The Hollister School District is considering a radical program
that would dramatically re-structure not only the ways in which
special education students are taught, but how every student
throughout the city is educated.
The Hollister School District is considering a radical program that would dramatically re-structure not only the ways in which special education students are taught, but how every student throughout the city is educated.
The ExCel model is a program pioneered by the Hesperia School District in Southern California, which seeks to rearrange resources available to school districts and their special ed programs, and utilize them more effectively. Ideally, this means that students already enrolled in special ed are afforded more opportunities to learn, and teachers can give students who might not quite qualify for special ed the individualized attention they need so that they never have to enroll in special programs in the first place.
“At its best, it’s a paradigm shift,” said Interim HSD Superintendent Ron Crates. “It’s a way to make sure every adult at the school is helping kids, whether it’s a teacher or a librarian … But special education parents need to be convinced that their students are still receiving the individual attention they expect, that in fact this will help their children even more.”
Karen Twaddell, HSD’s Director of Special Education and Health, gave a detailed explanation of the program to Board of Trustees members at their meeting Tuesday.
“This big question is, do we do a disservice to those students who don’t qualify for special ed?” she asked. “Do we leave them behind and watch them continue to fail?”
Currently, $2.7 million of the district’s general fund is spent on special education, and roughly 800 students are enrolled in at least one form of special ed or another – whether they simply can’t keep up in a regular class due to a learning disability such as dyslexia or ADD, or suffer more severe mental handicaps and attend special classes largely independent of their peers. According to state guidelines, no district should have more than approximately 10 percent of its student body in special ed, meaning that HSD is about 200 students over.
“Sometimes I sit at these IEP (Individualized Education Plan) meetings, and I wonder why I am telling these parents to enroll their kid in special ed when the classes are already so large,” said Andy Tuttele, school psychologist for HSD.
The goal of most special ed programs is to provide necessary help and remediation for students so that they will one day be able to return to regular classes. According to a report offered up to the board by Twaddell, however, HSD special ed programs are only becoming larger and less effective, meaning students are spending more time away from regular classes and falling farther behind.
“In order to qualify for most special ed programs you need to be basically two years behind, at least,” said Tuttele. “And once you’re that far behind, it’s hard to graduate from that.”
The ExCel model seeks to integrate as many special ed students as are able into a regular classroom during much of the day, and then split all students up for study of particular subjects by how much extra help they require – regardless of whether or not they are enrolled in special ed.
An example provided at the board meeting illustrated how three elementary school classrooms might split up for the study of language arts. If, for example, 25 students were determined to need a great deal of help with reading and language, they would study for an hour with not only a teacher, but a resource specialist and two other special ed instructors – for a student teacher ratio of 5 to 1.
On the other hand, advanced reading students would be grouped into another classroom with only one teacher, but would be free to follow more rigorous curriculum. Students who simply need a little extra help would be grouped with two or three adults. Afterwards, students would return to their regular classrooms.
“I’m very supportive of the ExCel program,” Crates said. “But I would caution people that we really need to have some thoughtful discussion about this option, and really take ownership of it before we move forward.”
Another pillar of the ExCel program is an emphasis on parental involvement – through communication with teachers, volunteering in their child’s classroom and continuing their own education through workshops with the school.
Schools who adopt the program report better test scores for all students, regardless of special ed status, grade, culture or socio-economic background. In addition, more students at these schools are exiting their special education classes and succeeding in regular classrooms.
“I was a skeptic about this program until I visited and saw for myself,” said trustee Dee Brown. “I was very impressed, and from a regular education standpoint you have limitless possibilities. You could really do a lot for the GATE (Gifted and Talented Education) kids.”
Hesperia charges $6,200 to train school staff to use the ExCel model and, while they offer to mold the model to work with the materials a district is already using, special education instructors warn that the district would do well to invest in additional materials before committing to the program. Proponents of ExCel believe, however, that the cost involved is minimal if the purpose is to learn how to use resources more effectively.
“I would never go into this program if it were just about cutting costs, because that’s just wrong,” Crates said. “What it’s about is helping kids learn better, and that’s the bottom line here.”
Twaddell hopes the district will pilot the model at two sites initially – a middle school and an elementary school. Crates warned at the meeting, however, that he would not feel comfortable instigating the program at a school that had not volunteered to try it first.
The board will revisit the proposal later in the spring to vote on whether to approve it.
