A Look at Section 19: Least Restrictive Environment

Although we appreciate the Patch and their attempts to explain school issues, we'd like to clarify Section 19 a little further today...

The BOE has proposed to, in essence, CUT Section 19 from the current BEA contract titled Least Restrictive Environment. This is 3 pages of language that the BOE would like strike from the contract and consider the entire sentiment "advisory." This section includes items such as:
-having staff notified ahead of time if they will have students with IEPs (Individualized Education Plans) included in their general education classrooms,
-providing appropriate training for teachers,
-making efforts to reduce class sizes when students with special needs are included,
-allowing for planning time during the school day or beyond the school day with compensation so that general education teachers and special education teachers can collaborate and plan together (with related service providers like speech therapists if needed),
-allowing for IEP writing release time and MFE (multi-factored evalutation) testing and writing time during school time,
-allowing for release time to complete the Ohio Alternate Assessment for Students with Disabilities.

Again, the BOE has proposed to replace all of this with this wording- "All provisions shall be advisory only. Accordingly, such provisions shall not be grievable or subject to enforcement through any other legal form."

Our concerns about these changes are great.  It is clear, in the language our Board has used in the past, that they do not understand the work we do for our students with special needs, nor do they understand our student population.  In cutting out an entire section of our contract, they are putting their trust in our administrators WHO ARE NOT IN OUR CLASSROOMS DAILY. Although Mr. Prebles stated that he would like us to understand that he needs more flexibility with our jobs, we need to make clear that aside from their parents, there is no one who knows our students better than we do.  WE are the implementers of their IEPs and WE know what they need.  WE need the TIME and the flexibility to be able to provide that.

We have proposed to make several changes to this section, in the hopes of increasing student support, but also in the hopes of having the BOE actually TALK about this section in its entirety.  We wanted to have a lengthy conversation with the BOE about this section, helping them to become more informed about the job we do as professionals when working with ALL students, both typically developing students and students with special needs.  We wanted them to become more informed on the educational needs of our student population, thus all the proposed changes.