The Limitations of Public Schools

by Kristina Chew

category: Education

Published June 11, 2009 @ 12:25AM PT

My son has been in public school autism programs for most of his schooling. Here in New Jersey, there are quite a few private autism schools (some of which, it is reputed, people have traveled from the likes of China and Greece to get their kids into); these schools are very small, and people talk about getting a child into one of them as similar to gaining admission to, oh, I don't know, Harvard. (Not a great comparison.) Idealistic me thinks that it's important that Charlie be educated in the public schools. Public school being, well, public, "anyone" can have access to the programs offered, provided one lives in the school district.

But there's some constraints that arise for public school autism programs. A rather obvious one is the potential objections of other residents of the town to see more dollars, classroom space, staffing, etc. devoted to a smaller number of children with greater needs. (In a previous school district, at least four times as much funding was allocated for Charlie than for a "typical" student.) And some people may object to having their children educated alongside children like my son, who requires 1:1 teaching (and that's just the start). Charlie being in a public school middle school, bells go off on a regular schedule and announcements blare out over the loudspeaker (now I know why it is called that!), which is not so great as he's been very, very sound-sensitive.

Other concerns have more to do with the regulations for licensure and of certification. In New Jersey, the head teacher has to have her or his certification completed. In more than a few cases, the most qualified person in Charlie's classroom to teach autistic students has not always been the head teacher, but rather an aide, due to lacking the proper certification. As a recent story from the Pelican Press (Florida) attests, whether or not a teacher has tenure can also affect staffing decisions for classrooms with students on the spectrum.

It's reported that 120 teachers are being laid off by the Sarasota County School District, with "top retention priority" given to "those with seniority and relevant certification as student enrollment and district funds have shrunk." Unfortunately:

Three of the four autism spectrum disorder teachers at Laurel Nokomis are losing their jobs to senior teachers with ESE (Exceptional Student Education) certification, though these teachers have no experience in teaching autistic children, parents have said.

The only two teachers in the county who already have the endorsements for teaching autistic children made mandatory by 2011 by the Florida Department of Education are also losing their positions. One is being moved out of the autism program; the other is losing her job because she is a junior teacher.

The Laurel Nokomis program has had six teachers in three years, disrupting the lives of the students who specifically need structure and consistency to learn, parents said. The students have made dramatic improvements with the appointment of teacher Jennifer Latta to the program in February, parents told the school board.

"In six weeks she taught my son to read," said Richard Raliowski. His son Rischad is a sixth-grader.

Latta is one of the teachers losing her job.

"Please do not destabilize the lives of our children when some stability has been established at the school. Waive the seniority rule for autism teachers," pleaded David Harvey, whose son also is a sixth-grader in the program.

Laurel Nokomis is a "three-year-old autism cluster site" that is the district's only program for middle school students on the spectrum. Public school programs solely devoted to students on the autism spectrum are relatively new, so that teachers and others staffing them may be junior teachers without tenure.

But it would not make any sense at all---it would be pretty much impossible or, frankly, foolhardy---to have any but teachers trained to teach autistic students staffing Charlie's classroom. Anyone else and it's a recipe for some serious difficulties for everyone, and even more headaches for the district.

And certainly for everyone, and especially the students.