Iowa City schools wants relief from deadline on special ed issues

IOWA CITY — Although the Iowa City school district believed it was 'not appropriate' to have to hold more than 100 meetings with parents of special education students in less than six months, it did, Superintendent Stephen Murley said Friday.

Murley said the district requested relief from a deadline set for Wednesday to comply with concerns that had been raised over its special ed program. But teams of reviewers from the state arrived this week regardless.

The Grant Wood Area Education Agency notified the district in January it had flagged issues with scores of plans created for special education students. It gave the district until June 1 — next week — to meet with parents and comply.

When the AEA wouldn't budge on the deadline, Murley said, the district did hold the requested meetings.

The district notified the AEA in mid-May of the meetings concerning students' Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, that had been completed and of others that were scheduled to be completed, AEA spokeswoman Renee Nelson said. But that notice was too late.

'This communication to the AEA came after the Department of Education had already announced and scheduled their site visit,' Nelson said in an email. The visit was announced in a May 4 letter to Murley.

'Once the department announces a site visit, it will make the visit,' state education department spokesman Jim Flansburg said.

So the department went forward with an accreditation review on-site this week, triggered by the district's failure to correct issues with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to the AEA's satisfaction.

Grant Wood AEA required the district to hold new meetings with parents to address 114 issues cited by AEA Director of Special Education Maria Cashman during routine monitoring of the program, and to have staff undergo more training. Cashman said she reviewed 163 IEPs overall.

Carmen Dixon, the school district's director of special education, said in an email the district has 193 IEPs that are support-services only, and 1,231 IEPs in total.

Of the 114 non-compliance issues found, many suggested parents were not properly notified or involved in decisions regarding their child's plan — a legal document that lays out a child's special needs and the services the district will provide.

Under the federal law, parents must be given notice of IEP meetings and of changes to their child's plan so they can participate.

Murley said although documentation was not completed correctly, in all of those 114 cases parents were indeed being informed about their child's plan.

'They had discovered some paperwork errors, not any issues with delivery of service,' he said.' ... What they wanted us to do was go back and have meetings with parents to fix the paperwork. We did not think that was a good use of the parents' time.'

Murley said he requested relief from the AEA's deadline because he felt addressing paperwork issues with parents would be more appropriate during regular annual IEP review meetings.

'They said it's our way or the highway,' he said. 'So when we said we don't agree with you, they reported to the Department of Education that we didn't agree.'

The district did comply with the directive that staff attend AEA-sponsored professional development.

'We were doing what we thought they had taught us to do,' Murley said. ' ... There was a lack of clarity about what the expectations were, and now that has been restored.'

The education department said this week that state intervention in an such a matter is unusual. Typically, area education agencies and the districts they oversee work out issues themselves.

Separately, a fiscal review was conducted after state officials noticed a significant percentage increase in special education funding.

According to the May 4 letter, the district had reported the largest special education deficit in the state, although the education department said deficits in that area are not uncommon.

Murley said the district would comply with any mandates issued by the state as a result of the reviews.