Editor’s note: This article is by Howard Weiss-Tisman, of the Brattleboro Reformer, in which it was first published May 1, 2015. This is the second installment of a three-part series on emotional disturbance in Vermont schools. Part 1 is here. Part 3 will be published in VTDigger Tuesday.
BRATTLEBORO — Vermont identifies more children with emotional disturbance, as a percentage of all students receiving special education services, than any other state in the country.
In the 2012-13 school year about 16 percent of the students receiving special education services in Vermont were identified with emotional disturbance, more than double the national average of 6.3 percent.
There are some theories on why Vermont identifies so many students with emotional disturbance.
The state has the most liberal Medicaid funding formula in the country for supporting mental health services in public schools and access to funding might have a hand in identifying children as a way to serve those specific emotional and behavioral needs. The funding formula, named Success Beyond Six, brought in $30 million in federal money last year and mental health professionals say that could be fueling the high identification rate. There could be less stigma in the different parts of the country around identifying mental illness in children. Vermont, Minnesota, the District of Columbia, Wisconsin and Iowa have the highest identification rates. Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee and Utah have the lowest.
And educators and mental health providers say poverty, substance abuse, and violence are all on the rise, and that is driving up the rates of anxiety disorders, stress, depression and behavior disorders among Vermont’s children.
While there might be debate on why Vermont is identifying so many students with emotional disturbance, there is no debate on how these children are struggling with their academics and how their behaviors are affecting their classrooms.
It is hard to track down special education data that focus on students with emotional disturbance, but various state studies do highlight the specific challenges facing those children.
A 2014 study in Utah by the U.S. Department of Education found that students with emotional disturbance had the poorest outcomes of all students who receive special education services. Those students were more likely to drop out, and they had the highest rate of changing schools and of transferring out of their district. The single-year dropout rate for students with emotional disturbance was more than three times higher than that of general education students and more than two times higher than that of any other disability category, the report found.
Various studies show that these students miss more school than their peers, are more likely to face suspension and expulsion, and have a far greater likelihood of ending up in the criminal justice system. A 2009 study by the National Center for Special Education Research found that students with emotional disturbance were far more likely to be arrested than those students with any other disability.
And with educators and mental health professionals drawing a strong link between the effects of poverty and emotional disturbance, those students are also more likely to face the challenges of all low income students including hunger, homelessnesss, and performing at a lower grade level.
Emotional disturbance and special education law
Emotional Disturbance is one of the 13 disabilities schools use to identify students who may receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, the federal special education law.
Before a student can receive special education services teachers, special education teachers, counselors and parents have to agree to an Individualized Education Program, and the student has to be identified as having one of the 13 disabilities. Autism, blindness, specific learning disabilities, which include dyslexia, and other health impairments, which include ADHD are all categories under which students can be identified as having a disability.
Emotional disturbance is an umbrella term that covers a wide range of disorders including anxiety, depression, eating disorders, obsessive-compulsive disorder and conduct disorders.
Many of the emotional disorders students are experiencing in Vermont schools make it very hard for them to focus in a classroom and concentrate on the work in front of them. Their behaviors affect the other students and present significant challenges to their teachers who are largely unsuited to address the mental health issues.
“A lot of the kids we see have anxiety and they’re just not able to access the education the way it is presented in the classroom,” said Marisa Duncan-Holley, director of special education in Windham Southeast Supervisory Union. “There are a lot of rules and regulations and structure in a classroom and sometimes kids have a hard time with the structure.”
At the core of the federal special education law is a requirement that all students, including those with any kind of disability, remain in their regular classroom for as much of the school day as possible.
And while any student on an Individualized Education Program will be receiving some form of support, those students with emotional disturbance are proving especially challenging to keep in the class as their numbers grow and their behaviors grow more violent and unpredictable.
Costs and impacts of a growing support system
The growing number of students identified with emotional disturbance in Vermont schools, and the challenging behaviors they display, are causing administrators, educators and mental health professionals to look critically at the support systems that are being created.
A 2013 legislative report found that students with emotional disturbance generally cost more to serve than other children with mild to moderate special needs. As the number of students with emotional disturbance grows, and the support they require intensifies, so too does the cost of delivering services.
