TESTIMONY TO STATE BOARD HEARING ON REVISIONS TO STATE CODE
By Bob Witanek, Editor of The Student Advocate Website http://StudentAdvocate-NJ.org and The New Jersey Student Advocate newspaper and Coordinator of the Thousands for Stronger Special Education Protections Petition Drive.
PO Box 1214, Belle Mead, New Jersey 08502 * 908-881-5275 * Fax: 908-281-7873 * Advocate@StudentAdvocate-NJ.org
Good Afternoon. I am Bob Witanek, editor of the Student Advocate Website , http://StudentAdvocate-NJ.org , coordinator of the Thousands for Stronger Special Education Protections for petition drive, and editor of The New Jersey Student Advocate newspaper.
This hearing process is apparently designed to show disdain for parental input. While the board recently postponed a meeting due to conflict with a religious holiday, it refused to reschedule this testimonial which is virtually on Christmas Eve and just days before Hanukkah, even though many have called for such rescheduling. The scheduling of this meeting coincides with the precise time that special education parents need to be at the curb waiting for the school bus. A more direct snub is impossible. There have been calls for this board to hold regional hearings – yet no such regional hearings are scheduled.
With regard to the substantive changes you are considering, on behalf of the 2000 signers of our petition calling for the retention of current state code protections, and the 1000 completers of SPAN's survey calling for the same, I urge you to significantly revise the proposal.
Despite the overwhelming unanimity among parents opposing the weakening of protections for students with disabilities and their parents, the proposal that has come out of the Department of Education does not reflect our concerns or input. As members of the Board of Education, you have met with professionals but refused to meet with parents to hear our concerns first hand, so it is not surprising that all your questions seem to reflect the things that professionals are concerned about, not issues that parents feel are most important.
What is the process that has led to this? It has been developed during the tenure of an Acting Governor, a commissioner who has since resigned and now an acting commissioner, by an office whose director now serves as a divisional deputy, while OSEP is directed by a rotating staff of interims, during a lame duck post election period. The process has delivered a proposal that needs to be declared dead on arrival. Back to the drawing board is where the board must take the process.
As for the specific issues – if I showed up for work one day and told my boss that I did not want to do a project plan with milestones and objectives and that I no longer wanted to attend status meetings to report on where I stand on the objectives – I would get shown to the parking lot. If project plans and status meetings are essential to the success of the most mundane of business projects – then how can anyone even consider tossing out short term objectives and mid-year progress reports for children with disabilities. No Child Left Behind does not have a plan so that a child with autism can learn how to start a conversation or make a friendship. The short-sighted process that has led to these changes disregards the social potential for such a child. Short term objectives and mid year progress reports must be maintained.
The elimination of stay put provisions can encourage districts – who are already much favored in the balance of power – toward greater unilateralism with no protection for the child. Stay put is essential and must be upheld.
NJ special education is already wrought with racial disparities. Too many special education students of color are expelled and suspended due to behavioral disabilities. They end up in juvenile justice. Some end up in an early graveyard. New Jersey needs to address racial disparities in special education on an emergency basis and in the process – maintain current manifest determination rules.
Other protections that you must maintain include the current frequency of notification of parental rights, current IEP meeting attendance requirements, and current commencement of transition services at age 14. You must eliminate the proposal to lengthen periods of isolation for discipline reasons by 50%, set a too-short statute of limitation of district legal accountability, and keep parents out of the due process system for long periods of time by allowing districts to stonewall parents through the resolution session. Each of these are demands that have been made by 3000+ parents.
Throughout New Jersey there is a stirring among parents of children with disabilities – a new awakening. We see through the façade of supposedly open decision-making processes and we refuse to submit to this disenfranchisement. We will not sit still as you act against the interests of our children. We are their parents, we are their advocates, and we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that they get what they need.
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