To the Editor:

“Warwick is the only district that has weighting of special education students” True, and yet a total misconception.

In Warwick a special education student counts as either 1.5 or 2.0 towards the total count of students in a classroom depending on age and level of disability. Class composition of students is then determined by a complicated chart. The goal is to distribute special education students in a way that they will get the attention they need and teachers can still service the regular education students in the class as well. 

No other district uses this method to adjust the number of special education students in class. True, However, almost all other districts use a method of assigning classes a ratio or percent of special education students that can be placed in the class. For example: for every four regular education students in a class, one special education student can be place in that class, for the next four regular education students another special education student can be placed in that class, and so on until the classroom maximum is reached. The percent method is similar and has approximately the same result. In all districts, a class that goes over the ratio, percent or weighted chart limits is assigned a special education teacher to assist the regular education teacher with the special education students. This is called a Co-Taught class. This set up helps to meet the conditions of a special education student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP). The Warwick district wants to eliminate both weightedness and co-taught classes without putting any alternative in place. Due to cuts in special education teachers it would not be possible to meet the conditions of students’ IEP’s, violating state law. As parents know, the requirements in place to graduate high school have been increased significantly in the last few years. Students with special education needs often struggle with these requirements and are then in jeopardy of graduating, more so if they were to loose these extra supports currently in place in the classroom.

Dr. Connolly, PhD, Director of Special Services in Warwick, stated in a newsletter to her department that “most students with IEP’s do not have cognitive deficits “and therefore don’t need a special educator in the classroom. She goes on to say “The most frequently occurring disability categories do not in fact involve a student with cognitive deficits: specific learning disabilities, other health impaired (ADD) and emotional/behavioral disorder. The thought that a student with an IEP automatically requires more support is, in most cases, wrong. Please, Dr. Connolly, visit a classroom with just one emotional/behavioral disorder student. The three categories that you mention are the three that require the most (not the least) support of a special educator.

Dr. Connolly also states that it is “discriminatory to perpetuate a system in which students with IEP’s are treated differently.” In Warwick students are generally unaware that they have an IEP until they reach high school, when they are included in the IEP meetings. Younger students are only aware that they get the extra help they need. In high school, students are, for the most part, grateful for that help, because it is the difference in graduating or not.

I hate to be misquoted, but Dr. Connolly did miss quote what I said at the September 8 school committee meeting. She quoted me as saying that I said that other districts have eliminated weighting. I said that they never used weighting, they used ratios or percents as a way to distribute special education students, which are just other ways of accomplishing the same thing as weighting. She went on to credit me with a comment of another speaker. I never suggested that we are clairvoyant.

Pilgrim High School’s use of weighted students and co-taught classes has increased our graduation rates and reduced the freshman failure rates significantly. It works!

Donna Blue-Tobin

Guidance Counselor and ASPEN Scheduler

Past Guidance

Department Head

Past President & member Rhode Island School Counselor Association

Member American School counselor

Association

Past teacher

of mathematics