Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 18, 1993 TAG: 9305180080
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LAURA WILLIAMSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
For two hours each week, the Wythe County School system pays an occupational therapist to teach 9-year-old David Taylor how to use his right hand - to eat, to type on his computer, to use a calculator.
David's mother, Judy, relies on that specialist to provide her son with the skills he needs to survive. David has cerebral palsy.
But now his mother fears David will lose that specialist - and the help he needs to lead a normal life - under new regulations for special education students being proposed by the state.
Among other things, the regulations remove the requirement for using certified occupational therapists.
"They could have a janitor doing it," Taylor said.
What further infuriated her was that few people showed up to protest the new regulations at an April 28 public hearing in Abingdon. Apparently, she said, nobody knew about it.
She found out only the night before.
"I heard it through the grapevine," she said.
So enraged was Taylor she took her case to James Jones, president of the state Board of Education, and won a small victory.
Jones promised to hold a second hearing for Southwest Virginia parents in Roanoke County Wednesday. He will listen to parents' concerns for two hours at Hidden Valley Junior High School beginning at 7 p.m.
Area parents will add their voices to the hundreds who have recently begun protesting the changes, proposed to bring Virginia's laws in line with federal regulations.
The federal laws are less stringent than Virginia's, which some school administrators complain saddle them with "an undue burden," said Jim Foudriat, spokesman for the state Department of Education.
The regulations remove the requirement for seeking parental consent when changing a student's evaluation, placement or services. In other words, David's school could remove him from his mainstreamed classroom and place him in a class for multiple handicapped students, or stop giving him occupational therapy - all without his mother's permission.
The regulations would still require her to be notified, however.
And, they would remove requirements for all functions of special education advisory committees, which were set up to give parents and health agencies some say in how special education students get taught.
"What this does is take the parent completely out of the system," Lisa Merrill, a Roanoke County advisory committee member, told School Board members Thursday. She asked for - and was granted - support from the board in opposing the regulations.
Roanoke County School Superintendent Bayes Wilson, and special education director Eddie Kolb, already sent letters of support with parents who drove to a similar public hearing in Richmond last week.
The state added that hearing - and another one in Fairfax - after few people showed up at four hearings held in Petersburg, Norfolk, Warrenton and Abingdon. Parents who found out about the hearings too late lobbied the state - and their legislators - to do something about it.
It's not that the state didn't tell anyone about the hearings. The Department of Education mailed notices to all school superintendents, special education directors and chairmen of each school division's advisory committee.
It also printed notice of the hearings in local newspapers.
But somehow, word failed to get around to the parents of Virginia's 120,000 special education students.
"I got a notice, but I really didn't pay attention," said Linda St. Clair, chairman of Roanoke County's advisory committee.
St. Clair said the notice got buried under all the other mail she receives and she never realized what it was.
Kolb said he knew about the Abingdon hearing, even attended it. But his memo didn't instruct him to tell others about it, he said.
Only about 15 people showed up in Abingdon, he said.
Kolb said he didn't testify against the changes because he doesn't intend to change the county's process for parental involvement - regardless of whether the law requires it.
"It certainly isn't going to change the way we operate in Roanoke," either, said Bob Sieff, the city school system's director of special services.
While tomorrow's meeting won't be sponsored or attended by anybody from the state Department of Education, Jones said he doesn't see how it differs from a public hearing.
"It's as official as anything that the state Department of Education might do," he said. Besides, he's one of the people who will ultimately decide whether the regulations should pass.
And he's not so sure that they should - at least not in their current form.
Jones said he's sympathetic to parents who fear the changes will remove some of their rights in deciding how their children are taught.
He speculated that the board might put off voting on the regulations and allow parents more input into how to align them with federal laws.
"I would say that I would think that fellow members of the board share my concern about the feeling of the parents that they have not been made part of this process," he said.
Edward W. Carr, the state education department's deputy superintendent for administration, said it was the Board of Education that asked for changes in the first place.
The board asked his department to determine where state regulations exceeded federal ones, he said. But that doesn't mean the board will approve bringing the two in line in every respect, he said.
"Some things that cropped up really surprised us," Carr said.
The state board is scheduled to vote on the changes at its June 24 and 25 meeting, but may take up the issue as early as next week. Parents and others may continue to make public comment until Friday.
by CNB