Some parents feel ill-served on special-education concerns

By KARI ANDREN, The Patriot-News

November 03, 2009

Jennifer King envisions her son going off to college, having a career and maybe even getting married.

Those might sound like the average mother’s dreams for her son, but for the parent of a special-needs child, they can sound downright extraordinary.

“Everything will be his decision,” King said of her son’s future. “But I work very hard to not limit his own thoughts of his own potential.”

King is fighting the West Shore School District to keep her third-grade son, who has Down syndrome, in mainstream classrooms as much as possible.

When the district proposed transferring her son to a special-education classroom for two core academic subjects, King said she requested a meeting with school and district officials.

In the past, when she requested a meeting, no changes were implemented during the process of working out their differences, she said.

But this time, King found out her son’s classroom placement was changed before the meeting took place because she did not initiate mediation or file a due-process complaint to halt the changes.

So King helped organize a group of parents and supporters who co-signed a letter to the school board and attended the Oct. 15 board meeting.

In the letter, parents cited concerns over the process the district uses to change students’ Individualized Education Programs, the tailored blueprint for each student’s special needs and educational goals.

They contend that the district has become less willing to work with the parents of special-needs children when it proposes a change to the child’s program. They say parents’ steps if they disagree with the proposed changes — entering mediation or filing a due-process complaint — are burdensome for families.

But to King, it’s worth fighting to keep her son in the mainstream classroom so he has a better chance of being independent and successful later in life.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, students with disabilities who spend 75 percent or more of their high school education in regular classrooms are five times more likely to be employed — and make more money — after leaving school than students who spend 25 percent or less of their high school time in those same classrooms.

District spokeswoman Crista DeGregorio would not comment on the letter to the school board.

Rosemary Holecki, special-education coordinator for the district, did not return a call seeking an explanation of the district’s Individualized Education Program procedures.

This is not the first time the district has run into problems with parents over students’ educational plans.

In December, the district agreed to pay up to $16,000 to two families — $3,500 to one and $12,500 to the other — to compensate them for “education-related expenses” related to disagreements about the course of the students’ education plans.

The families were unhappy with what the district was proposing for the students.

Kathy Brill, president of the Pennsylvania chapter of TASH, a nonprofit disability rights advocacy group, said it’s up to each school district to establish smooth working relationships in these cases.

“It depends upon the administration of the school district,” Brill said. “They have a huge role in the environment and attitude that runs throughout the school. When they don’t show that type of leadership, all sorts of things can break down.”

Parents express a variety of frustrations with special-education issues in the district beyond just classroom placement, but many are united in feeling that the working relationship between parents and school officials has deteriorated.

Some want their child placed in mainstream classrooms, while others want their child in classes taught only for children with special needs.

But the parents are united by feelings that concerns are brushed aside or that the district stalls in remedying their complaints.

Michele Gibb said parts of her son’s educational plan were not followed last year and that the district’s unresponsiveness to her concerns ultimately contributed to her son’s failing ninth grade.

Gibb said Eli, who has attention-deficit disorder, was supposed to receive study guides from teachers to help narrow the material he should focus on learning, but that he never received one until about a month before the school year ended.

She said weekly conferences between Eli’s learning-support teacher and his regular classroom teachers to determine whether he needed help or was falling behind also did not happen.

“I was at point where I felt maybe we needed to hire an advocate or a lawyer, because every time I tried to climb a rung on the ladder … it was almost like they’d brush things over, not give me the help I needed,” Gibb said. “It seemed they felt maybe I’d give up and go away.”

She said that in Individualized Education Program meetings she and her husband requested, they told school officials what Eli needed and what parts of the program weren’t being followed, but officials just said Eli needed to try harder.

“That’s not what IEP meetings are supposed to be,” Gibb said. “It’s for us all to work together as a team to make our kids more successful in school.”

Judy Chabanik, who said she has a great working relationship with her son’s classroom teachers, echoed Gibb’s concerns at the district level.

“I simply found that there has been a slow and steady decline … in the amount of cooperation that we feel during IEPs and during reviews,” said Chabanik, whose son is autistic and legally blind.

“It feels they are not as responsive and open to parent input as they have been in the past,” Chabanik said. “None of us wants to go to litigation … we would rather just sit down and talk this out and as a team come up with what would work.”

Students graded globally in IB program

BY KARI ANDREN kandren@patriot-news.com

October 30, 2009

A program known for its world-class standards shows students how to really learn, teachers say.

Last year, Harrisburg Academy graduated its first group of seniors with an International Baccalaureate diploma and became the second school in the midstate to offer the rigorous two-year diploma program.

