Addition fills gap in special education staff
By:Beth Kressel
The Manville School District is now compliant with the state’s special education standards after the Board of Education unanimously approved the hiring of a third speech teacher July 13.
Robert W. Fisher II, a "speech correctionist," will join two other staff members devoted to speech therapy in the district this fall. The board approved the employment of seven other teachers, a social worker and a guidance counselor at the same time. The new staff will be filling vacancies in the district.
Last March the school district completed the last of the state’s special education monitoring and passed with flying colors in all but one area.
The district, like many throughout the state, was short-staffed in the area of speech therapy and was having trouble completing initial testing and re-evaluation of students because of the staff shortage.
The schools were forced to use personnel from the county’s Educational Services Commission to help out, said Audrey Press, director of special services at Manville schools. But even the county was understaffed in terms of speech personnel, she said, and the district was having trouble with students’ evaluations and testing.
Fall 2002 found Manville schools especially understaffed. Of three speech teacher positions, one staff member was on maternity leave and one position was open; that left only one speech teacher for the entire school district.
A lack of speech therapy programs at many New Jersey colleges might account for this shortage.
"There are very few colleges and universities that train people in speech therapy in New Jersey. There is no program at Rutgers," said Stanley Vitello, a professor at the Rutgers Graduate School of Education. "The shortage of speech teachers might be attributed to the lack of higher education programs."
"We knew we were going to have a deficit in this area due to our staff shortage," said Ms. Press.
She said that the state monitoring team only found problems in "being compliant with speech" services during their evaluation of the district.
The state has a seven-year cycle for its special education monitoring that includes a yearlong self-assessment by the district itself which Manville conducted during the 2001-2002 school year. In March 2003, the state conducted its own review of the school according to protocol. It found that Manville was adequately addressing all other areas of special education needs and would not return for another six years when the evaluation process begins again.
Ms. Press said that speech services were "Manville’s only real concern. Luckily we advertised for a good year and hired a very qualified person. We anticipate continued compliance because of this."