Articles, Newsletters, Podcasts, and Video
While it is great seeing so many parents here fighting for access to higher mathematics, I’m here asking for Palo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) to bother to teach my son to add.
There are around 60 to 90 specific common core standards for each grade in elementary school which get turned into the 30 to 40 criteria reported in a standard report card.
In my son’s latest draft Individualized Education Program from the district, we don’t get a report card and the district proposed just 3 common core standards.
3 out of 60 to 90 standards.
They aren’t even trying to provide a real education.
Basically, PAUSD put my son on the “no high school diploma” track last year in the Second grade
This is the opposite of what is supposed to be happening in California with The Alternate Pathways to a High School Diploma.
Palo Alto needs to change course to meet these goals and do what is right for its students who face the most challenges.
References:
Pathways to a High School Diploma – Legislative Report – https://www.cde.ca.gov/sp/se/ac/altpathwayslegreport.asp
Workgroups Provide Special Education Recommendations – https://www.scoe.net/news/library/2021/10/07workgroup_reports/
California Alternative Pathways to a High School Diploma Workgroup Report – https://www.scoe.net/media/2tla0rk5/ca_alternative_pathways_workgroup_report.pdf
California Statewide Individualized Education Program (IEP) Workgroup Report –
https://www.scoe.net/media/ankhexys/ca_iep_workgroup_report.pdf
Employing Individuals with Intellectual Disabilities and Developmental Disabilities in California –
https://www.sbcc.edu/extendedlearning/sb_adult_ed_consortium/files/AWD%20AEBG%20YR3%201718%20California%20Competitive%20Integrated%20Employment%20Blueprint.pdf
Ensuring All Students with Disabilities have a Pathway to a High School Diploma in California –
https://mailchi.mp/dredf/ensuring-all-students-with-disabilities-have-a-pathway-to-a-high-school-diploma-in-california?e=2962aa2122
Palo Alto Unified School District’s 504 Plan demographics are substantially different than California’s or the rest of the US states with around 7% of our students having a 504 plan (see attachments) vs. the national average of 2.7%, California at 4% and the highest state average New Hampshire at 6.2% (tab 2 of “Enrollment-Overall”)
Thank you to PAUSD Staff
First, thank you to Amanda Bark and the PAUSD staff for providing this data. I only looked at this because the 504 numbers were broken out in the recent mid-school math report and they were surprisingly high.
What is a 504 Plan?
Students with 504 plans typically do NOT have IEPs and are NOT covered under IDEA.
https://www.understood.org/en/articles/what-is-a-504-plan
504 plans are focused on education accessibility and addressing discrimination as opposed to supporting individualized learning needs.
Implications?
There have been cases that I’ve heard in other school districts pushing students to get 504 plans instead of IEPs (and PAUSD has a low number of Students with Disabilities defined by IDEA both vs. California and nationally). State IDEA metrics do not flag schools for low IDEA metrics, so I do not know if PAUSD is notably low at the state level (there is no slick dashboard for IDEA data like there is for general education)
504 plans are not monitored with any of the attention that is given to IDEA, unfortunately, so, it is much harder to “see” what is going on.
I do not know the reason for this number – it is just a notable outlier.
I believe that the district can break this down by disability category and certainly look at the trends over time. Given other disproportionality issues, it might also be worth looking into ethnic, SED, and other demographic groups to see if there are other drivers.
All my best.
Steve
- Note the “Enrollment Overall” spreadsheet was retrieved from the Office of Civil Rights reporting at the US Department of Education.
https://ocrdata.ed.gov/estimations/2017-2018
morePalo Alto Unified School District (PAUSD) Special Education / Students With Disabilities Demographics (2019,2022)
Jurisdiction | School Year | Total Student Population | Students With Disabilities Population | Percentage Students with Disabilities |
---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2021 | 10754 | 1087 | 10.1% |
PAUSD | 2019 | 11992 | 1144 | 9.5% |
California | 2019 | 6,186,278 | 725,412 | 11.7% |
PAUSD | 2022 | 10509 | 1069 | 10.2% |
California | 2022 | 5,892,240 | 745,513 | 12.7% |
Question – is PAUSD under-identifying SWD
Issue – data is not available on students who only have 504 plans
PAUSD Chronically Absent
Jurisdiction | School Year | Total Students | Total Absentee Percentage | Total Absentee | Students With Disabilities | Absentee Percentage SWD | Absentee SWD | SWD Absentee Percent of Total Absentee |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | 7996 | 5.9% | 471 | 867 | 9.5% | 78 | 16.5% |
California | 2019 | 4,279,575 | 10.1% | 429207 | 559,824 | 16.3% | 91251 | 21.3% |
PAUSD | 2022 | 6785 | 10.1% | 685 | 766 | 18.8% | 144 | 21% |
California | 2022 | 4,009,260 | 30% | 1202778 | 560,749 | 39.6% | 222056 | 18.46% |
This is depressing across the board. There is a substantial excess number of SWD absentee students.
