8/23/23

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Dear Members of the Board,

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We’d like to begin by expressing our gratitude for your service to the community as school board members. We recognize the challenges of your role and appreciate the work you do.

 

Through conversations with parents and AAPS team members across schools we have begun to identify themes in special education problems shared below. The depth and breadth of these issues we feel speaks to critical district failures and the need for significant changes.

 

Unsupportive Culture of Special Education in AAPS

Our greatest concern is the unsupportive culture that inhibits students, teachers and staff from thriving and contributes to a multitude of challenges. Some of the ways that this unsupportive culture is demonstrated are through:

• Fears of retaliation that stifle appropriate advocacy by students, parents, and teachers.

• An absence of district special education administrators' regular presence in the school buildings.

• Unrealistic and unsustainable caseloads.

• Adversarial relationships between Office of Special Education (OSE) administration and school-based teams and parents/guardians who advocate for students’ needs including access to accommodations, such as communication devices, aides, and resource room support.

• Lack of adequate and relevant paid professional development for teaching assistants, aides, and parapros in line with nationally identified best practices.

• OSE disregard afforded to concerns from parents/guardians and school based team members about needs (even when based on FAPE with data for critical stage of learning, regression and recoupment, or nature and severity of disability).

• The ending or significant limitations placed on middle and high school Academic Support Class participation has been felt to be counterproductive and outside of the spirit of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).

 

Communication

There are major issues with communication at all levels within special education. Parents/guardians of special education students often feel completely disregarded in communication from the district. 

• The results of the Hanover Report have not been shared publicly and few of the recommended action items have been implemented.

• Information about specific school programming (i.e. extended school year, summer programs, or compensatory services) comes too late for working families to coordinate care, or fails to adequately address issues of accessibility.

• The annual district parent/guardian survey does not address issues specific to special education.

• Special education policies (i.e. those related to data collection, documentation, and assessment) vary across the district in problematic ways that present additional equity concerns.

• Unsustainable caseloads (with regards to numbers and tools) limit the capacity of OSE staff and general education teachers to meet data collection and communication needs for OSE served students.

• Ending transition/change of level meetings as students progress through the school system results in knowledge loss and negatively impacts students’ integration into their new school placements.
   

Staffing Shortages

Special education staffing shortages have impacts that extend far beyond students receiving services: when a student isn’t properly supported it has ramifications for the classroom and the building.  

• While staffing challenges are a national issue, Ann Arbor is a fantastic place with lots to offer! We do not think that national shortages can continue to be used as excuses to cover the unsupportive culture and lack of living wages.

• There is concern that there may be a lack of equitable resource sharing across the district leaves schools with great BIPOC disproportionately impacted by staffing shortages.

• We suspect that the difficulty AAPS has recruiting and retaining special education aides results in efforts to disqualify eligible students. 

 

Equity

There is an ongoing and pervasive climate of racial hostility within AAPS that the district has failed to effectively address, as demonstrated by ongoing lawsuits and students’ accounts. The racial inequities that plague the district are amplified for special education students and intersect with other equity shortcomings.

• At Pathways to Success Academic campus, 68% of students have a disability and 73% of students are BIPOC. Recently, there have been concerns about bathrooms being locked and insufficient safe bathroom access for transgender students. We have concerns about the ways that racism may be negatively impacting what AAPS provides for Pathways.

• AAPS has stopped publicly released discipline data and the last report was in 2017. At that time, Black students accounted for 14.1% of the population, but over 40% of suspensions. We have concerns that more appropriate forms of behavioral support for kids with disabilities are not being employed by the district to address challenges and that Black students are being especially harmed as a result.

• In 2020, a letter was released detailing a climate of racial hostility at Pioneer high school that gives voice to what we believe is a continuing challenge for students with extra needs that is exacerbated for BIPOC students: unjust hurdles accessing supportive services.

• Extended School Year, Summer Learning Institute and the district preschools meet four days a week leaving many working parents struggling to find quality care options for Fridays and diminishing the benefits achieved through consistency that is particularly important for many children receiving OSE services and limits those who can participate to those who have the means to.

 

Compensatory Services

The district has a culture (that extends beyond COVID) of avoiding the provision of legally mandated compensatory services manifested through a failure to provide timely offers, obfuscating the options, and inaccessible service offers increasing disparities. 

 

Safety

The recently filed lawsuit has made the public aware of one specific and egregious incident of harm to a student at the hands of AAPS; however, we are painfully aware that for many families, safety of their students has been an ongoing concern for years. 

• Busing safety is an area of concern that extends beyond the one incident made recently public

• Lack of sufficient staffing support to ensure safety of some students with track record of elopement

• Restricting parent/guardian presence in school buildings makes building a healthy, cooperative relationship between families and school difficult and limits parent/guardian awareness about potential safety concerns - this issue has a particularly significant impact on non/semi-verbal students.

• Stretching school nurses across multiple buildings presents safety concerns for medically vulnerable students

• Least restrictive environment decisions made for students that disregard parent/guardian and sometimes school team input
   

We know that these issues only scratch the surface of addressing the issues with special education in AAPS. In writing this we heard stories from many that were heartbreaking, sometimes terrifying, and truly disappointing if, sadly, not surprising. Ultimately we decided for the sake of brevity, time and protection not to share them here. 

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We also heard lots of great solution oriented ideas and believe we have a wealth of knowledge and skills present in our district that could be tapped into. We also believe that the Ann Arbor Parents Advisory Committee likely has many more, but have concerns AAPAC’s capacity is limited without fuller support from AAPS administration. 

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For years AAPS has been a district that families have left due to special education challenges. We hope that the Board of Education will take decisive steps to develop AAPS into a place held in high regard for our special education services that people seek out because it is a role model district that values diversity in all forms. 

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Thank you for your service and your efforts to ensure the best possible education for all AAPS students. Note the order of signatures is intentionally mixed. 

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This letter was signed by 106 AAPS parents and special education advocates in a single day of circulation.