Special-ed parents petition for answers from the DOE

For nine business days, Abby Lester worried about which therapists would work with her 3 1/2-year-old son Casey Taggart, who has cerebral palsy. 

Now her services have been restored but she has joined with about 2,5000 others who signed a petition denouncing the DOE’s growing reliance on agencies to supplement the city’s special education personnel and requesting that an executive order limit the city’s authority over special education. 

Ms. Lester was among several local families held in limbo after the Department of Education told independently contracted special education personnel to stop working until the city reassigned teachers, counselors, therapists and aides under a new guideline. 

The city expanded the number of agencies the DOE uses to meet children’s needs when the city’s own special education personnel can’t accommodate them. 

The DOE’s Committee on Preschool Special Education has since gotten a handle on the details. Most local families, including Ms. Lester’s, have now been paired with teachers, counselors, therapists and aides. But Ms. Lester, a lifelong Riverdalian, said she still hasn’t received any notification from the DOE about how the new contracts will work. 

“They were so secretive about it. They did it right when school started. And they didn’t let anybody know,” said Ms. Lester, a librarian at Sarah Lawrence College. “I know we’re OK for right now. But what happens next year? Because clearly having signed contracts with them [DOE] doesn’t guarantee anything. Next summer, I’m concerned that we’re going to have to deal with something similar.”

Previously, the DOE used a small number of agencies to supplement DOE special education staff. But when the three-year agency contracts expired on Aug. 31, the DOE partnered with 90 agencies, more than double the number of organizations it previously contracted with. 

Starting Sept. 1, the DOE tasked staff from agencies to fulfill a children’s Individual Educational Program if department staff could not. If three agencies fail to accommodate a child - –– instead of the former two-agency limit –– the DOE allows parents to hire their own therapists. 

CEO of Special Education Policy Elana Sigall said agencies were chosen based on cost, their historical quality of service and their capacity to deliver. No criterion was factored into the decision more than 50 percent, she said.

The DOE says working with more agencies will standardize coverage, allow the city to hold special education personnel more accountable and minimize the number of families the DOE has to turn away with vouchers or independent agreements to pay for outside providers.

But independently hired aides said they were given no notice that the DOE planned to disregard their contracts. Dorian Pascoe, a pediatric therapist who has worked in Riverdale for a decade, said she and her peers faced the prospect of losing half of their clients and income.

It was only after independently contracted aides and parents threatened the DOE with litigation, that Ms. Pascoe said the city decided to honor contracts with independent providers signed before the expansion. 

According to Leslie Grubler, founding director of United New York Early Intervention Providers that started the petition, many parents and providers are still waiting for answers from the DOE.

“Some individuals who have contracts signed have been told still we’re not honoring your contracts … They [DOE] seem to be making concessions in certain instances but not in others. I don’t know what these rules are because they haven’t shared them,” said Ms. Grubler, a speech language pathologist who leads UNYEIP, which represents about 2,500 independent special education providers statewide. “We’re watching it unravel.” 

The DOE previously said contracts governing year-round care for children signed before Aug. 31 would be kept intact. A “communication” about this was sent out to families, according to Ms. Sigall. 

On Sept. 10, Ms. Sigall said she couldn’t say what would happen with agreements for children who receive services during ten months of the year. Now, all pre-school families may choose to stay with a provider they’ve already been assigned, according to Erin Hughes, a DOE press representative.

A woman who asked to be referred to as Jessica Meilak, who borrowed money to pay for her 4-year-old autistic son’s services at a Riverdale nursery program during the changeover, said she believes the DOE is trying to pair more families with less expensive aides who take the lower-paying agency jobs and are less experienced. 

“ …  If you’re savvy enough to know who to call and what to push, you get what you need. But how many people out there aren’t savvy enough or don’t have the time or the means or have language barriers? I can’t even imagine what they’re going through,” she said. 

Ms. Hughes said the DOE “remains committed” to meeting every students needs.

“Our objective in negotiating our new contracts was to increase the availability of services, expand geographic areas of coverage, speed the process of provider assignment and improve services quality,” she wrote in an email.

Ms. Grubler said she plans to send the petition to state and city politicians and education officials once it gets 10,000 signatures.