Now Cumberland Valley High School is poised to become one of the next schools in the area to offer the degree. The district expects to begin offering courses in the 2011-12 school year, with the first IB students graduating in 2013.

International Baccalaureate, or IB, students take high-level courses in each of the major academic subjects, a foreign language and a philosophical course called Theory of Knowledge. They also must complete a full-fledged research paper and community service.

Students’ exams and samples of classroom work are graded by experts all over the world, a process that ensures IB students from Harrisburg to Paris to Shanghai are held to the same standard.

Only 14 schools statewide offer the IB program.

IB and Advanced Placement exams would be acceptable alternatives to the Keystone Exams that were approved recently by a state panel in a major step toward attaching tests to high school graduation.

Tom Banks, IB coordinator and principal of Harrisburg Academy’s upper school students, said it took about three years from the time the school began researching the IB program to becoming a certified IB World School.

“[IB] is a high-level academic program with global standards and global resources,” Banks said. “It’s a tough standard, but that’s why we like it.”

The challenge is what students like, too.

Read the rest of the story here.

Shortfall prompts furloughs

BY KARI ANDREN kandren@patriot-news.com

October 09, 2009

Lower Allen Twp. officials say the township took in nearly $1 million less than expected in 2008, which is prompting one-day-a-week furloughs for all nonunionized employees for the rest of the 2009 calendar year.

At a Tuesday morning meeting with employees, township manager Tom Vernau said the township’s fund balance, or net worth, lost $988,000 from Jan. 1, 2008 to Jan. 1, 2009.

“We didn’t overbudget,” Vernau said. “And we didn’t overspend.”

The furloughs for the 46 full-time employees and nine part-time workers were announced Thursday. No layoffs have been announced, but that idea is on the table, Vernau said.

Vernau said he wanted to dispel rumors that the township’s deficit was the result of building the $9 million, 21,000-square-foot municipal service center that opened in 2008. The payments on the building are an expense, but not the cause of the deficit, Vernau said.

The shortfall can be traced directly to the economy and a loss of revenues, he said.

Exempted salary employees — such as township commissioners, directors and Vernau — also will be affected by the cost-cutting efforts. Vernau said they will return 20 percent of their salaries, which is equivalent to the pay employees will lose through the furloughs.

The furloughs, slated to last for the 13 weeks remaining in 2009, will save the township $120,000, which will go toward rebuilding the fund balance.

According to township policy, the fund balance must be equal to 15 percent of operating expenditures, Vernau said.

If the township faces a deficit one year, as it did in 2008, it must create a plan to rebuild the fund to the same level. Vernau said officials calculated that the township must budget a surplus of $180,000 for the next five years to rebuild the fund.

After seeing how much revenue came in through the third quarter of this year, he said the township would only have posted a roughly $60,000 surplus, so officials decided to implement the furloughs to make up the difference.

Vernau said he hopes that higher-than-expected fourth-quarter revenues and other cost-cutting measures could allow the furloughs to be suspended before the end of the year.

Capitol displays student murals

Creating the art depicting intolerance inspired a passion for acceptance and diversity, one of the painters says.

BY KARI ANDREN

September 14, 2009

Cedar Cliff High School graduates unveiled a series of their murals depicting intolerance Friday at the state Capitol.

Inspiration for the murals stemmed from a two-day training session on diversity and conflict resolution last year by the Pennsylvania Human Relations Commission, the state agency that enforces anti-discrimination laws.

The murals were painted by a group of Cedar Cliff students, who were then high school seniors, in small groups during their final marking period last spring. They will be on display in the East Wing Rotunda until Sept. 18.

“We learned to be tolerant of each other” as they worked on the murals, said Katie Savage, now a freshman at Temple University. “It made us passionate about tolerance and diversity.”

Savage said that each student came to the project with different ideas and that the challenge was to blend those ideas together on one canvass.

Britany Ziegenhagen, now a student at Harrisburg Area Community College, said her group repainted portions of a mural multiple times until it became a finished product they could all agree on.

As an added challenge, the students painted the murals in school hallways in view of other students walking by rather than in the seclusion of the art room, said Bao Yen Nguyen.

She said other students would constantly ask questions about the paintings, so she and the other artists would have to stop and explain their work.

The theme of tolerance and working with diverse ideas and opinions is a fitting topic given that the unveiling fell on the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, said Stephen Glassman, the chairman of the Human Relations Commission.

