school districts are grappling with how to comply with federal special education laws in a digital learning environment, while parents of special needs students worry about the potential short- and long-term impacts of them missing months of needed in-person education and services.
The U.S. Department of Education’s Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ensures students with disabilities have access to a free appropriate public education tailored to their individual needs.
A major part of the law are Individualized Education Plans, or IEPs, which are revisited for each special needs student on at least an annual basis with input from parents, teachers and administrators to create goals, mandate services and determine how to track progress.
When South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster first announced school closures beginning March 16 to reduce the spread of COVID-19, HCS noted in its initial communications that support and accommodations for students with IEPs would be followed as part of eLearning efforts, while admitting some specialized instruction and services could not be delivered.
The state Department of Education advised districts to plan for providing compensatory services, which are awarded to special education students to make up services lost, once school returns.
Amy Moseley, president and CEO of the South Carolina Autism Society, said she and her staff are advising parents to understand their rights, as they’ve gotten some complaints that their children aren’t receiving services written in their IEPs, and there’s no plan in place to get them those services.
“I think it’s a stress for everyone right now, but we also know that those resources are funded in the schools, so we need to find ways to utilize the funding to meet the needs,” she said.
But as coronavirus continued to spread and school closures were extended, guidance on special education began to change as federal and state education officials considered the purpose of IDEA law.
The state Department of Education noted in a recent PowerPoint presentation posted to its website that students with disabilities must have equal access to the same opportunities as the general student population.
Kristin Wilson, HCS’ special education director, said they’ve had to analyze how general education has changed in order to determine what services the more than 6,500 special education students in the district need to receive, with a focus on access.
Wilson said special education laws and regulations weren’t written to account the dramatic circumstances this pandemic has caused, but she’s incredibly proud of the way the state, district, teachers, parents and students have responded.
Need for flexibility
When McMaster announced last week that schools would be closed the rest of the school year, he specifically mentioned plans to allow for flexibility in special education, but Wilson said the district hasn’t received any guidance about what that means.
Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has considered waiving parts of the special education law as part of a federal education stimulus package, according to The New York Times, as administrators and educators worry about unrealistic expectations and costly lawsuits.
Ryan Brown, a spokesman for the S.C. Department of Education, said they’d support waivers, which wouldn’t preclude districts from providing services to students with disabilities, but would provide state agencies and districts “with flexibility funding in meeting student needs.”
Wilson said they’re not requesting any waivers, but are seeking some flexibility specifically with regards to timelines set in IDEA law.
She knows there’s been a lot of talk around the need for compensatory services when school returns, but she emphasized that such services are only offered to students when a district failed to do something.
“We’re not in a situation where any district is failing to provide something,” Wilson said.
Instead, she suggested there will likely be a need for supplemental services, for general education and special education students, but those decisions will depend on when students are allowed to return.
Amy Holbert, CEO of Family Connection of South Carolina, an advocacy organization for families of children with disabilities, said there will of course be a cost associated with providing additional services for students to catch up, so it’s important federal funding is provided for that.
“We need to make sure protections in place continue to be in place so all kids continue to be able to access individualized education and meet their needs,” she said. “Our kids want to grow up and have a job, … be married and have a family and … education is key to all that.”
Regression concerns
McDowell knows there’s some sort of national debate going on about potentially waiving services, but the mother of three hasn’t had much time to pay attention to it.
“We’re kind of really just in survival mode and doing the best we can,” she said, noting she and her husband spend an hour on school work with each child in the morning and afternoon.
On the verge of tears, McDowell reminisced about how much progress Adaya and Kamden have made during the past few years while worrying about the two of them regressing during this extended period away from school.
“This is who they’re going to be the rest of their lives, and what you do for them now, you just cannot take anything for granted,” she said. “You can’t not go and do and advocate enough.”
It’s more difficult to know for sure with Adaya, she said, but the regressions with Kamden have been obvious as he’s having more frequent behavioral meltdowns and back to pursuing goals they already thought he’d surpassed.
Robyn Kelly, a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with Myrtle Beach-based SOS Healthcare, said she’s seeing an increase in behavior issues and decrease in skills among the special needs students she supports since the closure, just as she’s used to seeing during summer months, partly because the kids thrive on routine, which has been significantly altered.
SOS Healthcare is one of few behavior therapy providers in South Carolina continuing to operate during the state of emergency, and Kelly worries that the longer this continues, the more likely that other providers won’t be able to reopen, which would be a major issue in a state already short on practicing behavior analysts due to one of the lowest Medicaid reimbursement rates in the country.
She said the worry, particularly with the early learners, is the lack of intensive therapy right now could significantly delay important skills, including communication and toileting.
Continuing to educate
Wilson said district staff has found creative ways to continue educating and providing services to special education students, and teachers have been advised to log all instructional contacts to be able to continue tracking data needed for their IEPs.
Kendra Pennington, a special educator at Myrtle Beach Middle School, admitted that maintaining the contact log has been time consuming, but she knows it’s needed.
She said she’s having to work harder than ever, and the work has been mentally draining because she’s missing out on the part of her job she enjoys the most, which is the face-to-face interactions with her students.
As an 8th grade teacher, Pennington worries she won’t see most of her students in person again because they’ll be in high school next year.
She also worries about that transition for some of her students because decisions are made by special needs student’s IEP team after 8th grade about whether they’ll be pursuing a high school diploma or credential, and these last few months are often when she sees students starting to get their acts together because they want to be able to earn the diploma.
Wilson said she didn’t see those decisions as being an issue because the IEP teams have already collected plenty of data during the first three quarters and previous school years.
Pennington, a local representative of SC for Ed, an educator-led advocacy group whose planned Statehouse rally was postponed due to coronavirus social distancing guidelines, said she’s seen lots of messages of support for their continued work during the closure, and she hopes that attitude continues, and voters keep that in mind when they’re allowed to head to the ballot box.
This story was originally published April 29, 2020 at 8:36 AM.
