exceeds standards
in several areas
Special ed services
remain high priority
Director notes district
exceeds standards
in several areas
By Larry ramer
Staff Writer
The Marlboro Board of Edu-cation has heard a report detailing the ways in which the K-8 school district’s special services programs exceed the standards set by state and federal law.
Robert Klein, the district’s director of special services, told board members during a July 7 presentation that district administrators decide how to educate each student based on four criteria:
• the student’s needs.
• New Jersey state law dealing with education.
• the district’s program models.
• parental expectations and demands.
One area in which Klein said the Marlboro school district exceeds requirements is the elementary speech language program. While New Jersey state law prohibits districts from providing speech language instructions to more than five students at a time, Marlboro usually limits these classes to three students or less, he said.
If administrators elected to place five students in each speech language class, Marlboro would be able to eliminate one speech language position, Klein said.
"However, a 5-1 ratio is not as effective as a 3-1 ratio," he told the board.
In addition, if a position was eliminated, four instructors would then be required to teach classes at the district’s five elementary schools. This means at least one of the teachers would have to travel, reducing her efficiency and resulting in wasted time, Klein said.
In a subsequent interview, Klein added that, "I would rather not have speech teachers travel and waste a half-hour if we don’t have to."
Marlboro would save $40,000 by eliminating a speech position, Abbott said. He added that if a speech position was eliminated, the remaining speech teachers’ ability to diagnose and solve children’s’ specific speech problems as they occur would be hampered.
Klein said it is unclear if any actual savings would result from eliminating a speech teaching position because the reduced effectiveness of the speech instruction might result in students having to receive speech language therapy for additional years.
Marlboro also exceeds the state’s standards for child study teams, Klein reported. Child study teams evaluate children who may have disabilities. New Jersey state law mandates that each school district must have a child study team, but it does not specify a minimum number of personnel that a district must have. Marl-boro employs a three-member child study team that includes a learning disability technician, a psychologist and a social worker at each school, Abbott said. The district spends a total of $1 million on these child study teams annually.
"The level of service provided by the district’s child study teams is a function of parental expectations, parental level of participation with the child study teams and the district’s choices," Klein told the board.
He said Marlboro has a very high level of parental participation.
"My initial job on a child study team (in Pemberton) was in a district where, if you had six meetings with parents and one showed up you were lucky … here if you have six meetings with parents you can’t get through them because too many parents show up … and a couple of them show up with advocates and lawyers," Klein explained. "Comparing Marlboro to other districts is like comparing apples and oranges."
Abbott offered another explanation for administrators’ decision to exceed state standards in these areas — the high cost of potential lawsuits that might be brought against the district if those in charge decided to offer the minimum services required by law.
"A district can decide to implement only the minimum requirements of the law regardless of the individual needs of the child. In every likelihood, particularly in a district like this, parents will look at the situation, band together and try to change the law through litigation, which is a very expensive process. The board has acted in as frugal a manner as possible while balancing the needs of individual children. They’ve taken the right approach and it’s been our approach traditionally," Abbott said, adding that the Marlboro school district has not embraced the minimalist approach.