Special Education Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

Teachers Struggle With Unruly Students, But Legislature Is Looking At Options

School discipline has been a key legislative issue for several years. As part of the new committee hearing process, the House Education committee spent two days discussing House Bill 2515.

The bill aims to expand teachers’ ability to remove disruptive students from grades kindergarten through six. But the bill also has further requirements including suspension of the unruly student and placement in alternative education.

HB 2515 is functionally identical to Senate Bill 614, which failed to pass the House on the final day of session last year.

Lindsey McIntosh, general counsel for Kanawha County Schools, spoke to both Education committees about the bill’s legal implications in 2024. She appeared again Monday to voice the same concerns, namely that the bill’s requirements that a student be removed from their classroom and be assessed run into existing federal requirements for the treatment of students with special needs.

“And nine times out of 10, if you are dealing with a student that has the kicking, the biting, the spitting, all of that stuff in an elementary classroom, you are going to have to do a manifestation even if they haven’t already been identified, or even if this legislation does not pass,” McIntosh said.

McIntosh is referring to a procedure in which administrators determine whether a student’s behavior was caused by, or a manifestation of, their disability.

“Because at that point, at least in Kanawha County, we would have hoped that we would have already identified them as special ed if they were special ed eligible,” McIntosh said. “If they weren’t, then what this legislation does is automatically push them into special education, thus stating that they need a manifestation for the removal, thus not doing, I think, what’s intended here, which is stating that the child can be removed, because the child cannot be removed without that manifestation meeting, and it will manifest.”

Jim Brown, executive director for the West Virginia School Board Association, raised the issue of funding for the alternative education settings the bill says students will be sent to. He said he is only aware of 13 such programs in the entire state. Regardless of programs being established, Brown said staffing would remain a barrier.

“They are not in control, but we’re going to remove them into an alternative setting that doesn’t exist, and probably that alternative setting, I think we all know this, a couple thousand teacher shortages, vacancies across the state,” Brown said. “So who are going to be the teachers that are going to be in this classroom? Well, it’s not going to be a certified behavior specialist. It’s probably not going to be a core elementary behavior or a teacher. It’s maybe what we used to call a 5202 sub. It’s somebody that has got a four year degree, not in education, and they can go through a training, become certified to be a teacher without any training.”

Brown said the bill’s actions will not address the core issue causing serious behavioral issues in students so young.

“The bill talks about student discipline, but in fact, the real issue here isn’t student discipline. It is really about the mental health issues. A lot of these kids come to us as early as preschool with these behaviors,” he said.

Changes Based On Testimony

The bill was taken up again by the House Education committee for markup and passage Tuesday afternoon.

Based on the testimony heard Monday, a committee substitute for HB 2515 changed key aspects of the bill including the definition of violent, threatening or intimidating behaviour that would trigger a students’ removal.

The committee substitute also makes an evaluation permissive rather than mandatory, potentially avoiding the conflict with federally required procedures McIntosh identified.

Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, said he was happy to see the changes made based on the testimony given Monday in the new committee hearing process. But he remained skeptical of removing students from established learning environments without proper alternatives in place.

“That seems like the new process worked in that regard we have, I do have a better bill than we had yesterday. I am concerned that without the appropriate resources, though, that this is still going to, could lead to some of the children who need our help the most slipping through the cracks and not getting any education.

The committee substitute was recommended to the full House for passage. More discipline bills are expected to move in the coming weeks.

State Board Of Ed. Reviews Local School Takeovers, Elects New Leadership

Much of the West Virginia Board of Education’s Monday morning meeting was spent hearing updates on three of the state interventions into local school systems.

Four of the state’s county school systems are currently under state control, and much of the West Virginia Board of Education’s Monday morning meeting was spent hearing updates on three of the state interventions into local school systems.

Local School Takeovers Update

Logan County Schools has been under state control since the fall of 2022 after a report from the Department of Education’s Office of Support and Accountability found 46 points of non-compliance in the school system ranging from failing to post meeting agendas, to improper use of county funds.

Upshur County Schools began their intervention a year ago in June 2023 after a “special circumstances” review revealed tens of thousands of dollars in misspent federal funds, among other financial misappropriations.

