It isn't just collective bargaining agreements with union workers that the Department of Education routinely ignores. When courts order mandated services for special education students, the DOE takes their good sweet time in implementing them.
This is from the Daily News:
The City's Department of Education is dragging its feet on providing legally required services for kids with disabilities, a motion filed in federal court Tuesday charges.
Thirty percent of students who get a court order for crucial support like physical and speech therapy aren't getting those services within the legal deadline of 35 days, according to the education legal aid group Advocates for Children, which filed the motion.
That puts the city out of compliance with a 2007 court settlement, the advocacy group claims.
"The DOE's delays in providing ordered services are adding insult to injury for students with disabilities and their families," said Rebecca Shore, the head of litigation at Advocates for Children.
"We need a special master to step in and fix this broken system," she added.
This is probably just the tip of the iceberg. If 30% of mandated services are delayed after a court orders them, would anyone like to take a guess on how many IEP services are denied when a court is not watching? We have heard since Joel Klein and gave principals nearly unlimited powers that IEP's are routinely ignored and services dropped for students with disabilities.
We concur with Ms. Shore that a special master is a good idea but it is needed not just for IEP services. There is much more within the dysfunctional DOE that needs someone to watch over it.
The only people who seem content with how the system is going are some of the edu-bureaucrats who are making some really excellent money so they have an interest in seeing everything continue along and the shiny happy leaders of the UFT. Just listen to the sappy UFT radio commercial I hear in the morning now as I drop my wife off at work.
That Mulgrew commercial made me want to vomit. He is one putrid individual. Mulgrew claims he’s putting more social workers and guidance counselors to work in schools? Then why are there three sitting in front of me without positions because their schools were closed five years ago? ATRs, ACRs, ASWRs and everyone in the pool should hold a vote of NO Confidence against Mulgrew. His boy Sill will have the annual ATR meetings soon - do in front of him.
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