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Q&A
Challenges in finding providers for special education services
4:31:40
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133 sec
Council Member Rita Joseph inquires about the difficulties families face in finding adequate providers for special education services. Liz Vladek from the DOE explains the challenges and steps taken to address the issue.
- There has been a significant increase in IESP cases, from a few thousand to 19,000 in the last 8-9 years
- The DOE has implemented several measures to increase provider availability, including an RFP and hiring 19 itinerant teachers
- The department has made afternoon and weekend programs available to students with IESPs, not just public school students
- According to DOE data, they have been able to offer at least partial services to every eligible family
Rita Joseph
4:31:40
How many families are not able to find providers and why do they have issues finding adequate providers?
4:31:46
What is the most common service acquired with a DOE voucher?
4:31:50
Is the voucher sufficient for families to find adequate services?
Liz Vladek
4:31:53
Just to make sure I understand chair, are you speaking within the context of due process cases particularly or more generally?
4:32:01
Yes.
4:32:01
Yes, okay.
4:32:04
So one of the key challenges here has been the explosion in these IESP cases.
4:32:12
So we went from having a few thousand of them eight or nine years ago to 19,000 of them last year.
4:32:20
And so the number of students requesting services sets most of all really just has skyrocketed.
4:32:30
We've taken, and so we have taken a number of steps to address provider availability.
4:32:36
First of all, that increased demand just does put a strain on the existing pool of providers.
4:32:43
Others can talk much more intelligently than I about the efforts we're making to increase the number of providers.
4:32:50
Deputy Chancellor Foti mentioned the RFP that we've put out, but I really want to credit Deputy Chancellor Foti's CSEs, the Committees on Special Education this year, because what they've done is they've made sure to reach out to every single family that we have an IESP for, especially with the June 1 notice.
4:33:10
We can talk about that if you like.
4:33:12
So we've been able to facilitate arranging the services directly with one of our contracted providers, or providing a voucher that seems to have worked for most families.
4:33:24
We've also hired 19 itinerant teachers on our own payroll to send them to schools, and we've done something we never did before, which is that we've made our afternoon and weekend programs available to students with IESPs, not just public school students.
4:33:43
And as far as we can tell, far as our data shows us, we have been able to at least partially offer services to every family who's entitled to them.