It was reported that county policies have been reviewed to correct and improve practices including overtime pay policies and more than $800,000 in federal and state funds have been repaid.

Hampshire County Schools Special Education Services was most recently placed under a state of emergency in November 2023.

Board President Paul Hardesty said Hampshire’s special education program was not alone across the state’s 55 counties in facing issues.

“I wish some of them would come to us and call us and say hey, we got a problem.” he said. “We’re having problems, come and help us – rather than wait until after the fact [when] we come in to do our reviews.”

Jeff Kelley, officer of educational accountability for the Department of Education, reported that all three school systems are improving. But he said near the end of the meeting that there is no specific timeline for intervention to end.

“You don’t check off a set of boxes and then hand the keys back,” Kelley said. “It’s not the way it works. If things are better in the current construct, why are you trying to get out of it? I don’t think intervention’s necessarily a bad thing.”

Kelley reflected that many of the state’s recent interventions have come from what he saw as decision makers setting aside accountability to appease adults.

“They do so at the expense of student learning and what’s best for kids,” he said. “What I know about these folks that are involved, is they’re not gonna put adult happiness ahead of student achievement and student learning, they’re not going to do that, we need to be proud of the work they’re doing.”

The board placed Martinsburg North Middle School in Berkeley County under a state of emergency in May.

New Leadership

The board also voted on its new leadership, with member Nancy White becoming the new president. White previously held the position of vice president of the board and has served on the board since 2018 when she was appointed to fill an unexpired term. She was reappointed in January 2023.

“I am humbled to be elected as president of the West Virginia Board of Education,” White said. “This board is dedicated to the education of children in our public schools and the advancement of education to support our state’s economy and future. We have worked earnestly to represent our education community and the critical work that occurs every day at the hands of our educators and administrators. It is a privilege to continue to serve my state because the work ahead of us is so very important.”

Victor Gabriel was elected to vice president, and after the restructuring of offices F. Scott Rotruck was elected as secretary. Hardesty, who served as board president for the past two years, will move to the newly created position of legislative liaison.

The board holds elections each July to elect or re-elect officers. President White may serve two consecutive one-year terms as President.

Babies, Beavers And A Special Session At The Capitol, This West Virginia Week

Another year’s legislative session is now behind us, but news of a special session this spring means the West Virginia Legislature won’t be gone for long. In the meantime, we’ll dive into stories on education, including stories on a new study on special education and a group of West Virginia principals visiting the United States Capitol.

Another year’s legislative session is now behind us, but news of a special session this spring means the West Virginia Legislature won’t be gone for long.

In the meantime, we’ll dive into stories on education, including stories on a new study on special education and a group of West Virginia principals visiting the United States Capitol.

Plus, we’ll discuss potential expansions to passenger train services, protections for residents with Long COVID and the return of the beaver to Appalachia.

Finally, we’ll listen to the first installment of a new series on parenting that will explore the most up-to-date advice for infant care.

Jack Walker is our host this week. Our theme music is by Matt Jackfert.

West Virginia Week is a web-only podcast that explores the week’s biggest news in the Mountain State. It’s produced with help from Bill Lynch, Briana Heaney, Chris Schulz, Curtis Tate, Emily Rice, Eric Douglas, Jack Walker, Liz McCormick and Randy Yohe.

Learn more about West Virginia Week.

Special Education Numbers Increasing Despite Overall Enrollment Decline

A new analysis of special education data hopes to advance understanding and solutions for students with the greatest need.

During the past five years, enrollment in West Virginia’s public schools has declined by nearly 10 percent. In 2017, 270,613 students were enrolled in West Virginia public schools. By the fall of 2023, that number had dropped to 245,047.

However, educators like Rachel Brown say during the same period the numbers of special education students have gone up.

“Everyone’s overworked because our numbers keep rising,” she said. “And our county has done a lot of cuts this year, because our enrollment numbers have gone down, but we couldn’t cut. Our numbers have gone up.”

Brown is the intellectual disabilities and autism (ID/AU) special education curriculum specialist for Kanawha County Schools. She oversees more than 60 self-contained classrooms across the county, where students with the most complex needs, who require the most support, are placed.

The increase is not unique to Kanawha County, the state’s largest school district.

