College presidents offer frank talk about schools' challenges
Richmond Times-Dispatch

September 22, 2015

The presidents of Virginia’s public colleges and universities are warning that the state no longer can assume that everything will be OK with their institutions.

“There’s no shortage of needs. We talk about them incessantly. It doesn’t seem to do any good,” W. Taylor Reveley III, the president of the College of William and Mary, said Monday, renewing his contention that the state should set some institutions “free” and allow them to rely on tuition dollars from out-of-state students rather than state support.

U.Va. in clear after U.S. review of sexual misconduct policies
Richmond Times-Dispatch
September 22, 2015

The University of Virginia has settled a federal civil rights investigation of its sexual harassment policies and the handling of complaints of sexual misconduct.

But the settlement reached last week and announced Monday does not include any admission by U.Va. to any of the findings of an investigation that concluded the university had violated the anti-discrimination requirements under Title IX of federal education law.

Those alleged violations included flawed policies for handling complaints of sexual misconduct or assault from 2005 through this March, and failure to ensure a “prompt and equitable” response to reports of sexual misconduct, especially in cases that were not filed as formal complaints, at least through the 2011-12 academic year and two subsequent instances. 

Early Childhood Education - What responsibilities do schools have under Child Find and how much is currently spent on Pre-K in Virginia?

This week we're excited to share an excerpt from the first edition of our 2015-16 Education Law Newsletter.  Mark Weber (Vincent DePaul Professor of Law at DePaul University) reviews the Child-Find provisions and school responsibilities under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Act which, in general, requires states to identify from birth those children who may have a qualifying disability.  See below for the excerpt and a link to the full newsletter. 

One of the points Professor Weber makes is that schools are often asked to help identify and provide services to children with disabilities even before the children begin kindergarten.  Early childhood education has also been in the news recently as state officials such as Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam and Secretary of Education Anne Holton highlighted a r ecent federal grant to increase enrollment of at-risk 4 year olds and visited an innovative Pre-K school program.  Based on this we've chosen to focus this week on Pre-K spending in Virginia.  

The map below (from the blog "Preschool Matters") gives a sense of where Virginia falls in comparison to other states in the percent of 4-year olds enrolled in a state Pre-K program (Virginia is in the 11-20% category). 
Within Virginia, the Dept. of Education collects and publishes Pre-K spending totals by division (part of Table 13 in the annual State Superintendent's report).  So we thought we'd map out what systems spent on Pre-K programs in the 2014-15 school year, both in total dollars, but then also with a control for the size of the school system which we did by dividing Pre-K spending by the total number of students in the system (based on reported ADM).  So the numbers you see here are "per pupil" for the entire system, not for just Pre-K students.  The map below (click on it to see all four visualizations) is shaded based on whether the amount per total pupil spent on Pre-K in the school system was above or below the state-wide average.  Those in red spend less than the state average and those in green spend more.  The top school system is Fredericksburg. 



Our Poll Snapshot this week looks back at responses from our 2008 Commonwealth Education Poll when we asked folks whether they supported then-Governor Kaine's proposal to expand voluntary Pre-K to all children in the commonwealth.     

We hope you have a great week. 

Sincerely,
CEPI

Poll Snapshot:  Support for Pre-K expansion (circa 2008)

Excerpted from our September 2015 Education Law Newsletter , written by Professor Mark Weber of DePaul University and edited by Dr. Richard Vacca, Senior Fellow at CEPI.

"What is child-find?
Child-find refers to the obligation of states to identify, locate, and evaluate all children suspected of having disabilities who are within their jurisdiction. States work with school districts in meeting the obligation, and the school districts have the obligation to identify, locate, and evaluate all children in their boundaries, whether they attend the district’s schools or not. Children are to be identified from birth, even if the state does not make them eligible for services under Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) until they are older. (Part B contains the provisions of the federal special education law applicable to school-age children.) Under Part C of IDEA, which provides funding for services for children with disabilities from birth through two, state lead agencies (typically, state departments of education but sometimes other agencies, such as a department of mental health) have to coordinate child-find activities for all younger children.

Child-find began as a component of the Education of the Handicapped Act and actually predates the landmark Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975. Congress had the idea that gathering information about the numbers and needs of children with disabilities would enable the federal government and states to plan for the time when education would be provided to all children, including those with disabilities. Some advocates also felt that when parents became aware of their children’s needs and the public learned of the magnitude of the gaps in educational services, momentum would build for a special education law that would cover every child with a disability. That event occurred with the 1975 law, which continues in force to this day as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

Why does child-find matter?
Child-find is not just a concern of special education, and not just a job of those who specialize in educating children with disabilities. Teachers and administrators who work in general education need to be on the alert for children who may have disabilities that prevent them from learning as effectively as they could. When there is a basis to suspect that the child has a disability that may require specialized services, the duty to identify, locate, and evaluate arises. Regular classroom teachers and other general education personnel are usually the people in the best position to observe children’s successes and challenges in school and initiate the identification and evaluation process when a basis to suspect a disability exists.

Finding and evaluating individual children at the earliest possible time enables school districts and parents to deliver services to the children when the services can have the biggest impact on the future course of the children’s lives. Accurate collective information about children’s needs enables state educational agencies, agencies such as mental health departments, and school districts to plan for providing services as the children grow. Finally, states and school districts may incur liability for failing to meet child-find requirements, and may be required to provide payments or remedial services, causing disruption and large, unplanned outlays that could be prevented by helping children when their needs first appear.

Policy and practice implications
One clear lesson of the cases seems to be that the standard for triggering the duty to identify and evaluate is suspicion of disability. A wait-and-see attitude on the part of school districts is a recipe for future lawsuits. Delaying evaluation for months, much less years, violates the law and will lead to compensatory remedies. Alerting all school personnel of the need to refer children for evaluation, combined with adequate notice efforts directed to parents and the public at large, will go a long way in keeping districts out of court and guaranteeing services for children who need them."