I A PD International Association of Parents of the Deaf, Inc. August 5, 1980 8.8 હું Senator Jennings Randolph Chairman Subcommittee on the Handicapped Room 4230 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC 20510 Dear Senator Randolph: Here are the responses to your questions from the testimony presented at Thank you for your time and attention to the needs of the handicapped. 1. In the case of my child's IEP, the Plan was always developed with myself and 2. The International Association of Parents of the Deaf is working very hard to inform parents of their rights and their child's rights. Through IAPD Position Papers, coordination with Gallaudet College's Task Force on P.L. 94-142, articles in our newsletter, The ENDEAVOR, and parent workshops, provided locally and Nationally. Our last convention focused on P.L. 94-142. We are trying to reach as many parents of hearing impaired children as possible. However, our numbers are small, and we do not have ability to reach as many parents as have public agencies, particularly schools. 3. Parent Education is an appropriate responsibility for parent associations. However, as a parent association, we do not have knowledge of every parent who has a hearing impaired child. Cooperation between State and Local Education Agencies and parent associations 814 THAYER AVE. SILVER SPRING, MARYLAND 20910 PHONE 301-585-5400 I LOVE Senator Randolph would greatly increase the impact and accessibility of parent education. Local Parent Groups, under the guidance of National Parent Associations could provide Parent Education in regards to P.L. 94-142. SEA and LEA would locate the parents and the services needed, a wide population will be reached. This cooperation can be established by: 4. 1. 2. 3. 4. Hiring a parent coordinator By having an advisory committee composed of a Representative of the State Educational Agencies, Local Educational Agency, and By providing funding specifically for annual Parent Education Clarifying the needs of Parents and schools. Schools schedule IEP meetings well in advance of the date in order to plan for substitutes, teacher planning time and pre-IEP meetings. Parents have the same right as school personnel to plan in advance for the IEP meeting. 30 days notice would not cause delays in providing services to children. Services for handicapped children cannot be provided until the IEP has been signed and the IEP cannot be signed unless parents are notified of a time and and date of a meeting. Thirty days notice would not delay the IEP, merely give adequate notice to parents. Sincerely, for quiline. Jacqueline Z. Mendelsohn Executive Director JZM: mmh Senator STAFFORD. Thank you very much, Mrs. Mendelsohn. Your remarks about the failure of information to get to parents of deaf children-do you have any specific suggestions beyond the paper as to how that information might reach you? Mrs. MENDELSOHN. I would suggest that the State educational agencies and the local educational agencies have parents participate on advisory committees composed of representatives of the school on the State, local, and district levels, and that parents and schools take the responsibility at PTA meetings, and at registration on first day of school that all parents are supplied with the adequate information. Senator STAFFORD. That seems to be a very vital failure in the chain. Mrs. MENDELSOHN. Information is available in libraries and in principals' offices. It does not seem to get directly into the hands of parents. Senator STAFFORD. All right, thank you. That concludes the panel. I want to express the appreciation of the subcommittee to all of the members who have participated in it, and to once again point out that unfortunately, Senator Randolph and I are simultaneously involved not only here, but in a rather important bill on the disposition of nuclear waste, pending in the Senate itself. Thank you very much. The next witness is from my own State of Vermont. I am more than happy to welcome Fran Rice, advocate and legislative chairman of the Vermont Association of Learning Disabilities as a witness before this committee. We will put your entire statement in the committee record and invite you to summarize it, if you would, please. STATEMENT OF FRANCIS R. RICE, ADVOCATE AND LEGISLATIVE CHAIRMAN, VERMONT ASSOCIATION OF LEARNING DISABILITIES, MONTPELIER, VT. Ms. RICE. Very good, thank you, Senator Stafford and members of the committee. I greatly appreciate the opportunity to come before the committee to share with you my observations and concerns regarding the implementation of Public Law 94-142, the Education of the Handicapped Act. I shall excerpt from my prepared statement. My name is Frances Rice, and I am from Montpelier, Vt. I am a product of a public school experience that at best can be described as miserable, because I was an unrecognized dyslexic. It was only through the intervention of some knowledgeable professors and my own determination that I became a graduate of Tufts University. I am also a parent of six children, three of whom are moderately affected by specific learning disabilities, sufficient to have made their school years often difficult and frequently frustrating not only for them but for us as their parents. Neither they nor I benefited from the Federal legislation I champion as an advocate for the specific learning disabled population in Vermont. By way of introduction, I am a past president of the Vermont Association for Learning Disabilities, am currently a member of the specific learning disability task force for the State of Vermont, and I serve on the national board of directors for the Association for Children and Adults with Learning Disabilities. Being a dyslexic, a parent of SLD children and an advocate has given me a perspective many educators have not experienced and provides me with an intimate look at the implementation of Public Law 94-142, as well as section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. I support the traditional classification