LAUSD Candidate Janie Dam on Special Education

“I am strongly opposed to unfair, unethical, illegal practices against

special education by publicly funded schools, whether charter or non-

charter.”

– BD3 Candidate Janie Dam

As Janie Dam awaits the decision of her appeal with the City Clerk’s office, she has provided answers to the five questions about Special Education that were asked as part of the ongoing LAUSD Candidate Forum series. For the introduction to this subject and answers from other candidates, please see the article LAUSD Candidate Forum: Special Education.

The following are the candidate's responses, printed exactly how he provided them, with the exception of some minor formatting edits:

• Question 1: If you were on the Board, would you sponsor and work for the passage of the proposed "Improving Special Education Within the LAUSD" resolution? NO COMMITMENT

As a general education teacher in a public charter school I have experienced first-hand the successes of Special Day Program co-teaching, intervention diagnostics and prioritized testing accommodations. These practices significantly better the chances of students with special needs to either get into college or smoothly transition to gainful employment after high school.

As a working single mother who has gone through the IEP process for my child at an LAUSD affiliated school, I have an abundance of empathy for all the parents going through the same thing, and I totally get their frustration with the district’s system. I would therefore be generously open-minded as a Board Member toward proposals for improving special education within LAUSD such as this resolution.

However, prior to signing the petition for this resolution, I would first (1) investigate the credibility of LAUSD Office of General Counsel (OGC)’s legalistic recommendation against the passage of your proposed resolution, and (2) assist your team, if desired, to re-craft the language of the resolution so as to simultaneously maximize student benefits under IDEA and minimize the risk of litigation to the district.

With the rapid expansion of the autism spectrum population I have been looking at programs on LAUSD school sites such as Gardena Senior High School’s Autism Core Program (AUT Core). In my opinion it would be a prudent exercise to examine your proposed resolution under the lens of: “what additional legal and budgetary constraints would there be if the district were to expand and/or replicate effective programs that already exist in traditional and charter schools within the district that would meet the goals of this resolution?”.

Regarding my professional qualifications & special education. Based on what Mr. Petersen previously published about me, the public is just not well informed about my work behind the scenes in support of children with special needs. It was under complex and stressful circumstances that I was unexpectedly tasked with handling the aftermath of someone else’s failure to secure our school’s very large and very high-stakes testing program. But I managed to quickly consolidate, restructure and onboard school staff, which served to regain the College Board’s approval for our annual administration of the PSAT to roughly 3,200 students in grades 9-11 at no cost to their families, especially students who sought accommodations on college entry exams. That was how I became the school wide testing coordinator, responsible for handling all aspects of equitable and inclusive access to higher education: state-mandated, College Board, and International Baccalaureate exams.

• Question 2: Have you signed the petition supporting the proposed "Improving Special Education Within the LAUSD" resolution? NO COMMITMENT

See my response to Question 1.

• Question 3: Federal funding to provide Special Education services is based on the size of the total student body, not the number of students receiving services. Therefore, charter schools benefit financially by discouraging the enrollment of these students as they receive the same amount of funding without having to pay the costs of providing the services. Not surprisingly, the data shows that charter schools as a whole enroll a smaller percentage of children with Special Education needs than their public school counterparts. As a Board Member would you look for ways to recoup the costs from charter schools that have below-average enrollment of students with Special Education needs? NO COMMITMENT

The key phrase here is “as a whole.” I don’t believe it benefits our students to lump all charter schools together. Such stereotyping runs the risk of eliminating charters that are cost-effective in serving students with special needs along with those who are not.

I am strongly opposed to unfair, unethical, illegal practices against special education by publicly funded schools, whether charter or non-charter. I would vote for additional school leadership training to improve school operations impacting special education. I would pursue recoupment from a school if legally acceptable factual evidence can be provided that the school is intentionally discouraging the enrollment of special education students. I would expand the definition of “special needs” to include low-income and newcomer English-learner students. Schools that serve those student populations are also burdened with addressing very high

needs, even though these kids may not be classified as eligible for\ Special Education. That aspect should also be taken into consideration in deciding whether to recoup federal funding.

• Question 4: Will you have a member of your staff dedicated to supporting families with Special Education needs? YES

Yes, of course.

• Question 5: As a Board member will you ensure that the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) is able to act independently of District staff so that it can provide you with feedback that is truly reflective of what the Special Education community is experiencing? YES

My Special Education staff member would also be made available to serve as a supportive liaison to the Community Advisory Committee.

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.