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Schools

District 207 Votes To Dissolve Special Education Co-Op

Maine Township Special Education Program would close doors next year; individual districts would take responsibility for students

Some special education students in Maine Township High School District 207 and its feeder elementary districts will no longer by served by the Maine Township Special Education Program starting in July 2012.

The District 207 school board voted Monday in favor of dissolving the cooperative, which also includes East Maine Elementary District 63, Park Ridge-Niles District 64 and Des Plaines Elementary District 62. District 63 voted in favor of dissolution last week; the others were expected to vote by the end of the month.

School board vice president Donna Pellar, who presided at the meeting, said that services provided by MTSEP will now be provided directly by the district.

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There are about 39 District 207 students who receive services through the cooperative, according to Superintendent Ken Wallace. They receive occupational and physical therapy as well as vision services through MTSEP, he said. Other special education services are already provided directly by the district.

While some of the elementary districts have expressed the belief that they can provide services on their own for less money, Wallace said some costs will go up and others will likely go down. For example Lynnette Williams now works half-time as District 207’s director of special education and half-time as MTSEP director. Once MTSEP is no more, the district will have to employ a full-time director of special education, he said.

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The hope is that they can do so for less than they pay now.

Letters have gone out to the parents of students who receive MTSEP services reassuring them that they will continue to receive the same services. Williams said three parents have contacted her office with questions.

But the parents are not the only ones with questions.

Four therapists, each employed by MTSEP for 15 years or more, attended the meeting to ask exactly how the transition will work.

Rita Hoffer, an occupational therapist who has been with MTSEP for 17 years, asked if there would be a committee looking at the true cost of providing services. She and her colleagues often put extra time into the job, working through lunch or attending meetings before or after school, she said. If the district chooses to use therapists contracted through an agency, the district would have to pay for that  time, she said.

Janet Groll, an occupational therapist with MTSEP for 19 years, said the statement that there would be no change in therapy is misleading.

“What will change is the investment that the therapists who work with MTSEP have in our children,” Groll said.

After the meeting, she said she works with some students who are now in high school that she first met at their initial intake meetings when they were 3 years old. “I want the best occupational therapy for the children that I serve,” she said.

The therapists acknowledged that Williams and Wallace met with them before the school board meeting to listen to their concerns, and they thanked the administrators for treating them with respect and professionalism.

District 207 has served as the administrator for the cooperative. Because it is the only high school district, some board members suggested that it did not benefit as much from the cooperative as the elementary districts.

Once all four districts vote for dissolution, each will have to submit a plan to provide services with the Illinois State Board of Education.

Pellar said that in some cases, districts could create intergovernmental agreements to work together in certain areas.

 

 

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