That line about budget cuts forcing the district to lay off special ed aids (EAs) doesn’t ring true. I’ve been heavily involved in charter schools for the last 5 years (i.e. doing line by line budget reviews every month) and I know that over 90% of Special Education spending is directly, if somewhat tardily reimbursed by the state and Federal governments to all public schools.
I’ve seen two scenarios where an aide wouldn’t be available (1) where the Special Ed staff won’t get off it’s butt to do an evaluation or provide required services and (2) where the parents deny that their child has needs of that magnitude. Because the EAs are tend to be poorly paid and therefore lower skilled (with a few quite outstanding exceptions); you get some bad ones that have to be weeded out. And as for the second scenario – denial isn’t just a river in Egypt. Frankly, it’s what too many experienced teachers seem to expect from parents.
Just to be clear – neither scenario excuses the teachers behavior in these cases.
And one question – is it pertinent that both cases involved boys and female teachers?
