A special-education consultant hired by Hinsdale Community Consolidated School District 181 has suggested the district hire seven specialists, three additional speech therapists, a social worker and a psychologist devoted to special-education students.
The consultant, who presented her report Monday to the school board, also said the district should organize a parent’s group to advise district officials on special-education issues and needs.
Cassandra Cole, an adjunct professor at Indiana University at Bloomington, complimented the district’s special-education teachers and the district’s commitment to special-education students.
But Cole noted a number of deficiencies in the program, including a lack of a special-education director and the lack of a special-education strategic plan.
“They are doing some very nice things, but they really haven’t had a long-range plan for what special education should be in District 181,” said Cole, who also serves as the director of the Center on Education and Lifelong Learning at the Indiana Institute on Disability and Community in Bloomington. “There hasn’t been a conscious effort to plan long range, and as a result, special education has kind of evolved with no definite planning process in place.”
School board members did not take any action on the report. Instead, the report will be given to the soon-to-be-appointed director of special education. District officials are interviewing candidates now.
“The report was pretty much a confirmation of what we already knew,” said Meridel Wesely, who oversees special education in the district. “We realize we have growing special-education needs because of the growth in the district and the changes in student population. I think this report will be a great tool for addressing those needs.”
Wesely said district officials are also considering developing a special-education strategic plan and will look into the suggestion of hiring more special-education personnel.
Like many districts in Illinois and across the nation, District 181 is seeing its special-education enrollment increase. In the last five years, the district has gone from serving 142 special-education students to serving 210. The percentage of special-ed students in the district has increased from 4.5 percent of the population to 6 percent.
Conversely, the number of special-education district personnel has grown from about 22 to 25 during the last five years.
Parents of students with special needs have long grumbled that the district needs to hire more special-ed teachers and better train the non-certified educators who work one-on-one in the classroom with their children.
But they say that, until recently, their concerns often were ignored. They attribute the turnaround to Supt. Mary Curley, who joined the district last year.
“If you had asked me last year if I thought they’d institute any of these suggestions, I would have given a dismal reply,” said Carol Clark, who has a daughter in the district’s special-education program and is a member of the 181 Special Education Parent Network. “But I think the district is moving in the right direction, and we feel very optimistic that they will address some of the concerns.”
Added Sarah Ellsworth, another parent, “We are really hopeful they [administrators] will take this study and run with it.”
Ellsworth said parents were particularly pleased with Cole’s suggestion of launching a parent advisory group.
“We feel like we should be working as a team with teachers and administrators so our voices can be heard,” she said. “We feel like we have a lot of input to provide and we want to be part of the process.”
District officials completed an internal analysis of the special-education program earlier this year. Wesley said they brought Cole in as an extra pair of eyes. Cole has spent the last few months analyzing the district’s K-5 special-education program. She observed classes and interviewed teachers, parents and administrators.
In addition to hiring more people, Cole offered a host of recommendations, including more consistent training for the non-certified teachers who work one-on-one with students. She also suggested the district provide more training for teachers who work with autistic children and more assistance for special-education teachers in aligning curriculum with the new state learning standards.
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