Parents question Charles’ low percentage of special ed students

Wednesday, Aug. 15, 2007

They also questioned the findings of a recent report from the Maryland State Department of Education that said of the 24 school systems in Maryland, Charles County has the smallest percentage of students in special education.

Also, while the percentage of special education students in the state has risen, the percentage in Charles County has substantially dropped. In September 1995, nearly 13 percent of county students were identified as having a disability and receiving special education. By September 2005, the percentage dropped to 8.5 percent.

Deborah Mason and Dede Steinsberger said the numbers are low because the school system might be misdiagnosing students — just as it did their children.

‘‘It’s upsetting to me to hear the school system’s numbers are down when there are so many parents who maybe don’t know how to interpret the test results,” said Steinsberger, the coordinator of a help group for parents with special education students. ‘‘I really have to argue with the school to get my son retested. I think the reason Charles isn’t identifying as many kids is because the parents maybe don’t know to ask questions.”

Melissa Charbonnet, director of special education for the county school system, said she is ‘‘extremely confident” in the assessments her staff gives to students.

‘‘We have a phenomenal professional group. Our psychologists are outstanding, our speech therapists are wonderful, as is everyone on the team,” she said. ‘‘I would hold up their special education assessments to anyone’s, anywhere, anytime.”

Charbonnet is not allowed to comment on specific students or their individual education plans.

But she explained that the critical piece is that the IEP team is appropriately diagnosing children.

‘‘You don’t want to call a child disabled who isn’t,” she said. ‘‘Once the IEP teams have all their information to determine eligibility, the label that you call the kid is not nearly as important as whether they are getting the services they need for a quality education.”

The two parents took different approaches to get their children the services they believed they needed after Charles County Public Schools’ initial diagnosis.

Steinsberger decided to work with the school to get her son reassessed in hopes he would be properly diagnosed the second time around.

‘‘You really want to get the school system to work with you, not against you,” said Steinsberger, 43. ‘‘When my children are 18 they are going to ask me if I did the best for them, and I can say I advocated to get the best education for them.”

After being retested, her son was eventually classified as having multiple disabilities that would qualify him for special education — including attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, a mild learning disability and being ‘‘uniquely gifted.”

Mason, on the other hand, decided to have her son reassessed by an outside source, Children’s National Medical Center, after she said the school system continually diagnosed her son as not having a learning disability. She said only then, after Children’s Hospital diagnosed her son as having a pervasive developmental disorder and Asperger’s syndrome, and after hiring a lawyer, did Charles County offer her son out-of-county placement at a school that specializes in dealing with his disabilities.

But getting outside testing is expensive, and most insurance companies will not cover the costs, so that is typically not an option for parents, Steinsberger said.

Mason, who has a long history with the special education department, said she is not confident of its assessments. She advocates that every parent understand the tests the schools use.

‘‘You have to question what the school system tells you,” Mason said, ‘‘and I am afraid a lot of parents don’t question their children’s placement, and their children are falling through the cracks and not getting the services they need.”

E-mail Jacqueline Rabe at jrabe@somdnews.com.