“It’s increasing everywhere,” Brown said. “I was discussing with a specialist yesterday. Ten years ago, she was in a rural part of the county. And I was like, I bet you had a sweet, tiny little classroom of like, five, because our maximum self-contained is 12. And now in the same location, we have two self-contained classrooms at this school, and they’re both full. So that’s a huge change in over a decade.”

A new analysis from the Institute for Policy Research and Public Affairs at West Virginia University’s Rockefeller School of Policy and Politics is quantifying some of those changes.

“In West Virginia, it is a problem of some magnitude,” said Samuel Workman, director of the institute. “We’re talking between, depending on the year you look, anywhere from 40,000 to 50,000 students. So it constitutes about one in five in the current year of students, 20 percent of our students. That’s a great number of our young folks who are on independent educational plans.”

Graphs display the increase in IDEA plans in West Virginia over the past five years.

*Credit: Samuel Workman/West Virginia University*

Workman and his team analyzed the last five years of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act data (IDEA), from the West Virginia Department of Education. The report compiled a data set from 2017 to 2023 addressing the demographics, geography and trends in independent educational plans (IEP), in the state.

“States will monitor things like how often these kids are in normal classrooms, or standard classrooms, I should say, any disciplinary actions taken against these children, and sort of assessing performance over time, both for their sake and relative to other students,” Workman said.

Workman’s study shows the breadth of conditions – both physical and developmental – covered by IEPs. They run the gamut from difficulty with vision or hearing, to psychological issues.

The largest category is now “specific learning disabilities,” which Workman said the federal government defines as psychological problems with processing language. But categories like autism and developmental delay have witnessed increases, especially in recent years.

“Which I understand to be associated with a whole host of environmental problems in children, substance abuse in a home being one,” Workman said. “But those are the sorts of things we are seeing at least at present time, explosion is probably too strong of a word, but certainly sharp upticks in the number of children categorized within those disability categories versus the traditional sort of hearing disabilities.”

The analysis also reveals interesting demographic distributions, including the fact that a near two-thirds majority of students on IEPs are male.

Brown said her experience aligns with that finding, as does research into the diagnosing of the condition.

“We do have a higher rate of boys in our autism classrooms,” Brown said. “The research [shows] females are able to mask better, so they’re not identified as frequently or as often early on. Even with ADHD, boys are often identified before girls.”

A graph from Workman’s IDEA data analysis shows the discrepancy in IEPs between male and female students.

*Credit: Samuel Workman/West Virginia University*

More data and study is needed to better understand such discrepancies, as well as the relationship between the various factors driving the trends, including the opioid crisis and lack of access to resources like early childhood interventions.

Workman credits the state’s Department of Education for making the data easier to access. He hopes his study helps to make it easier to use and understand and ultimately bring more eyes to the issue.

“The way I organize data is not the way a public health person would organize the data, it’s not the way an education professional organizers data,” Workman said. “Continuing to work to make that data as integratable as possible with our public health systems and our education systems will work wonders in understanding the nature of the problem, what we’re dealing with.”

Workman said with one in five students having IEPs, the far-reaching impact of education – from the immediate impact of each student to the broader implications for workforce development and businesses – makes a better understanding of special education needs imperative.

“The degree to which we can better understand these children, help them to the extent possible to lead sort of productive, rich lives, both at home and at their place of work and all this sort of stuff, the better off the state’s going to be. So it’s a real problem with a real need for lots of eyes,” he said.

Brown agrees.

“I always have hope, that’s the best part of being a special educator, you always have to hope,” she said. “I’m hoping that this will help make special education a priority, and just education in general a priority in our state.”

Special Education Staffing, School Athletics Discussed In Education Committees

The House Education Committee moved to address a critical shortage of special education staff, while the Senate Education Committee took a rarely seen action in their meeting.

Wednesday was the first ever Special Education Day at the Capitol, and the House Education Committee took the opportunity to move House Bill 4902.

The bill would first raise the pay of special education aides to match the pay of “Early Childhood Classroom Assistant Teachers” created by last year’s Third Grade Success Act. And then it would give special education aides a 5 percent raise on top of that.

The bill also gives a 10 percent raise to Special Education Teachers in self-contained classrooms, where students with the most complex needs, who require the most support, are placed.