Of all the disability categories, students with emotional disturbance are much more likely to be placed in a separate school or facility, which always costs more to the home district. During the 2011-12 school year 20.3 percent of those students with emotional disturbance received their education away from the home school, according to federal data. Of the students with multiple disabilities, the category with the second highest percent of time spent in another facility, 9.8 percent were sent out of district.
One way schools try to control costs while serving these students is by hiring paraprofessionals, but that might not be the best strategy, according to recent studies.
According to state data, the number of paraprofessionals in Vermont schools has more than doubled in the past 10 years. In 1991, on average there was one paraprofessional in each school for every nine students on an IEP. That number is now about one para for every four students on an IEP.
And Vermont has the third highest number of paraprofessionals in the country in relation to its special education teachers.
A recently completed study by UMass, which was commissioned by the Agency of Education and the Joint Fiscal Office, found that the seriousness of behavioral incidents appears to be playing a key role in administrators’ efforts to control those behaviors with paras.
The report found that principals who perceive that they have a disproportionately large percentage of students with behavior issues tend to use more paras, and that those paras are more likely to have a primary responsibility for students with IEPs.
Michael Giangreco, a professor in the Education Department at University of Vermont, told the State Board of Education recently that Vermont’s overreliance on using paraeducators is creating a two-tier education system which is unfair, and in the most extreme cases could be illegal under federal special education law.
He said this trend makes it hard for administrators and regular classroom teachers to oversee their work and ensure the students are receiving an equitable education.
“We know how to use them well, but we frankly don’t use them well,” he said. “We usually just throw them in and give them the minimal approach to things and we let them loose.”
And Giangreco said the high numbers in the data might not even reflect the sharp rise in the number of behavior interventionists who are working in the schools under contracts with the local mental health service agencies.
“Metaphorically, we have built our special education house on a cliff,” Giangreco said. “We’ve built our house so close to the edge that any additional stress, people are afraid we will push it over the edge, and we’ve been holding it back by adding paraprofessionals.”
Wrap-around services
With Vermont facing an ever-growing need to ratchet up the level of services for its children with emotional disturbance, initiatives are under way to extend support and improve collaboration among state human service agencies.
And increasingly the schools are becoming the entry points for delivering those services.
“To do this work we have to do this together,” said Cheryl Huntley, director of youth and family services for Counseling Service of Addison County. “We have to be collaborating with the schools. This is about kids and families. Kids and families go to school, and then they come home. We have to do this collectively.”
Huntley was testifying to the Senate Education Committee earlier this year about Integrating Family Services, or IFS, a strategy in Addison and Franklin/Grand Isle counties to bring together the Agency of Human Services’ six departments to work together and make it easier for families to navigate the support system and get the help they need.
Prior to the start of IFS, Huntley said there were 14 funding sources, linked to 14 different reporting requirements and rules. By bringing all of those funding sources together the number of families served in Addison County increased by 119 over the past two years, Huntley said.
State leaders are trying to learn from the IFS experiments before making a push to implement it across Vermont and don’t expect to introduce it statewide until at least 2020.
Once IFS is introduced in all Vermont counties, the local schools will likely be important delivery sites for the state services.
In 2012 the state began to allow mental health specialists who are brought into the schools to move away from the per student based fee-for-service model. This change opened the door for clinicians to run larger support and therapy sessions, and even offer services to children with behavior issues, but who might not be identified with requiring special needs.
“What’s nice about it is that it’s very flexible to what the school might need and to the needs of the students,” said Cynthia Dale, a clinical psychologist with HCRS. “It really frees you from the therapy office. Some kids are going to be helped with traditional therapy but some kids really need someone taking a broader look at how they’re coping in the school environment.”
Dale sees Vermont’s growing mental health support system in the schools as one of the best ways to address the root causes of why these children are suffering, and also the most logical strategy for helping to lift them out of the generational poverty that seems to be the source of so many of their problems.
“I would like to think we’re making a difference,” she said. “This is where the kids spend most of their day, and if they are more successful in school then their chances are better. And it’s not just about measuring their grades. We’d like them to be able to learn and have some social skills that go with that. We see such huge benefits. It doesn’t feel like we are endlessly throwing resources at it because we are seeing improvement. It’s not a sinking ship.”
