Plan expected to be introduced June 27
By: Jeff Milgram
The Princeton Regional School District would reduce the number of minority students in special education by 15 percent over three years under a new Multi-Year Equity Plan expected to be introduced at the June 27 school board meeting.
But some of the reduction would come by a bookkeeping change.
Charles Bryant, director of student services, told the school board’s Minority Education Committee on Wednesday that the district would count only students who have been classified for special education by the Princeton Child Study Team. This means that incoming students who have been classified by their old district would not be included in Princeton’s special-education statistics.
That number could be significant, Mr. Bryant said.
Other reductions would come from a host of teacher-sensitivity training programs, additional guidance counselors and preschool programs.
Mr. Bryant said the 15 percent could be a cumulative reduction.
“It could be 5 percent a year,” he said.
The Board of Education wants incoming Superintendent Claire Sheff Kohn to review the plan before it takes any action, Assistant Superintendent Jeffrey Graber said Thursday.
Mr. Bryant said he is confident the district can meet the 15-percent goal.
“You have to set a goal for yourself. And I think this is doable,” he said.
Committee members made no public comments on the proposed 15-percent reduction.
Ricardo Bruce, a committee member and former school board member, said Thursday that the goal should be to get every child who is incorrectly classified out of special education.
“This isn’t the first time a number like this came up,” he said. “The first time was when I was on the school board (four years ago). At that time they talked about a 10-percent reduction.
“The situation has been going on so long that nothing less than 100 percent should be the object. I don’t think 100 percent will be reached,” he said.
While Mr. Bruce applauded some of the work of the school administration in this area, he said, “I can’t accept the fact that this has been going on so long … that we can’t make a bigger dent in the problem. Our problem is getting worse, not getting better.”
Three years ago, the U.S. Office of Civil Rights found an overrepresentation of minorities in special education in the district. Overrepresentation is most glaring at Princeton High School, where half of all black male students are in special-education classes, according to Mr. Bryant.
In response, the school board formed the Princeton Review of Minorities in Special Education (PROMISE) Committee to find ways to move students to mainstream classes.
Most of the recommendations in the Multi-Year Equity Plan came out of the PROMISE Committee deliberations.
The plan is required every three years by the state and federal governments. Covering the 2000-2003 school years, the new plan encompasses the district’s ideas on how to deal with a range of issues from sexual harassment and women’s issues to how minorities are treated by school district personnel.
Many of the recommendations are included in the school budget for 2000-2001, Mr. Bryant said.
Several of the recommendations call for various types of sensitivity training. The plan recommends that the district expand a training program called Schools Attuned, which is in place at Riverside and Littlebrook schools. The district would expand the program to Community Park and Johnson Park schools.
The program trains teachers to use different instructional styles and has been shown to reduce the number of special-education classifications, Mr. Bryant said.
The plan also shows how the district will deal with the flip side of the issue: the under-representation of minorities in advanced-placement and accelerated classes. The district would set up mentoring programs to help minority students in advanced courses and set up a mechanism to identify and recruit promising minority students.