Source:
Mail Tribune NewspaperSouthern Oregon school officials have banded together to oppose an Oregon Senate bill that would allow school districts to opt out of education service districts.
Senate Bill 250 would allow school districts to secede from their regional service districts, which provide special education, migrant education, technical services and professional development. The bill would entitle districts that opt out to receive their prorated share of state funding now budgeted for operation of ESDs.
"I would be really against it because it would hurt districts, particularly small districts," said Don Alexander, superintendent of the rural Prospect School District.
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Nobody is paying attention but here in Oregon the legislature is pushing two bills that will gut how special ed students are served in our state. One bill gets rid of the ESD system--the entity that employs the special ed teachers, nurses, speech teachers, autism specialists, behavior specialists,etc.
We were told today that if one of the bills pass we are closed. If the other passes we will be cut 25% next year and to 50% the year after.
ESD classes are full of the state's most severely handicapped young people. We run the classes in the jails, the hospitals, we have the severely emotionally disturbed who are violent and have major behavior issues. We run two high schools for gang kids, violent offenders and sexual predators and we have almost every medically fragile kid in our city.
The ESD systems provide very skilled teachers and assistants and behavior specialists who are trained how to help these kids and, with luck and perseverance, teach them how to overcome some of their violent behavior. I have worked for three school districts and one ESD. I can tell you, the ESD is BY FAR the best system I have seen. In some classes you have one or two kids from each of the areas five districts. Kids who have similar needs so the districts basically only pay for their fraction of the class. Instead of five districts having to have a special medically fragile classrooms with only 1 or 2 students but a teacher, an assistant, a nurse, an occupational therapist, a speech therapist, behavior specialist, autism specialist...the ESD sets up a room from all the districts and our teachers and therapists (all professionals with the extra tough students)see to the students. The districts just have to pay for a slot instead of an entire classroom.
If these bills pass all of these programs will be CLOSED and those kids will be sent back to their neighborhood schools. We have sexual predators who have already molested other children. They will be sent back to their neighborhood schools and the parents of the other kids in the school don't even have to be notified. We're talking elementary school all the way up to age 21.
I have been hit, kicked, bit, had a chair smashed over my back, staplers thrown at my head and I've had students try to stab me with scissors, a knife, a sharp ruler. I've had chairs, tables, books, a globe, and other items thrown at me. These kids, whom I love and love working with, are an incredibly tough population to work with sometimes...and sometimes they do things that we need to protect other children from.
The scariest part is...before a student gets into the ESD system they have to have gone through every possible option at their home district. That means they have already been in every single possible regular or special ed class before the district can send them to us. That means that several teachers have tried and given up and said, "this student is too dangerous to be in this class", the principals at every school they sent the kid to has also agreed, as has the district and the parents by sending the student to an ESD. What happens when one of those kids hurts someone? (picture a very angry 16 year old with no idea of right or wrong...and they are mad enough to hurt you) What happens when the injured person gets a lawyer? Every single professional involved has agreed that the student should not have been in general ed in the first place. (all over-ruled by the legislators who have never met the student) How much money does a teacher with a broken arm win for being forced to teach a child they already know they can't handle? How much money does a family get when their kindergarten girl gets beaten up or molested by a six grader who is a known sexual predator or violent offender? This decision could bankrupt the public education system in Oregon and could ruin the lives of an awful lot of people.
So, that's what's happening in Oregon when it comes to the nationwide attack on teachers and education. If this passes a 25% cut to my district next year and another 25% cut the year after that. None of the money being shuffled out of the ESD special ed funding is required to be spent on regional services. Who knows how the state or district will decide to spend it. (or what corporation to give it to as a tax cut...) The worst thing is they are packaging it as a money saving device that will give districts more control and money. But it means that 50% of the special ed teachers at my district are less than two years away from the unemployment line.