The State of Special Education in Portland

Whew, it has been a long dry spell since you’ve been able to see my freelance work, dear readers. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been working on stories for months, but somehow everything is coming out in August!PDX Parent has published the first part of a two-part series on the State of Special Education in Portland. Right now you can read the whole piece on pages 14-17 of the digital version of their print edition. A link to the web story is coming soon. Here’s an excerpt:At first, Neil Haigh was not that alarmed. This was early January and the Southwest Portland dad had gotten a call from school that his daughter Mattea’s feeding tube had come out, so could he please come fix it?Mattea, a 10-year-old with blue eyes and golden hair, is nonspeaking and needs a range of medical supports, such as her gastronomy tube or “g-tube” that attaches like an earring in the wall of her stomach to provide her nutrition. Haigh replaced the g-tube, and suggested that  the Markham Elementary School staff receive additional training. But a staffer tipped him off that it wasn’t necessarily an adult who was responsible for the g-tube situation and when he got Mattea home, he noticed bruising on her arms. “It felt like a bit of a cover-up and that’s when I got more involved,” Haigh says. After weeks and hiring a legal team, the family finally got a copy of the incident report.“[A student, name redacted] pulled out another student's ‘mickey button’ which is part of their feeding apparatus,” reads the report. “The button was under the student's clothing. Removing this button in this way takes significant force and it is painful to have it ripped out of the stomach.”Mattea’s parents were shocked. Haigh started organizing with other classroom parents and discovered that the incident was just the “tip of the iceberg.” Kids were getting hurt, other parents alleged. Even worse, the classroom was struggling with a two-year-long string of teachers and support staff who had quit or left without returning, often citing a lack of support and safety.“What happened to Mattea was awful, but it was a result of years and years of malpractice,” Haigh says. “We have no beef with (the child who removed Mattea’s g-tube). That kiddo is just a kiddo who has a lot of needs and wasn’t being adequately supported.”There are 6,916 different experiences of special education in Oregon’s largest school district because, at last count, there are 6,916 special education students in Portland Public Schools (PPS). Guided by Individual Education Programs or IEPs — a team-designed plan for each disabled student’s particular needs — special education can be as simple as providing extra time to finish a test or as challenging as providing a one-to-one adult who can constantly, consistently, and instantly set expectations, react to changing conditions and buffer explosive behavior. By some metrics, PPS’ special education department is doing well. The vast majority of special education students are integrated into the general education environment at least 40% of the time, with 81.3% integrated 80% or more of their day. The graduation rate for special education students sits at 82.4%, which is higher than the state target.“PPS can stand up and be proud that that's true,” says PPS Student Support Services Chief Jey Buno, of these statistics. “Because that's not the same case everywhere else.”Nevertheless, many people PDX Parent talked to for this series described a crisis in the district: safety risks to children and staff, overwhelming caseloads and a lack of action at the top. […]Read the full story for free at PDXParent.com: Unmet Needs: The State of Special Ed in Portland Pages 14-17