D300 gets first peek at special education audit

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Updated: August 4, 2011 4:20PM

ALGONQUIN — A recent audit of Community Unit School District 300’s special education program produced a report that is more than 80 pages long.

“Short version: Break down the silos.”

So said Ronald Felton, associate director of the Urban Special Education Leadership Collaborative, which conducted the audit over the past several months.

Felton told the school board Monday night that the Carpentersville-based district has built a “silo,” a special education program that stands separate from its regular education.

That’s not unusual for an urban school district, he said. But many districts have taken steps to break down that silo, Felton said, and he briefly outlined 10 recommendations for District 300 to do that in the collaborative’s report.

Felton delivered his audit report to the school board and a crowd of more than 130 that spilled into the hallway of the Professional Development Center at Westfield Community School.

The goal of the audit by the Massachusetts-based collaborative was to determine areas to improve the effectiveness, accountability and efficiency of the district’s special education program, according to the district. It included an analysis of district data, as well as interviews with parents and district staff, Felton said.

And its results will be a major factor in a comprehensive overhaul of the D300 special education program, according to the district. That plan has not yet been finalized and will be implemented in the 2011-12 school year.

The collaborative’s audit was prompted by a state audit last year that showed students with special needs in District 300 consistently lag about 10 points behind the state average in the time they spend in regular classrooms.

It showed the district’s students with special needs “lag far behind” their peers who are not in the program, Felton said. Its rate of identifying students with special needs has dropped from 16.9 percent to 15.6 percent, but still is higher than state and national averages, he added.

Felton noted the small number of students with special needs spending time in general education classrooms as a concern, as the state had, but said the collaborative felt that District 300 is making “positive steps” in that area. He also said the collaborative was concerned the district employed “significantly more” para-educators than special educators.

Among the collaborative’s recommendations, Felton said the district needs to “substantially decrease” its reliance on separate classes and clustered sites to educate its students with special needs.

District 300 will host a more detailed and interactive presentation of the audit’s findings and recommendations at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday at Westfield Community School, 2100 Sleepy Hollow Road, Algonquin.