Report Gives Good Special Ed. Marks for Bedford Central

An outside audit gives good feedback for the Bedford Central School District's special education program.

The report, given to the school board at its Jan. 25 meeting by Futures Education, was done for a broader program evaluation in the district, according to Superintendent Jere Hochman.

The presenting consultants, Michael Neiman and John McGuire, had good words for officials.

“You have an extremely talented and supportive special education department," Neiman told the board.

The firm put together its report after spending nine months of research for the district, including feedback with 110 people—parents and faculty included —looking at records and conducting campus visits.

Aside from the quality of staff, the consultants praised the district for having an inclusive culture between special education and general education.

“We don’t see those silos," Neiman said.

The district was commended for having a culture of celebration for students who leave individualized education programs (IEP)—they are the documents that outline provided services—and an emerging process for response to intervention (RTI), which provides additional academic supports to students who may or may not be in special education programs.

Other compliments included frontloading support services for younger kids and a relatively low out-of-district placement rate.

There were also suggested areas for improvement. They included fine tuning the administration, as the consultants recommended creating an assistant special education director and elevating the consulting teacher position to a coordinator level.

Another issue for the district is that a minority of parents tend to be concerned about the changing of special education services and see the IEP as "the only game in town." In response, the consultants suggested doing more to promote the RTI transition stage and engaging the community.

Other areas for feedback included being more efficient with occupational therapist and physical therapist staffing models.

Lara Perkins, mother to a child receiving support at Mount Kisco Elementary School—whom she felt could be placed out of district if they lived elsewhere—raised concerns that changing the staffing system or services for occupational or physical therapy could result in people being placed out of the district.

The consultants had praise, meanwhile, for the district's co-teaching program at Pound Ridge Elementary School, which involves a mix of general and special education teachers working with a cohort of kids brought in from across the district. They outlined alternatives that included replication of the program for each school—a higher price tag was noted—or creating other programs that could become more self-segregating in nature, the latter of which they would not recommend.

“We don’t see a perfect answer to this," McGuire said.