Regents Vote to Relax Psychologists Mandate

[Chris_Wendt]

Quoting from News12.com

NYS education officials vote to change special ed rules

(11/15/11) ELWOOD - Education officials voted yesterday to change state special education requirements, a decision possibly affecting thousands of students across Long Island.

The proposal calls for several cost-saving measures, including the elimination of a mandate that school psychologists help evaluate special-needs students. Lawmakers have not said how much the cuts would save, but local school officials say there would be no financial benefit. (End of Quote)

This is not an easy post for me, as I have supported Special Education efforts dogmatically for decades. However, as much as I have supported and backed Special Education initiatives, I have, over those same decades, had a real problem with the lack of justifiable cost-benefit effects from both the number of psychologists the district employs, and the huge cost of employing them.

Note that this decision is not final until and unless it is ratified by the Legislature and voted into law. Whether or not that ever happens is beyond the scope of this writing.

But most notable and telling is this statement in the News12 report:

"The proposal calls for several cost-saving measures, including the elimination of a mandate that school psychologists help evaluate special-needs students. Lawmakers have not said how much the cuts would save, but local school officials say there would be no financial benefit."

This, in my opinion, is sandbagging at its worst. Defense of the status quo against all change. Absolute inertia by the Education Establishment.

If this MANDATE RELIEF proposal is enacted into law, but then if the Wantagh Board of Education elects not to take financial advantage of it, the hue and cry about ""Mandate"" ""Relief"" should cease forever in Wantagh.

For the purposes of understanding the order of magnitude of the cost of District-employed Psychologists, the 2010-11 Psychologists Salary budget line was $576,460 plus payroll taxes and benefits.

Watching and waiting...

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

A few comments...

I don't know what the status of this is (presumably passed) but it was definitely given the bums rush in pushing it through. When it was in Newsday earlier this week, I saw no reaction from any organization (NY school psychs, advocacy groups, etc.) so I assume they weren't given sufficient time for input.

Your reaction is a bit simplistic, that if passed we can excess Wantagh school psychs and turn up a 1/2 mil in savings. It doesn't work that way. The role of a school psych is all over the NY Part 200 regs so don't see how that can be done without gutting those regs.

You know my usual complaints about state ed, how dinosaur-like, cumbersome and always too little/too late? Federal special ed guidelines (IDEA or IDEIA) were last revised in 2004, it took NY until something like 2008 to revise part 200 regs to reflect that. It took our politicians and state ed 4 years to get their proverbial acts together? Not exactly nimble. There have been amendments as late as March 2011 (to reflect role of RtI? again, too little, too late, last state in the nation, lol). I think one of those amendments, for mandate relief, was that a school psych instead of a PPS Director or Supv could chair an annual review. Given the degree of involvement school psychs have in special ed regs compliance, I can't play this out in my head how they would change/gut part 200 regs and do so in any sort of expedient manner. Part 200 regs have to stem from fed regs too. Depending on how they handle that, I'm grabbing some popcorn and pulling up a chair waiting to see the legal fall-out stemming from that.

You talked about a $500-600k savings. Regs say that technically sound, robust testing should be done by qualified individuals. Well, let's do the #'s on that. 3,500 enrollment x ~12% classification rate = 420 special ed kids. Assume 1/3 of them are due for triennials every year = 140. 140 IEE's at district expense (assume $3,500 for at minimum, a private neuropsychological eval that district pays for) = $500k. So, where is your "savings"? And that is without ancillary professional evals e.g., CAPD. I'm pretty sure for any (drastic) change in placement, evals need to be updated so my 1/3 guess for triennials may be understated.

At any point in special ed, evals can usually be requested by parents. If a district refuses, they must demonstrate through due process, why they are refusing. So, that involves legal fees going right to Guercio & Guercio. An unexpected added expense in your scenario.

Oh, and along the way, please let me know when any of this is 'for the kids'...

Actually, even with school psychs on staff, a parent can say they want an IEE at district expense. And they don't even have to explain why. Wantagh may ask why but parents don't have answer that question at all - they either have to call the district lawyer or write the IEE check.

Let's go on to role of school psych. As I stated before they can chair annual reviews. A CSE sub-committee or CSE must include a member that can authorize services/changes for the district. I think that can be school psych, PPS Director or Supv or a principal. So if no school psychs in Wantagh, can you imagine principals chairing CSE's? It's not their area of expertise. I wouldn't want them to do that.