PAUSD Suspension Data
Jurisdiction | School Year | Total Students | Total Suspension Percentage | Total Suspensions | Students With Disabilities | Suspension Percentage SWD | Suspensions SWD | SWD Suspension Percent of Total Suspensions |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | 12347 | 0.9% | 111 | 1313 | 3.1% | 41 | 36.7% |
California | 2019 | 6,362,507 | 3.4% | 216325 | 823,805 | 6.2% | 51075 | 23.6% |
PAUSD | 2022 | 10933 | 0.7% | 77 | 1216 | 3% | 36 | 46.75% |
California | 2022 | 6,066,021 | 3.1% | 188047 | 847,770 | 5.4% | 45780 | 24.3% |
This number usually surprises people by how high it is. The proportion of SWD suspensions vs. total suspensions is appalling and should be addressed. You’ll note the lack of an “issue” in the California data as they don’t capture disproportionality problems.
PAUSD English Language Arts Data
Jurisdiction | School Year | Overall Performance Relative to State Standard | SWD Performance Relative to State Standard | Performance Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | +78.8 | -17.9 | 96.7 |
California | 2019 | -2.5 | -88.1 | 85.6 |
PAUSD | 2022 | +76.6 | -43.4 | 120 |
California | 2022 | -12.2 | -97.3 | 85.1 |
Compared to the state, Palo Alto SWD are doing well.
However, their performance gap grew from 2019 to 2022.
Unfortunately, the state performance is DISMAL.
The Gap analysis shows (or attempts to show) how PAUSD is serving its SWD relative to its general education peers.
PAUSD Mathematics Data
Jurisdiction | School Year | Overall Performance Relative to State Standard | SWD Performance Relative to State Standard | Performance Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | +83.2 | -25.7 | 108.9 |
California | 2019 | -33.5 | -119.4 | 85.9 |
PAUSD | 2022 | +68.3 | -57.7 | 126 |
California | 2022 | -51.7 | -130.8 | 79.1 |
Same assessment as for ELA. California overall is DISMAL (when are people going to be ashamed of this?).
The gap between the performance of SWD in Palo Alto is also notably larger than for the state as a whole.
It has also gotten worse in 2022 from 2019.
PAUSD College/Career Readiness
Jurisdiction | School Year | Overall Readiness Percentage | SWD Readiness Percentage | Performance Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | 74.2% | 24.7% | 49.5% |
California | 2019 | 44.1% | 10.8% | 33.3% |
This metric is kind of cryptic. It does serve as an interesting alternative to graduation data. Some other states are actually tracking students after graduation which is an excellent idea (notably, Arizona).
Again, the big issue is the gap between general education and SWD.
(Sigh… California as usual. No data on this in 2022).
NOTE: I haven’t gone through and de-duplicated SWD in the overall population which will increase all of these gaps in performance.
PAUSD Graduation Rate
Jurisdiction | School Year | Overall Graduation Rate | SWD Graduation Rate | Graduation Rate Gap |
---|---|---|---|---|
PAUSD | 2019 | 95.4% | 81.8% | 13.6% |
California | 2019 | 85.8% | 64% | 21.8% |
PAUSD | 2022 | 96.3% | 83.9% | 12.4% |
California | 2022 | 87.4% | 75.2% | 12.2% |
There was a huge improvement in state graduation rates for SWD. They also improved slightly for PAUSD.
Yay!… though with California, one wants to ask more questions.
Final Comments
- This shouldn’t have to be so hard. We should be able to pull out data on students with disabilities and parse them both between each school and the state as well as with other schools.
- The data is not cleanly separated between “students with disabilities” and their general education peers. This winds up under-counting the gap between the two student populations (I can go back and do this by hand.. but not today)
- The other largest population across California, and in PAUSD, that has a massive performance gap are English Learners (who are still learning English). We do not currently have any way to include the overlap between these students and students with disabilities (though the school district could do this analysis).
