fbpx

Drastic Rule Change

This change has been devastating for the families of Jewish children with special needs.
[additional-authors]
June 28, 2001

When Talia Hill started kindergarten, the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) didn’t know how to handle her. Hill had been diagnosed with mild cerebral palsy, moderate hearing loss and seizures. This combination made her unsuited for any of the district’s self-contained special-education services: a program for the hearing-impaired, for instance, would not accept a child who used a walker.

Ultimately, Hill found a home at Yeshivath Ohr Eliyahu, a school that prides itself on welcoming children with disabilities. For six years, Hill’s education at Ohr Eliyahu was bolstered by services provided through the LAUSD, including a one-on-one aide during the secular portion of her schoolday, and a special computer and scanner adapted to her needs. She also received hearing, speech and occupational therapies on a public school campus several times weekly.

Now all this has come to an end. The services Hill enjoyed were mandated through the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), federal legislation adopted in 1975 that transformed the concept of educational entitlement for children with special needs. But when IDEA was reauthorized by Congress in 1997, several key provisions changed.

This change has been devastating for the families of Jewish children with special needs.

Local school districts were no longer required to serve special-needs children who were not enrolled full-time in the public system. Early this year, private school students living within the LAUSD service area were stripped of their individualized entitlements. Instead, the district has offered a modest consolation: its experts will consult with faculty at the child’s day school for a total of 10 hours per school year.

It is often estimated that 10 percent of all American schoolchildren need special-education help. Hill’s case is more complicated than most, but hundreds of local Jewish day schoolchildren have spent a few hours each week at public schools for expert help with their learning disabilities and physical problems.

Beth Jawary, educational director of the Etta Israel Center, which serves children with developmental and learning disabilities, feels the LAUSD has been particularly harsh in its implementation of the new federal guidelines. As she puts it, “I haven’t heard of any other district coming in and taking equipment from a child,” as happened to Talia Hill. Like other affected families, the Hills are now scrambling to pay for services that once were free, services that can cost upwards of $100 an hour. The alternative is for Talia to leave the friendly day school that reinforces her family’s religious values and face the uncertainties of a large, impersonal public school.

LAUSD representatives said that it is acting within well within the Federal guidelines.

“The district is not taking away services to students,” said Donnalyn Jacque-Anton, assistant superintendent and director of special education. “They’re being offered a Free and Appropriate Public Education. That’s what the law requires, and it’s being offered to students in the public school setting.”

The current policy covers students between the ages of five and 21, she said. No change has been made in the services offered to preschoolers with special needs, she added.

The LAUSD also maintains an on-staff administrator whose job it is to handle special-education issues as they relate to children at private and charter schools.

Confronted with this crisis, the Bureau of Jewish Education of Greater Los Angeles (BJE) has sought to lighten the burden on families with special needs. For the first time in recent memory, the BJE has authorized a petition drive, through which parents can call upon the federal government to reconsider its 1997 policy changes. The BJE has also joined with Jewish Big Brothers to apply for a grant that would fund the training of volunteers to tutor day school children with learning difficulties.

Ron Reynolds, BJE director of school services, is one of several experts who meet regularly to discuss ways of helping Jewish youngsters with disabilities. There has been serious talk of starting a self-contained special-education classroom in some centralized location, but the logistical and financial obstacles have so far proved daunting.

“We in the Jewish community who struggle to provide access to Jewish education for everyone who wants it are overwhelmed when we contemplate what would be required to provide for those with special needs,” Reynolds told The Journal.

Dr. Irving Lebovics, director of legislation and civic action for Agudath Israel of California, favors applying pressure in the political arena. He’s actively lobbying the state Legislature, making the case that it often costs a district far more to give a special-needs child a full-time public-school education (which can run in the $40,000 range annually) than to allow that child to come into the public school only for specialized services that may add up to less than $10,000. Lebovics says, “I would hope that we could get some kind of interim fix in Sacramento, on the basis that we’re saving the state money.”

Rabbi Shlomo Harrosh has long championed classroom inclusion of special-needs children. His Perutz Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy, which has only 130 students, can’t possibly afford the resource room that some larger day schools offer to those needing specialized attention. As part of the Yeshiva Principals’ Council, Harrosh has worked to establish an after-school Talmud Torah for children who must attend secular school in order to receive special-education services. But no funding has materialized.

Harrosh insists, “These kids should be our first priority, because that’s what Judaism is all about: helping the needy and the poor. The problem is money — and this city has a lot of money.”

Did you enjoy this article?
You'll love our roundtable.

Editor's Picks

Latest Articles

More news and opinions than at a
Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.

More news and opinions than at a Shabbat dinner, right in your inbox.