A CSE is comprised of certain mandated members. The school psych (along with PPS Director and Supv *sometimes*) is virtually the only member besides the parents that have the expertise of the global view of the child. They pull all the observations and different reports/tests together to determine what may be going on with the child and input into a proposed action plan. Other CSE members do not have that training or expertise e.g., speech only knows speech, OT only knows OT, etc. Also, they have 'qualified' opinions/input on what reports/tests need to be done so that Wantagh is in compliance with state and fed law.

While school psychs are primarily special ed, they are not limited to special ed only e.g., I think FL as a social skills/anti-bullying? program that is for the entire school, general & special ed kids.

Let's see - pension reform, salary caps, etc. are all places that the state can tap into for mandate relief before touching the kids, supposedly since the kids are the #1 priority in education, right?

[Chris_Wendt]

Lilly posited: "I don't know what the status of this is (presumably passed) but it was definitely given the bums rush in pushing it through. When it was in Newsday earlier this week, I saw no reaction from any organization (NY school psychs, advocacy groups, etc.) so I assume they weren't given sufficient time for input."

I have never known the Board of Regents to rush any decision. Nor do the Regents ever act without copious reports and justification. The Commissioner (& SED) support this move, and presumably the lack of input that agrees with your thinking, being limited to the News12 writer of the article would indicate no deep-seated or widespread opposition, other than that of the School Psychologists, whom I certainly can concede as being unanimously opposed.

Lilly continues: "Your reaction is a bit simplistic, that if passed we can excess Wantagh school psychs and turn up a 1/2 mil in savings. It doesn't work that way. The role of a school psych is all over the NY Part 200 regs so don't see how that can be done without gutting those regs."

As simply as I could put it, but I never said what the magnitude of the savings would be, other than, more than zero. I expect Wantagh could realize between $125K and $250K annual savings from a combination of reduction in force and outsourcing some of what are now "staff psychologist" positions.

Lilly recited: "You know my usual complaints about state ed...."

I would like to focus on this item as a mandate relief opportunity, rather than re-hash your recurring complaints about other SED issues, some of which I agree with you.

Lilly went on: "You talked about a $500-600k savings."

No, I didn't say that; $500K-600K was the 2010-11 Psychologists salaries budget line. I think we could save $125K-$150K if the State Legislature approves this Regents mandate relief proposal.

(Several paragraphs of really deep thoughts in Lilly's response are way beyond the scope of a mandate relief discussion with someone a simplistic as I am. They are not addressed at this time by me.)

However, the deep data continued: "Let's go on to role of school psych."

I need to beg-off discussing those details, again as being not germane to Wantagh saving money if and when the Legislature enacts the subject SED/Regents mandate relief decision.

Lilly's coup de grace: "While school psychs are primarily special ed, they are not limited to special ed only e.g., I think FL as a social skills/anti-bullying? program that is for the entire school, general & special ed kids."

My coup fourré:Uh-oh! Why would we be using Psychologists instead of Social Workers for this purpose? No, strike that. Why would we not incorporate that program into the curriculum and have our classroom teachers deliver it? And if such a program exists and has any real merit, any educational or behavioral efficacy, then why is it only in one elementary school and not all three?

Anyhow, we are both too far out in front of this supposed "issue". The mandate relief benefit may never see the light of day in the Legislature. But, hey, you never know.

Keepin' it simple,

Chris Wendt

[lilly]

Here is more info:

www.nyasp.org/mandate_relief/

They may be gutting the regs in terms of evals and such for students, all of which is TBD until something is formally issued mid-Dec.

Changes, if they happen, won't occur for a while since they have to pass thru legislative action (our contacts are Fuschillo and McDonough?).

I agree that there are problems in special ed, escalating expenses being one of them. However, I don't have that much faith in the public school system to solve them (including the Regents, local BOE's, etc. least not politicians which this is).

Usually, early and more info about the kids helps them. Early identification, intervention and remediation - all of which starts with proper initial and on-going evals - has the best outcome, theoretically lowering long term expenses. This action can put that in jeopardy.

Here is more reading on the mandate relief in general.

www.regents.nysed.gov/meetings/2011Meetings/February2011/211p12sad1.pdf

[Chris_Wendt]

Looks to me like School Psychologists are scared of this Regents/State Ed recommendation.
By looks like, I mean, hey, they are drawing lines in the sand.

My perspective, the School Psychologists salary line in the budget was a whopping $576,460 plus payroll taxes and benefits, which is money that could either be better spent, or saved to keep our taxes in bounds.

As far as I am concerned, BOCES ought to provide Psychologist services to their component districts on call, as needed, for mandated participation.

Ditto for Social Workers, on-call, when and if needed.

But that's just me. No, wait! It's way more that just me.

Seriously, thank you for the update, Lilly. Interesting reading and valuable information.

Regards,

Chris Wendt