Community Meeting to discuss the future of the Reading Clinic Thursday, June 1st, 2017 Cole Auditorium 1011 Union Street, Oakland, CA 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Thank you to everyone who fought to retain OUSD's former Deputy Chief of Special Education, Sheilagh Andujar. Despite operating in an austerity mode this past year, with this top special education leadership position remaining unfilled, the district is again threatening to make drastic cuts that will negatively impact the most vulnerable students in our community, including consolidating the three special education administrative positions (Deputy Chief, Chief of Schools, and SELPA Director) into one position. 1. Making cuts to Special Education in this moment is like asking communities who were conserving and operating with “less than enough” water during normal times to severely cut usage in the drought. For years, special education has been operating under budget, with overpopulated classrooms, extremely high rates of un-credentialed teachers, and few resources. Generally speaking, the department has been operating in an austerity mode already. At the same time, the number of students in the district has dramatically increased. And, state and national legislation has become more rigorous. Just this year the Supreme Court ruled that school districts must give students with disabilities the chance to make meaningful, "appropriately ambitious” progress. Last year OUSD staff and board recognized that we actually needed to expand the number of classrooms and teachers to meet core needs, improve outcomes and avoid litigation. While the district is expanding classrooms next year, the number of para-educators does not keep pace with this expansion - creating classrooms without enough human resources to effectively teach. We need a guaranteed student-staff ratio for these classrooms, as well as adequate supports for new teachers and new aides. 2. Oakland’s core strength has been our depth in key areas - now that is threatened. Over the past few years we consistently see strong programs being dismantled for expediency. As parents and teachers, we would like to take a different approach - audit our strengths to build from them. In particular, we strongly believe these two programs should be protected and later expanded: • The Reading Clinic is nationally recognized as an effective multi-sensory program to support students to learn to read. It was created, in part, because so many students were finding they needed the service, but that it did not exist in the district. By creating depth in the district, we avoided lawsuits and sending children to private programs. There is new legislation (Ed Code AB 1369) that requires districts to have a robust plan in place for addressing dyslexia and other reading disabilities through a multi-sensory holistic approach. To meet this need, the needs of students, and avoid lawsuits, the reading clinic needs to be expanded in Oakland, rather than dismantled. • Similarly, the Deaf and Hard of Hearing program is a unique program that changes lives. Most of the students it serves enter the district with no language at all. They learn their first language – sign – in school. By law they need to have teachers who are fluent in sign as well as interpreters (aides). We want the district to invest and expand this program – perhaps even as a dual immersion program – that could serve more children and expose hearing students to sign language. 3. For special education, putting kids first means also investing in core central programs and support for teachers. Effective special education depends on good classrooms and centrally coordinated supports and services. We support a streamlined administration of PEC, but not at the expense of teachers and students. In the past, program coordinators have played an essential support role to everyone in the system. When this support does not exist, we lose teachers. We need the district to go beyond austerity measures and think about what form of restructuring and central support will actually support our teaching staff. 4. Finally, we need an authentic stakeholder engagement process – now and moving forward. The Community Advisory Committee (CAC) has taken real steps to build relationships between parents, teachers, staff and board this year. However, the recent budget cuts recommendations blind-sided everyone, even core staff. We are extremely disappointed that the district again neglected to tap into the depth of experience and care that teachers and parents bring to the table. When we are engaged as intelligent partners, who have solutions to bring to the table, we can be stronger together. We also avoid dissolution, frustration and lawsuits. We recommend an immediate engagement of core CAC membership (and other key stakeholders) to take on the immediate crisis, and then a more robust plan moving into next year. In response to the community uproar over the proposed closure of the Reading Clinic, the district is looking at options for restructuring that would allow them to reduce costs and continue to deliver services. Please come tonight, if you can, to hear what the district is proposing and to provide your input! Community Meeting to discuss the future of the Reading Clinic Thursday, June 1st, 2017 Cole Auditorium 1011 Union Street, Oakland, CA 6:00 pm - 7:30 pm Thank you!