Glassman said the exhibit showcases students who have used their artwork “to illustrate complex societal problems in a way that inspires others to think.”

“Intolerance isn’t always so overt [as the Sept. 11 attacks], thank goodness,” Glassman said. “But bullying has always been a pervasive element of society.”

Taxpayers’ anger shadows Wormleysburg beautification project

The groundbreaking ceremony/Photo by Sean Simmers, of The Patriot-News

By KARI ANDREN, The Patriot-News

October 01, 2009

The project has been labeled ludicrous. Senseless. A frivolous waste of money. An embarrassment.

The project is an effort by Wormleysburg, Cumberland County, to beautify the riverfront approach to what was the western span of the Walnut Street Bridge.

The borough broke ground this month on the $212,000 plaza that will include benches, planters, decorative brick walkways, fences and landscaping at the approach to the former span. It’s been nearly 14 years since a flood carried away chunks of the iron bridge, leaving a gap of several hundred feet between City Island and the West Shore.

In a question posed to readers last week, The Patriot-News asked if the project, funded through state and county grant money, was a good use of public tax dollars. Nearly 60 percent of the 266 people who responded said no.

The opposition to this project and other beautification efforts stems from a variety of sources.

Some opponents are worried about the use of taxpayers’ money for purely aesthetic projects, as the poll indicated. But others worry about the increased foot and vehicle traffic that comes with making public spaces more attractive.

“As Americans, we should be embarrassed we’re wasting our money in such ways,” said Jeff Glatt, a Harrisburg resident who opposes beautification projects generally. “Why not spend the money on schools, parks, the Amtrak train station in Harrisburg? It’s just unbelievable.”

Amanda Ewing, who lives and works in Wormleysburg, said the timing of the plaza project is the problem, not the concept of making the area look nicer. “It seems like a ludicrous sum of money to spend on it right now,” Ewing said. “There’s a time and a place for everything, and I don’t think in today’s economic times that the time is right now … [but] it’s a noble idea.”

Ewing also raised concerns about encouraging more people to visit the bridge plaza, given the limited parking available in Wormleysburg.

Mike Bowers, who owns Black Dog Motorcycles and other properties on Front Street in Wormleysburg, echoed concerns about parking, especially if the bridge is ever reconnected to City Island.

But, Bowers said, he likes the bridge plaza idea, particularly if it acts as a “focal point” that helps garner momentum to complete the other phases of the borough’s revitalization plans, like a proposed streetscape and river walk.

Connie Branch, who lives near the plaza on Front Street, said a community can always do with a new, clean look.

Rich Hergenroeder, a member of Wormleysburg’s revitalization committee, agreed.

“Many of us want to improve and upgrade our town, and there are some eyesores in our town,” he said. “We’re not covering anything with gold or marble. We’re simply upgrading what we have. … That space was an embarrassment.”

Schools relent on T-shirt messages

BY KARI ANDREN, kandren@patriot-news.com

October 20, 2009

A temporary agreement will allow a Crossroads Middle School student to wear a homemade “Abortion is not healthcare” T-shirt that school officials had ordered him to turn inside out.

Under the agreement approved Monday by a federal judge, the West Shore School District will also permit other students to wear anti-abortion and religious T-shirts. Additionally, the district will not enforce other portions of its dress and grooming policies that are being challenged in a federal lawsuit filed by the student’s father, William Boyer.

Boyer, of New Cumberland, claims his son, identified as E.B. in the lawsuit filed in U.S. Middle District Court, was unfairly censored on Sept. 8 when he wore the anti-abortion shirt and was told to turn it inside out.

“Public schools certainly need to be educated about the First Amendment,” said David Cortman, an attorney with the Alliance Defense Fund, who is representing Boyer. “As the Supreme Court has held for years, students do not shed their First Amendment rights at the schoolhouse gate, and this includes Christian students.”

Boyer’s lawsuit seeks to have the district’s policies struck down and to remove any references to disciplinary action from this incident on his son’s record. He also is seeking damages such as court costs and attorneys’ fees.

Crista DeGregorio, spokeswoman for the school district, said the district and its solicitor had no comment on the case.

Under the agreement, approved by Judge Christopher C. Conner, the district may still enforce policies that restrict student expression if it will cause a substantial disruption, is lewd or encourages the use of illegal drugs or alcohol, according to the court order.

According to the lawsuit, E.B. wore the T-shirt with no disruption and no problems on the day of President Barack Obama’s national education address to students until his fifth-period teacher sent him to the principal’s office.

He was ordered to turn the shirt inside out because it might offend other students, the lawsuit states.

