Schools due services for students

By Tanya Connor
 The Catholic Free Press

Private schools in Massachusetts, including Catholic schools, are to receive millions of dollars in services for their students with disabilities, in an effort to correct longstanding violations of their civil rights, according to Stephen Perla, a former superintendent of Catholic schools here.
Mr. Perla, now superintendent of schools for the Diocese of Fall River, has been working on this issue for years with a group of private school representatives that complained to state and federal education officials about the practices of school districts and the state.
Recently, The Boston Globe reported that the United States Department of Education determined that Massachusetts education officials and public school districts violated federal law by denying services to private school students with disabilities.
The state and the school districts might owe private schools millions of dollars in services. Mr. Perla told The Catholic Free Press he believes the state misguided the districts for years, and therefore should pay at least some of the cost.
On Aug. 15 the U.S. Department of Education released its resolution for how the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and school districts must resolve the complaints. The decision requires them to comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), he explained.
The resolution was accompanied by a letter to Mr.  Perla, David Perda, current superintendent of Catholic schools for the Worcester Diocese, and representatives of the Catholic Diocese of Springfield and of Jewish schools, who complained about the practices and later formed a coalition called Project Access.
The U.S. education department’s resolution means that the state must redraft its procedures for implementing IDEA and calculate funding for services private school students should have received from 2014-2018, Mr. Perla said.
Because of IDEA, the U.S. education department gives the state education department about $250 million per year for services for students with disabilities, he said. Project Access estimates that about 7 percent of these students attend private schools (though state estimates are lower), so private schools might be owed up to $120 million in services. Mr. Perla noted that private schools will not get money; their students are to get the services.
The calculation goes back only to 2014 because Massachusetts law does not require records to be kept more than five years, Mr. Perla said. It stops at 2018 because the U.S. education department assumed that the state would correct the problem for the current academic year.
The state education department and Project Access are to begin working on this at their first meeting Oct. 31, Mr. Perla said. He said things they will need to determine include the percentage of eligible private school students, whether the state or districts or both will pay for their services and within what timeframe.

HISTORY

Efforts to obtain services for students with disabilities go back years, according to the following brief summary Mr. Perla provided.
He said the most recent reauthorization of IDEA was in 2004. At that time, the Parents Alliance for Catholic Education and its collaborators representing Jewish schools tried to get Massachusetts to provide services to private school students at the schools they attended, as allowed by IDEA. He said that would be better for students than missing classes to get services elsewhere, and for families who had to transport them. At that time Mr. Perla was the executive director of PACE, which was the public policy advocacy group for Catholic schools in Massachusetts.
After PACE dissolved for lack of funding in June 2016, “I continued to work with our Jewish colleagues on these efforts, and then we decided to try to formalize it by establishing Project Access” in 2018, Mr. Perla said.
In June 2017 the representatives of private schools had filed a formal complaint with the state’s Problem Resolution System Office against 27 school districts and the state education department, he said. They later withdrew complaints against two districts.
In September 2017 the problem resolution office found that the 25 districts and the state were out of compliance with IDEA and provided some assistance to help them become compliant, he said.
But private school representatives felt that wasn’t enough, and filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017.
The department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services reviewed the complaint and found that the 25 districts and the state were out of compliance. In addition, the department decided that the inequity was so egregious that the resolution should be applied to all private schools statewide.     
The office informed private school representatives and the state of this resolution in the Aug. 15 letter and accompanying document.

WORCESTER DIOCESE

Asked how the resolution will affect Catholic schools in the Worcester Diocese, Superintendent Perda said families of students with disabilities need to understand that their children are entitled to services and keep their child’s Individualized Education Plan (IEP) current.
“We’re fortunate here in the City of Worcester that we have a public school system that has been responsive to the complaint,” he said. He said Kay C. Seale, manager of special education and intervention services for Worcester Public Schools, took the complaint seriously, and efforts are being made to learn which students need services and to see that they get those services.
“It’s a work in progress,” he said.
Superintendent Perda said he is involved with this in  Worcester because “that’s the public school district where we have the most schools” and he already has relationships with people there, as he used to work in that district.
Attending Worcester meetings allows him to participate and learn, and then share what he learns at the diocesan principals’ meetings, he said.
Then personnel of Catholic schools in outlying towns can attend meetings in their own districts.
    He said it would be ideal, though not always possible, for services to be provided at the Catholic schools, so these students don’t have to miss class to go elsewhere.
    “We want students with disabilities to be able to choose Catholic schools,” he said.