Special Needs Programs Need Funding Too

The following is the message I will present tomorrow night to the Delaware County School board

Two of my three children have required special education services.  When we lived in Maryland, obtaining these services was frustrating and difficult.  I had to rely on my training as a paralegal and even went to the extent of getting training in Special Education law just to be able to get them the minimum amount of help they needed.

 When we came to Delaware County, I was shocked at the ease in which my children were helped, both in the middle school and high school.   The IEP team bent over backwards to design plans that would meet the challenges that my children had and their Skills teachers, Stephanie Maury and Jim McDermott, were able to bring them to a level of achievement beyond what I thought possible.  This couldn’t have happened without the presence of special education associates in their classrooms. They are a vital and irreplaceable part of the IEP team.

 Most of these children spend one period a day in a Skills classroom and 3 periods in a general education setting and their difficulties don’t end when they leave that Skills class.  Special education associates are a bridge between Skills and the other classes and they are there to help the students apply what they have been taught in Skills to those other classes.  I think it is asking too much of a regular associate to be aware of the individualized help that special needs students have and it would be to the detriment of all the students they try to assist. Without the specialized one-on-one help of the Special Education Associates, it is my firm belief that my children would not have been able to function in the regular classrooms.