Commentary: Of Service: MCIE Celebrates 20 Years of Helping Kids With Disabilities
By Joe Surkiewicz
Since 1975, federal law dictates that when making placement decisions about children with disabilities, educators need to look first at the school the child would attend if he or she didn’t have a disability.
And if that law were followed — and children with disabilities weren’t segregated into separate classrooms away from their peers — the Maryland Coalition for Inclusive Education wouldn’t be in existence.
Instead, it’s celebrating its 20th anniversary.
“In many places in Maryland, children are placed without regard of the least restrictive environment,” said Selena A. Almazan, MCIE’s co-director. “Some counties overly restrict kids with disabilities.”
Segregating resources for children with disabilities in one building has long been commonplace in some locales, she noted: “It’s a practice thing. We spend a lot of time wondering why it’s done. It might be that educational practice doesn’t keep pace with best research practices.”
Typical scenarios include children already enrolled in their neighborhood elementary schools who are ready to move on to middle school. Then the system decides they should get educated in a functional life-skills program (in a more restrictive setting) rather than stay on track to graduate from high school.
Sometimes MCIE’s clients are children in segregated, restricted settings who want to join regular classrooms. Often, they include children with autism who are shunted to separate facilities beginning in kindergarten.
“There’s a recognition that students with disabilities need access to a general education curriculum,” Almazan said. “But the practices in many counties around the state don’t keep pace.”
MCIE helps about 160 families a year across the state get their children placed in their neighborhood schools and has helped about 2,000 families since it was founded in 1988.
It’s not all bad news. “Maryland has made some progress in the last five years,” Almazan said. “Montgomery County has made strides in placing students with disabilities in regular classrooms. But other counties use practices over 30 years old.”
The pressure to increase academic scores under the No Child Left Behind Act is helping to reduce segregation of children with disabilities.
“There’s a movement to put children in regular classrooms because of the Maryland State Assessments,” Almazan said. “That way schools can fulfill their testing requirements and children with disabilities get access to the general education curriculum and highly qualified teachers. The result is they show adequate yearly progress.”
An example: A boy with Down Syndrome was placed in a regular kindergarten class and finished the year reading at an above- kindergarten level and doing math at regular kindergarten level. “It’s something that no one else thought he would achieve, except his parents,” Almazan said. “He’s clearly a success going into first grade.”
In another, hotly contested case, a child with an intellectual disability got out of a self-contained classroom, where she was the only girl, and was moved into the mainstream in a regular classroom.
“Now she’s fully involved in the community, a delightful girl ready for the fourth grade,” Almazan said. “We’ve had other children that school authorities said should only get educated in functional life-skills programs who went on to graduate from high school.”
Getting children like these out of segregated classrooms often takes a lawyer.
“Across the country there is a dearth of attorneys who specialize in this,” said Almazan, who is a lawyer. “It’s a complicated statute. While parents can represent themselves in federal court, they need an attorney to help negotiate with the school system to make them comply with the law. It’s a process-heavy law.”
Parents with the resources can hire a lawyer. “But low-income families usually can’t find a lawyer,” she said. “We don’t have the resources to fully fund our project. But we don’t turn anyone away. So we have fundraisers, look for grants and have a sliding-fee scale.”
MCIE also relies on a panel of private attorneys who take cases.
“It’s very rewarding for a private attorney to do one of these cases,” Almazan said. “They can help get services that a kid needs. We have a small pool of lawyers who we train. Also the Maryland Disability Law Center and MICPEL provide training.”
MCIE also assists school districts that want to be more inclusive.
“We help school systems who want to include students with disabilities in typical classrooms,” Almazan said. “That includes helping school districts plan to improve the placement practices and approach to delivering special education services, which increases the numbers of students with disabilities who successfully learn with their neighborhood friends in general education classes.”
On Oct. 4, MCIE will hold its 20th anniversary at a gala dinner at the Sheraton in Columbia. “We’ll be celebrating 20 years of serving students and schools,” Almazan said. “We’ll also be recognizing key supporters. It’s an opportunity to celebrate and give recognition that we’ve made progress in educating kids in less restrictive settings.”
Invited honored guests include F. Vernon Boozer, chair of the Maryland Legal Services Corp.; James H. DeGraffenreidt Jr., president of the Maryland State Board of Education; Nancy Grasmick, secretary of the Maryland State Department of Education; and Liz Weintraub, who chairs the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Council.
Special guests are Jamie Burke, student and self-advocate of Syracuse University, and Rep. John Sarbanes, D-Md. For more information on the event, call 410-859-5400 or go to www.mcie.org.
Joe Surkiewicz is the director of communications at Maryland Legal Aid. His e-mail is jsurkiewicz@mdlab.org.
Originally published by Joe Surkiewicz.
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