My first teaching position with the NYC DOE was in a high school in Brooklyn. The school is noted as being one of the top 20 schools in the city. This is probably partially because of its medium size compared to other schools in the vicinity, with approximately 1200 students total, and its location in what is considereed a very good part of Brooklyn. This particular school is also well-known for its special education services. I now realize that the school's claim to fame is really the punchline of a very well crafted joke.
As I mentioned in my last post, I was a first year teacher who was assigned three self-contained English special education classes which I taught for five periods a day. I was not certified in special education. Here is where it gets worse: I was never, ever given a single student IEP. NEVER. I never saw one, I had no idea what the students' classifications were, and did not know which supplemental services each student received, if any. The only time I heard anything about testing accomodations was in January during Regents week, and that was only because I had to proctor.
One of my colleagues, who was certified in special education and had five years of experience, was alarmed at the fact that NO annual or triennial reviews were taking place. She kept pointing out that the school was not in compliance with special education law. (I must admit that at the time, I did not know much about special education law, annual reviews, etc., or the legal implications of an IEP document. After all, I was trained as a general education teacher.) When she brought up her concerns at a meeting, they were not received well at all. My colleague was so disturbed by this that after one year of teaching at this DOE top 20 school, she left teaching to pursue her Ph.D. Sounds like a great special education program, so far, doesn't it? It gets worse....
Towards the end of the school year the Assistant Principal of the Instructional Support department (the fancy name for special education department) called a meeting. Each one of us had a pile of IEPs placed before us. I can only speak for myself, but I did not know ANY of the students who were in my pile. I did not have ANY of those students in my classes. Those of us who were not certified in special education (and there were a minimum of three) were told to sign our names next to the general education teacher line on every page two in our pile. Annual and triennial review meetings for these students had never taken place. We never even had a meeting to discuss their progress. I did not know the students in my pile. Yet, I was being instructed to sign my name indicating that I had attended and participated in an annual review. I believe this is FRAUD.
Now you may be wondering about the parent(s) and the necessary parent signature. There was a system for this as well. At a different meeting, teachers were given lists of phone numbers. We were told to call the parents and if they picked up, we were instructed to tell them what services the students received. The phone calls lasted seconds each. If they didn't pick up, we were to leave a message. When that was done, a letter "T" was placed next to the parent signature (sometimes the parent's name was printed in, sometimes not).
Here is another dilemma: I was teaching English to self-contained classes. Did that make me the special education teacher? Oh, wait, I wasn't certified. Did that mean I was the general education teacher? The bottom line is, I was made to teach out of license, which means that the school was not in compliance as far as having certified providers for the students. I was never given the students' IEPs, which is a violation of special education law. (Any teacher who works with a special education student must have access to that student's IEP.) And finally, teachers were told to sign the IEPs of students they didn't have in their classes, for annual reviews which never took place. This is neither non-compliance nor a violation, but FRAUD. All of this while the school collected extra funds for each special education student.
Now back to the joke and the punchline. All of this happened in a top 20 DOE school, lauded for its special education program. The joke is on the students, the parents, and the teachers who are too new to the system and the process to know better. Dare I ask what happens in schools that do not have as good a reputation? The secret behind DOE's special education is that nothing is happening at all, let alone anything "special."
