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Health & Fitness

Spotlight on District 109

The 2013 Special Education survey results have been released. Here's how they stack up to last year.

Last year, I reported on a survey that was given to parents of IEP students regarding their satisfaction with the Special Education program.

http://deerfield.patch.com/groups/john-russillos-blog/p/bp--spotlight-on-district-109-a2c22221

Apparently, Patch does not allow posting of PDF files anymore, so I can’t show you the individual surveys, but the 2013 survey was posted in the 10/17 Community Packet.  The survey for both years asked the same 9 questions.  There were 136 responses in 2012 and 137 responses in 2013.  The respondents were asked to rate their level of satisfaction in one of 5 categories, including “completely satisfied” and “somewhat satisfied.”  I was able to attach a summary document which shows the change in results from year to year, although the quality may not be very good.

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The district’s analysis of the 2013 results is that “significant improvement” was made in the Special Ed program.  They site improvements in communications and parent satisfaction, including both “completely satisfied” and “somewhat satisfied” responses.  I suppose that’s one way to look at it.  Another way to look at it is that if we are claiming to be a world-class school district, we should hold ourselves to world-class standards.  “Completely satisfied” is the only measure that counts in my world-class world.  So, based on that, let’s look at how things went in 2013 by the numbers.

Satisfaction in 3 communication categories, “amount and type of information you receive,” communication with special ed staff,” and “communication with special ed teacher” improved by 14%, 23%, and 4%, respectively.  However, complete satisfaction levels are still pretty low, coming in at 60%, 57%, and 51%, respectively.  The next important category is “quality of special education and related services provided to your child.”  That score went from 36% to 47%, an 11% increase.  Not a bad improvement.  However, you would think that all this improvement would carry over to actual results.  That didn’t happen.  “The progress your child is making academically” is still at 34%, only a 4% improvement.  “The progress your child is making socially/behaviorally” actually declined 1% to 33% overall.

Find out what's happening in Deerfieldwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

So while we should be happy that some improvement was made, I think it is still clear that the Special Education program has a long way to go before we can consider it anywhere near world class.  When only one third of your parents are completely satisfied with the academic progress of their children, there’s a lot of work to do.  Fortunately, something I saw in Monday’s community packet that gave me some encouragement.  The Superintendent laid out his 3 main goals for the next two years and one of them is “Implement a special education services program with measurable scope, sequence, integration, learner outcomes, and growth for students.”  I think it’s high time we get on with the business of returning the district to its former excellence in special education programs and I’m glad to hear that this is now a priority.

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