Maryland county plans to spend federal stimulus money on more programs for disabled students

From The Gazette in Maryland:

Montgomery County Public Schools plans to spend more than one-third of its $15.3 million in federal stimulus to add dozens of teachers and support staff next school year for its 16,000 special-needs students, particularly at the middle school level, according to the spending plan that the county could submit in the coming days.

For the next two school years, President Barack Obama's American Recovery and Reinvestment Act will bring the federal government's support for special education to its highest level ever in Maryland and Montgomery County, according to county and state records. But amid budget shortfalls and an explosion of autistic students, the stimulus largely replenishes job cuts and restores what was going to be the county's flattest increase in special education in several years.

Superintendent Jerry D. Weast's plan to spend the stimulus money — approved unanimously by the school board and pending County Council approval as part of the school system's annual budget — puts about $6 million toward hiring 43 teachers and 39 para-educators in hours-based staffing in 16 middle schools and 20 new teachers to help keep students at their home schools.

Another $2 million will go toward reading specialists, counselors and academic intervention teachers, the spending plan shows.

Special education is the school system's third largest expenditure in its proposed fiscal 2010 budget, behind teachers' salaries and fixed fees. After growing 9 percent each of the past two years, special education was to get a 1.1 percent bump, up to $270.5 million.

Within those limits, the $270 million would already boost middle school staffing and add nine new autism-specific classes — six for pre-kindergartners — including the school system's first high-school level program for students with Asperger syndrome, a form of "high-functioning" autism where many excel academically but struggle with social and behavioral delays.

Parents and advocates of children with special needs say they are encouraged to see the surge in spending. But the short-term remedies do not allay the frustration with what many say is the school system's vacillating approach to autism, which can vary from year to year, school to school, grade to grade, and even teacher to teacher as administrators adjust to shifts in demographics and educational philosophies on including special needs students in general education classrooms.

For parent groups like the newly formed Partnership for Extraordinary Minds, which focuses on empowering the parents of diploma-bound students with Asperger's to be better advocates, lasting reform might be best spurred by addressing the quality, not quantity, of teachers that face the complex range of behaviors and abilities shown by the 1,300 autistic children enrolled in MCPS.

Weast has tagged more than $1 million of the stimulus for grants, stipends and professional development. That seems far too little, given a "pervasive" tendency among school staff and administrators to fall back on "classical autism" stereotypes, leaving high-functioning autistic students to fall too easily through the cracks, said Staci Daddona, who started the group with five other mothers whose children have Asperger's.

Most of the county's autistic students are in general — not special — education, where getting a teacher qualified to handle autism comes down to "the luck of the draw," Daddona said. As she saw in years past with her 8-year-old son Justin Andrews, now a third-grader in the Asperger's program at Diamond Elementary School in Gaithersburg, social shortcomings are often mistaken for misbehavior, provoking the student to either "check out or act out."

"It's horrific to watch as a parent," Daddona said. "You feel helpless because you're trusting that the teachers will know how to handle your children — and honestly, a lot of them don't."

MCPS has made greater efforts to recruit specialized teachers, earning it a reputation for being one of the school systems better-equipped for autism, said Gwendolyn Mason Director, director of MCPS's department of special education services.

Parents Anne Marie and Raymond Shipes of Germantown felt frustration — and later, reassurance — first-hand when their son Ray III started struggling within a few weeks of starting kindergarten at Fox Chapel Elementary School in 2004. By March, school administrators decided that Ray, whose diagnoses include a form of high-functioning autism, needed to transfer to a more intensive program at Sally K. Ride Elementary.

With Ray now "flourishing" as a fifth-grader at Sally Ride, they believe fully that engaging with the school system can yield good results — so much so that they are trying to move so that Ray can stay with familiar faces next year at Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School.

"Don't be afraid to be an advocate for your child. Don't be afraid if you have questions, ask the questions," said Anne Marie Shipes, special needs chair at the Germantown school. "You have to be the one fighting for your child because you are the one that has your child's best interests. Ultimately, you are the one that has to be there for your child."