July 8, 2021, Richmond (VA) Times-Dispatch: 'It feels sneaky': Virginia lawmakers allocated $6.5 million to adult special education students - but disability advocates say there's a loophole https://richmond.com/news/local/education/it-feels-sneaky-virginia-lawmakers-allocated-6-5-million-to-adult-special-education-students-/article_9b5b843e-68c0-5b6f-b9c8-0e3b692754d3.html
Virtual school was tough for T.Q. Jackson, an autistic 21-year-old from Prince Edward County, about an hour southwest of Richmond. He normally attends school at the Faison Center in Richmond, which specializes in working with students with autism to get an education better suited for their needs than public school can provide. His grandmother, Catherine Smith, says he basically lost an entire year of learning during the pandemic….
For many students with disabilities, specialized programs such as the Faison Center provide life skills and socialization desperately needed — especially as they transition into adulthood. At the Faison Center, in addition to his academics, Jackson was able to learn to cook, and he was also part of an employment academy, where students can typically get internships and learn life skills that they often can’t learn in public school.
So Smith was ecstatic when she learned the Virginia legislature passed a budget amendment in its 2021 special session that allocated $6.5 million for an additional year of education for students like her grandson who had aged out at 21.
Smith thought the additional dollars meant Jackson would be able to complete another year at the Faison Center, where he’d been for four years, and her meetings with her grandson’s Individual Education Plan team in Prince Edward suggested the same, she said. But that changed around May, Smith said, after state Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane sent a memo to the state’s 132 school district superintendents pointing them to a discrepancy between state funding and federal law.
“This initiative is temporary, and is not associated with any provision of the IDEA or the Regulations Governing Special Education Programs for Children with Disabilities in Virginia because the student has reached the maximum age of eligibility,” Lane wrote in the memo. “Therefore, the requirements of a free appropriate public education (FAPE) are not applicable.”
Some disability advocates say that memo points school districts to a kind of loophole between state money allocated for these students and federal law that says they’re not covered after age 21.
“Parents are confused as to why the regulations wouldn’t apply in school districts,” said Todd Ratner, a lawyer who focuses on special education law and often challenges the VDOE when it comes to students with disabilities. “[The VDOE] seems to be going out of their way to say that the regulations don’t apply.”…
In 1990, the law’s name changed to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which is now colloquially known as the IDEA, which gives students access to a free and appropriate public education until they turn 21.
Often specialized centers, such as Faison, are the best or only way for students to get that education, which is decided during the IEP process — and it’s up to the localities to foot the bill, at least until the students turn 21.
So while Virginia lawmakers allocated $6.5 million for the roughly 600 Virginia students over 21 to continue their education for an additional year, those students were no longer entitled to a Free and Appropriate Education under federal law.
That meant that Prince Edward would be within its legal rights to decide against paying for Jackson’s tuition to the Faison Center, which can cost twice as much as public school. And Smith said that’s what happened….
Instead, Smith said the school system offered Jackson a chance to learn at his local high school, but Smith fears a larger population wouldn’t be conducive for his learning….
“There’s always this real concern when kids age out of school, as to what comes next,” Ratner said. “School has been the primary source of engagement during the day for kids with disabilities until they reach age 22. And then services are very different for adults.”
Smith said she worries that without an extra year of learning for Jackson following COVID, he’ll be lost in the system without a transition plan. …
The guidance sent to superintendents from the VDOE says that the Post-Secondary Advancement Plan is not meant to act as an extension of an IEP, nor is it a new IEP. That puzzles Ratner the most. …
Comments