Parents, teachers continue to fight for special education funding for Catholic schools

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PROVIDENCE – Changes to special education funding at Catholic schools, approved by the Board of Regents in December, will result in disservices to special needs students, many say.

Accepting the changes is like “throwing a life raft to a child and halfway through the year cutting the rope,” said Lillian McIntyre, assistant superintendent of diocesan schools.

McIntyre was one of several people who spoke last week at a hearing of the House Committee on Health, Education and Welfare in favor of a bill that would reverse the Regents' decision on special education funding.

The bill, introduced by Rep. Donald J. Lally, (D-Dist. 33) was referred to the committee for a public hearing that drew many of the same people who opposed the Regents' changes at public hearings last fall.

Rep. Joseph M. McNamara (D-Dist. 19) chair of the committee, appeared receptive to the speakers' points and requested more information on several fiscal notes, including the official number of Catholic school students with Individual Education Plans, or IEPs, who would be affected by these changes.

The new regulations are scheduled to go into effect in July, 2009 and will change the way school districts fund special education services for students in non-public schools.

Currently, the school district where the non-public school is located, as well as the school district where the child's parents pay property taxes, if they are different, each contribute to the cost of meeting that child's special needs. That standard is higher than the new federal requirement, which eliminates the responsibility of the school district of residence, where the child's parents pay taxes.

Greg Mancini, a lawyer and the parent of a student receiving special education at a diocesan school, pointed out that Rhode Island is not obligated to lower its standards to the federal level. “The state can have a standard higher than the federal law,” he said.

Supporters of this bill contend that special education services will suffer, or even be eliminated, as a result of these changes, and that parents will be forced to choose between keeping their children in parochial schools or putting them into the public school system.

Mancini said that the Regents' decision to change the regulations puts parents in an unfair position. “It was unfair because a lot of people relied on the law to place their kids in private school. And now, to change it, is unfair, bad public policy, and it's going to cost the state and the school districts a heck of a lot more money.”

A Department of Education representative, Kevin Nerney, was the only person to speak out against repealing the bill. He said the department stands behind the Regents' decision, and that it will eliminate a “convoluted” dual-funding system that has resulted in confusion.

Nerney told committee members that under the new regulations, children whose parents have placed them in private schools would no longer be entitled to an official IEP, which outlines the specific special education services that the child will receive. Rather, the student would receive a service plan and no guarantee of services.