system as detailed in Public Law 94-142, and I hope that my testimony will illustrate the severe problems generated when classification regulations are allowed to be circumvented. First of all, classification is the law. Public Law 94-142 mandates that full procedural safeguards be established and maintained in order to protect a child and his parents in the identification, evaluation, and educational placement process. Unfortunately, some States such as Vermont have been allowed to take a noncategorical approach to Public Law 94-142. This has caused inaccurate diagnosis of the handicapping condition, entry into special education of children who do not meet the Federal definition criteria resulting in an inflated special education budget, and inappropriate and inadequate educational programs. The classification of handicapping conditions in Public Law 94142 eliminates the confusion between children poorly served and the handicapped child. Classification allows us to know individual needs and to design programs that fit the child, rather than fitting the child into an existing program. The noncategorical approach sets the stage for budgetary escalation and the growth of a burgeoning parallel educational system that competes with regular education for the same moneys. When we permit poorly served children to be eligible for the expensive services of special education then we now see that we are spending special education moneys to do the job we thought regular education was to accomplish, while draining the resources for those truly handicapped. Public Law 94-142 was not designed to shore up sagging educational failures. We urge a return to the intent of Public Law 94142, and that it be accomplished through strict adherence to the Federal eligibility requirements. Vermont's children have been almost exclusively served through the Vermont Consulting Teacher Model at the University of Vermont. This delivery model has been heavily supported by HEW. The key elements of the model, which is a noncategorical model, are behavior modification and task analysis. The philosophy operates on the belief that it is not necessary to understand the cause of a handicapping condition and that learning and performance are the same and do not need different strategies. We are informed that this undimensional approach can be useful for the mentally retarded and the seriously emotionally disturbed for whom it was originally developed, but this across-the-board approach has been a disaster for the average to bright SLD, now acknowledged to represent our State's largest handicapping condi tion. The behavior modification aspect alarms many parents. We do not support the purchasing of our children through the reward system via money, gifts, or the earning of tokens which are redeemable at a store for material items. This manipulation is abhorrent to us, for when a teacher encourages students to learn for a price, she is teaching them that having a price is quite acceptable. This is an abuse of power and insidious in implication. It is to be remembered that the whole business of behavior control is basically a question of power, of conditioning young minds to accept a power authority. Parents thought that it was the responsibility of education to teach children to think independently and wisely for themselves, still a birthright in this country. I bring the Vermont model to your attention as an illustration that monitoring of federally funded programs is sorely needed. We must open up the existing program to incorporate the many disciplines that contribute to the understanding of children's needs and we must provide our teachers with access to indepth training at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. We need programs that acknowledge that the central nervous system is indeed involved in the acquisition and use of language. To obtain relief from this problem, knowledgeable SLD parents with the assistance of the Office of Civil Rights and the Vermont Legislature, recently achieved a first step toward rescuing the SLD population in our State. Attached is a memorandum from the director of special education, State of Vermont, issued June 26, 1980, requiring the identification of the SLD through procedures guaranteed in Public Law 94–142. Monitoring in Vermont has been limited to one of paper monitoring, not program monitoring, and we need both. Monitoring should include a funded training program for parents to assist school districts in monitoring themselves as well as training for parents to monitor their own child's progress. Parents need training to support themselves in disagreements with schools so that costly attorney fees are not necessary at the fair hearing level. Parent groups need readily accessible information and assistance competing for grants through BEH for parent training. We urge that national policies be developed that will guide the Office of Civil Rights and the Bureau of the Education of the Handicapped when they are jointly involved in overlapping responsibilities under both section 504 and Public Law 94-142. Such policies should hopefully accelerate the response from the agencies to those who wait for their findings long past published time frames. In our work with the Office for Civil Rights, we have found them responsive and helpful, but they report to us that they are receiving ever-increasing complaints to process with too little staff. Something needs to be done to insure concrete solutions. The framework of the Federal regulations is basically adequate. The problems are stemming from inadequate enforcement at all levels. It is my firm conviction that Public Law 94-142 has become a catalytic force in causing the public schools to take a good, hard look at themselves and the regular education practices. As Dr. Lieberman has said, "The back to basics movement is not an accident and no bandwagon, but a well-documented need. Special education has become confused with being an answer to the problems of regular education." |