Another component of the bill that required board members who are certified in the subject area of a critical vacancy to go to the classroom and fill that position until someone is hired to do so was removed by amendment during the meeting.

Bill sponsor Del. Elliot Pritt, R-Fayette, said he agreed with the amendment because it left the most important action intact.

“We have people sitting in board offices at desks who are qualified to do jobs in the classroom, while we have critical vacancies in classrooms, across counties,” he said. “And all this would have done is tell them, hey, if there’s an empty critical vacancy, you have to be in the classroom till it’s filled. And you want to talk about lighting a fire under somebody’s rear end to aggressively try to find someone to fill those positions. You make them leave their office to go into that position for a while.”

The bill was voted to the House floor, but first with a recommendation to the House Finance Committee. The bill does not have a fiscal note at this time, and Del. Mike Pushkin, D-Kanawha, urged his colleagues on that committee to take HB 4902 seriously. He said it was one of the issues he hears most about from his constituents.

“This is something that’s needed. It’s at a crisis level, the shortage that we have in our special education classrooms,” Pushkin said. “I certainly hope that they prioritize this bill. I know it’s late in the session for us to take this up, but better late than never. So those of you that are on the Finance Committee, get on it.”

House Education also discussed and advanced:

HB 4829, Relating employment of service personnel and removing the requirement for a high school diploma or general education development certificate.
HB 5425, Granting a waiver to fill certain professional educator positions of employment when no applicants have six or more years of experience.

In Senate Education

The Senate Education Committee met Thursday morning and took a rare action to reconsider an amended bill that they had recommended to the full Senate Tuesday.

Senate Bill 813 would allow students to participate in non-school competitive activities and remove restrictions on external teams as a condition for playing for a school, team or sport.

Sen. Mike Oliverio, R-Monongalia, rescinded his amendment extending the bill’s provisions to coaches, allowing them to coach multiple teams. Speaking to the broader bill, he gave the example of a cheer squad that could not cheer for their school’s basketball team all season because their competitive team season had a slight overlap.

“I think the goal of this bill is to give opportunities to children, but also give flexibility to parents to be able to decide what activities they will allow their children to participate in which ones will drive them to the school or locations for,” Oliverio said. “I think there’s some good that can come from this bill.”

The unamended bill was once again recommended to the full Senate.

Senate Education also discussed and advanced:

SB 842 – Modifying training requirements for county boards of education members
SB 859 – Limiting requirements for issuance of professional teaching certificate
SB 861 – Increasing support and professional development for educators

House Approves Bill To Arm W.Va. School Teachers

On this episode of The Legislature Today, there was contentious third reading debate in the House of Delegates over the much talked about bill to arm teachers as concealed carry protection officers.

Updated on Thursday, Feb. 22, 2024 at 10:14 a.m.

On this episode of The Legislature Today, there was contentious third reading debate in the House of Delegates over the much talked about bill to arm teachers as concealed carry protection officers. Randy Yohe has the latest on House Bill 4299.

In the Senate, the chamber had one of its busier days as official deadlines draw closer. Next Wednesday is Crossover Day, meaning that all bills have to be out of their chamber of origin to have a chance of becoming law. Briana Heaney has more.

Also, the Senate Government Organization Committee advanced a bill that would promote Randall Reid-Smith, the curator of the Department of Arts, Culture and History, to a cabinet secretary. The committee approved Senate Bill 865, which now goes to the full chamber. West Virginia Public Broadcasting is part of the Department of Arts, Culture and History.

A health facility would not need to obtain a certificate of need to operate in West Virginia if a certain House bill becomes law. Emily Rice has more.

Special education educators, students and their families gathered at the Capitol to advocate for more support in their classrooms. Chris Schulz has the story.

And, on History Day at the Capitol, the rotunda is sent back in time. It becomes a place of living history, where the lives and lessons from our state’s past become touchstones for the present and future. Randy Yohe has the story.

Finally, women’s health has been a popular topic in the Senate this year. Many bills and amendments have been introduced that focus on women’s health policy. Briana Heaney speaks with Sen. Patricia Rucker, R-Jefferson, and Del. Anitra Hamilton, D-Monongalia, about women’s health in the state and legislation that affects women.

Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.

The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.

Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.