The suit alleges that the district’s policies regarding student expression and dress and grooming are unconstitutional and that the censorship of religious and political speech violates the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

Cortman said E.B. made the T-shirt himself and that it was his idea to wear it to school, not his parents’. He said the student wrote a persuasive paper last year on why he believes abortion is wrong, so this T-shirt was not the first time he was expressing his anti-abortion views in school.

He said they were seeking an agreement to allow the student to wear the T-shirt while it is still a timely debate.

Read the story online here.

The t-shirt in question.

West Shore School District unfairly censored T-shirt, father’s lawsuit says

By KARI ANDREN, The Patriot-News

October 06, 2009

On the day President Barack Obama was to address students nationwide, a Crossroads Middle School student donned an anti-abortion T-shirt to protest Obama’s proposed overhaul of the nation’s health care system.

The student wore the T-shirt, which read “Abortion is not Healthcare,” with no disruption and no problems until his fifth-period teacher sent him to the principal’s office. He was ordered to turn the shirt inside out because it might offend other students, according to a lawsuit filed Monday.

William Boyer, the student’s father, filed the lawsuit against the West Shore School District in U.S. Middle District Court. Boyer, of New Cumberland, alleges that his son, E.B., was unfairly censored by school officials Sept. 8 when they made him turn his shirt inside out.

Neither district officials nor their solicitor wanted to comment on the lawsuit because they had not seen it, said Rob Cox, an attorney with Eastburn & Gray, the law firm that represents the school district.

Valerie Burch, a staff attorney with the Pennsylvania chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the student’s T-shirt represented political speech, the most protected form of speech, even inside schools.

Boyer’s suit claims the district’s policies regarding student expression, dress and grooming are unconstitutional and that the censorship of religious and political speech violates the First and 14th amendments to the Constitution.

The district’s dress-and-grooming policy prohibits clothing “which creates a hostile educational environment or evidences discriminatory bias or animus” or displays “inappropriate words.”

Boyer is seeking to have the district’s policies struck down and to remove any references to disciplinary action from this incident on his son’s record. He also is seeking damages such as court costs and attorneys’ fees.

In an unrelated case this week, the Palmerton Area School District in Carbon County agreed to clear the disciplinary records of 20 students who wore T-shirts protesting the district’s dress code. The ACLU said the district infringed on the free-speech rights of students who wore T-shirts emblazoned with “Property of PHS.“

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Also see my story published in USA Today.

Member of Cedar Cliff High School color guard claims she was bullied

by KARI ANDREN, Of The Patriot-News

Schools weigh whether to show President Barack Obama’s speech to students on Tuesday

By KARI ANDREN AND AMANDA PALLESCHI, Of The Patriot-News

At least three midstate school districts won’t broadcast President Barack Obama’s speech to the country’s students live Tuesday, reflecting a chorus of concerns nationwide over the potential infusion of Obama’s political agenda in public classrooms.

The Central Dauphin, Northern York and Susquehanna Twp. districts won’t stream the 15- to 20-minute noon speech live on the White House’s Web site and C-SPAN, nor will they make it a mandatory part of the day’s curriculum.

Most other area districts will broadcast the speech in classrooms or the auditorium, incorporating it into the day’s lessons.

“The goal of the speech and classroom activities is to challenge students to set goals, work hard and stay in school. This isn’t a policy speech,” said Moira Mack, a White House spokeswoman.

In many cases, districts that plan to show the president’s address sent a letter to parents, informing them that their children could opt out of watching the speech or participating in discussions.

Dave Salter, a spokesman for the Pennsylvania School Boards Association, said the association informed districts they are under no legal obligation to allow students to skip any activities planned around the speech.

“It is totally at the discretion of the school districts,” Salter said.

Northern York’s acting superintendent, Linda Lemmon, told district parents via automated phone and e-mail messages Thursday night that “because some parents have indicated they are concerned about the content of the speech, we will not be broadcasting the speech live.”

The district will make the broadcast available during the last half-hour of the day.

The Central Dauphin School District will tape the speech, and a committee of administrators and educators will decide if it is appropriate and has educational value before allowing its use in classrooms.

The Palmyra Area School District will leave viewing the speech to the discretion of teachers in the middle and high schools, but elementary schools will not watch it, said Superintendent Larry Schmidt.

Schmidt said he plans to preview the speech when the White House makes it available on its Web site Monday.

Other districts, such as Susquehanna Twp., won’t make the speech part of their day for logistical reasons.

