Transparency and Accountability for all Special Needs Kids Services and Programs

San Mateo Foster City School District Board and Superintendent

We seek better outcomes for all special needs kids. The performance of our 1000+ special needs kids is not acceptable (see Closing the School Performance Gap). In order for our public and private services and systems to better serve all special needs kids and improve their performance, we seek more transparency for all of our programs. We should track state, district, school, and other service providers and programs in terms of outcomes and long-term impact of programs to determine if they are maximally effective and inclusive.

Our core values:

•       Deep Inclusion for our entire community parents, teachers, all children, staff, and the public at large.

•       Forthright transparency for our special needs programs and services.

•       Long term better outcomes for our special needs kids for our programs and services.

For all programs:

•       Effectiveness in early identification and prompt intervention for special needs kids

•       Long term monitoring all kids who are assessed, flagged, or identified, whether they receive services or not.

•       Appropriate performance metrics for all special needs kids (academic, social, developmental) as well as the use of standard performance metrics.

•       Integration and inclusion of special needs kids into general metrics and management programs for all children.

First actions - TRANSPARENCY:

  • Publish each school term a true District and County level report cards for a special needs programs by service level and type both overall and for each grade level. Include information on ethnic, socio-economic, English learner, and other demographics. Track performance - progress compared to "non-special needs" students, progression per year, and "progress deficits" (years behind students of same age), both averages and as a distribution to understand the effectiveness of special needs services.
  • Include and track 504 students subject to privacy considerations in the report cards (roll up data at the district level at a minimum). Some special needs students wind up with 504 accommodations instead of an IEP - these programs are not separable.
  • Metrics on suspensions, parental involvement, and other measures to understand how special needs students fit into our community.
  • Service requests and ongoing performance. Track all students who request evaluations by the district, are part of the SST process, or otherwise included or considered for special needs services (504, special education, local school support of any kinds) so that we can fully understand the effectiveness of our identification program, who is applying and getting services, and how all potential special needs students are performing whether they qualify for services or not.
  • Accountability metrics for the programs themselves - appeals, involvement of attorneys, time to get services started, students "identified late", etc.
  • Benchmarking our services and programs against the best performing schools in our area, California, and beyond to determine what it will take to help our special needs kids achieve their potential whether we have the resources today to operate those programs or reach that potential.                                    

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San Mateo, CA

To: San Mateo Foster City School District Board and Superintendent
From: [Your Name]

We seek better outcomes for all special needs kids. The performance of our 1000+ special needs kids is not acceptable (see Closing the School Performance Gap - https://snkids.wordpress.com/2017/12/07/closing-the-school-performance-gap/). In order for our public and private services and systems to better serve all special needs kids and improve their performance, we seek more transparency for all of our programs. We should track state, district, school, and other service providers and programs in terms of outcomes and long-term impact of programs to determine if they are maximally effective and inclusive.

Our core values:

• Deep Inclusion for our entire community parents, teachers, all children, staff, and the public at large.

• Forthright transparency for our special needs programs and services.

• Long term better outcomes for our special needs kids for our programs and services.

For all programs:

• Effectiveness in early identification and prompt intervention for special needs kids

• Long term monitoring all kids who are assessed, flagged, or identified, whether they receive services or not.

• Appropriate performance metrics for all special needs kids (academic, social, developmental) as well as the use of standard performance metrics.

• Integration and inclusion of special needs kids into general metrics and management programs for all children.
Specifically, for our schools:

• Full integration of Special Needs Kids as a “Vertical” category in the LCAP and additional requirements to fully understand and track our special education programs, services, and performance

• District and County level report cards to capture the performance of our special needs programs – both academically and by program type.

• Integration of 504 students subject to privacy considerations in such a way that their performance can be tracked.

• Real report cards for our special needs kids so we can see where they are at compared to general education kids, their progress and rate of progress, and their additional goals and targets.

• Benchmarking our services and programs against the best performing schools in our area, California, and beyond to determine what it will take to help our special needs kids achieve their potential whether we have the resources today to operate those programs or reach that potential.