“We can’t alter the lunch schedules … and there are certain things in the students’ day we can’t make accommodations for,” Superintendent David Volkman said.

Though both Gov. Ed Rendell and the Pennsylvania School Educators Association this week urged districts not to censor the event and to incorporate it into their lesson plans, others said it was not the president’s message that made them nervous.

Michael Barley, a spokesman for the state Republican Party, said a component of optional lesson plans for teachers to use with the speech, put out by the U.S. Department of Education, was “way out of bounds.”

One classroom activity suggested that elementary school students “write letters to themselves about what they can do to help the president,” but that component has since been revised by the White House in response to criticism.

Barley said that was the only objectionable part of the administration’s plan.

“We just don’t think it’s a good forum to be interjecting politics or … to indoctrinate [students] into his agenda or to ask them to volunteer to help further his agenda. It’s not the right forum for that,” Barley said.

Obama is not alone in delivering an address directly to students. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Ronald Reagan also addressed students during their terms in office.

But a parent of two middle school students in the Northern York School District echoed Barley’s concerns.

The woman, who requested her name not be used because she does business relating to the district, said she is politically conservative but would feel the same way if the president were of her political persuasion: Discussions of politics and government are a parent’s job, she said.

But Rebecca Goldinger, 13, a student at New Cumberland Middle School, said students should decide whether to watch the address.

Even though some people may not agree with Obama’s politics, “if he’s giving a good message that’s about school and not about politics, it shouldn’t really matter,” Goldinger said.

The full text of the speech will be posted Monday at whitehouse.gov.

View the original story on Pennlive.com here.

Michael Vick’s No. 7 Eagles jersey expected to be a hit in the midstate

by KARI ANDREN, Of The Patriot-News

When this year’s NFL season kicks off, midstate Eagles fans will be able to don jerseys and T-shirts supporting the team’s newest player, Michael Vick, even though Dick’s Sporting Goods stores won’t be selling them.

The Philadelphia Eagles announced Thursday that Vick, a former Atlanta Falcons quarterback and ex-convict, had signed a two-year contract with the team.

Vick was convicted in 2007 of conspiracy and running a dogfighting operation. He served 18 months in prison and six months in a halfway house before being conditionally reinstated to the NFL last month.

Dick’s Sporting Goods, which operates nearly 400 stores in 39 states, has said it is not participating in the sale of Michael Vick jerseys. An employee of the Dick’s in Lower Paxton Township didn’t know why the chain would not sell the jerseys, and a message left at Dick’s corporate office went unreturned.

Many area stores, though, soon will have on their shelves Eagles gear bearing Vick’s name and his No. 7.

Bleacher Bums in the Colonial Park Mall expects its first shipment of 36 Vick jerseys soon — and the store has sold out of size XXL, said assistant store manager Debbie Gaynes.

She said the store began getting customer calls and requests Friday, the day after the Eagles’ announced Vick would join the team. Her store has a waiting list of five customers.

Other Bleacher Bums stores in the area also have waiting lists, she said.

Gaynes said the merchandise could arrive next week, when the store gets its next Reebok shipment, but she is not sure if the Vick order will be part of that delivery.

Champs Sports and Footlocker have Vick jerseys in three colors and T-shirts for sale on their Web sites for $79.99 and $25.99, respectively, but the items will not ship until the end of the month.

Footlocker stores that sell jerseys are expected to sell Vick shirts.

Heather Byrnes, assistant manager at Champs Sports in the Harrisburg Mall, said she is not sure when her store will get its shipments of the shirts. She said a few customers each day ask for Vick merchandise.

But don’t expect to see much Vick gear at Mr. G’s Place on North 6th Street in Harrisburg, home to the area’s Eagles Fan Club.

Most fans are glad that the Eagles signed Vick but remain loyal to Eagles starting quarterback Donovan McNabb, bartender Kathy Sypuskie said.

She said the bar has lots of McNabb merchandise on display and probably won’t put up much, if any, Vick items as long as McNabb is the starter.”

The majority of Eagles fans who come in here believe [Vick] deserves a second chance,” Sypuskie said. “But as long as McNabb is on the team and the starting quarterback, the fans are pretty loyal to him.”

Kelly Hitz, spokeswoman for the Humane Society of Harrisburg Area Inc., said Vick probably would have been signed by some NFL team but that it’s “disappointing that a Pennsylvania team would welcome a convicted animal abuser.”

“Kids who may be in at-risk areas, even here in our community, look up to professional athletes such as Michael Vick,” Hitz said. “To know that he severely mistreated animals is definitely a negative example to set for young people.”