Other California Special Education Resources
moreDisabled students in segregated education settings get 23 percent fewer minutes of instruction per day… and it adds up
My son is autistic. Shortly after his diagnosis by our insurer, we started the Special Education process. We didn’t know anything. Though we were given “Procedural Safeguards”, we had no clue and we trusted the school and the teachers.
They started us in “Special Day Class” (or, more accurately, Segregated Day Class) solely with other disabled children in preschool.
They didn’t ask us.
They didn’t tell us there was an option.
Now, in Second Grade, they are trying to do it again.
But, we’ve learned.
In addition to losing the social and educational connection with his “general education” or “typically developing” peers (which is good for both sets of students)… he would also lose a lot of education.
Start behind, get behinder
The National Council on Disability published this excellent report “The Segregation of Students with Disabilities – IDEA Series (2018)” – go read it!
On page 39, stated in studied, bureaucratic language, there is a bit of a bombshell on “instructional minutes”.
When comparing special versus regular
education classes, they found significant
differences in the amount of time spent in
noninstructional activity: in special education
classes, 58 percent of the time was not devoted
to instruction, in contrast with only 35 percent
of noninstructional time in general education
classes.
How many students?
There are approximately 58 million students in our basic system in the US (Elementary school through High School). Approximately 15 percent of students are classified as Students with Disabilities (over 8 million) and, on average, over 13 percent of those students are placed in segregated settings for most of their school day (around 1 million).
There are also many additional disabled students who spend part of their day in a segregated classroom (less than 60% of the day) which I’ve not included in this total.
The number of students in segregated settings varies widely among the US states (more to follow).
Bottom line:
- Kids in general education get 65% of their day devoted to instructional time
- Kids in “special education” / segregated classrooms, get 42% of their day devoted to instructional time.
23% fewer minutes of actual education per day.
That is equivalent to 41.25 fewer days or 8.25 fewer weeks of school per year
… for over 1 million disabled students.
Given this – how is your child going to catch up? keep up? or ever get included with their general education peers again?
(Do keep an eye out for “modified curriculum” – this is a HUGE red flag)
And this has consequences.
Students with Developmental and Intellectual Disabilities have a 20 percent EMPLOYMENT rate (not unemployment rate) compared to 70+ percent of the non-disabled population and 30 percent(0sh) for the disabled community as a whole.
The Segregated Education Gap
This chart breaks down the educational impact (or gap) for you of a segregated education in the US today for disabled students.
Start Behind, Get Behinder - Educational Minutes for Students with Disabilities in Segregated Settings
Educational Setting | Instructional Time (percent) | 4 hour day | 6 hour day | 20 hour week | 30 hour week | Standard School Year 4 hour Day (180 Days) | Standard School Year 6 hour Day (180 Days) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
General Education | 65% | 2.6 hours | 3.9 hours | 13 hours | 19.5 hours | 468 hours | 702 hours |
Special Education (Segregated) | 42% | 1.68 hours | 2.52 hours | 8.4 hours | 12.6 hours | 302.4 hours | 453.6 hours |
Education Gap | 23% | .92 hours | 1.38 hours | 4.6 hours | 6.9 hours | 165.6 hours | 248.4 hours |

Disabled students in segregated education settings get 23% fewer minutes of education per day 8.25 fewer weeks of school
per year.
I hate the word hope. I always have.
I did more than hope in 2008 when I filed a formal complaint with the U.S. Department of Education over Michigan’s alleged violations to the “highly qualified teacher” provision in both the No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. A complaint that took nine months to investigate and led to Michigan having to change the teacher certification requirements for all secondary special education teachers.
The IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) guarantees that every student eligible for special education receives an Individualized Education Program (IEP) documenting how their disability impacts their learning, describing their educational needs, setting annual goals in all areas of need, and outlining the services supports and placement in their least restrictive environment they require to receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE). The IEP team must meet every year to review the student’s progress and update/adjust the program to reflect their needs. Every three years, the student must be reevaluated to ensure that they continue to be eligible, and that the IEP is appropriately individualized. But these are minimum requirements.
Contributed by DREDF. Originally published by DREDF in their newsletter.
You do not have to wait for the annual (yearly) IEP meeting to bring the IEP team together. There are many situations where additional meetings help the team work together to address problems and adjust the IEP.
Students who are legal adults (18 or older in California), parents, and education rights holders have a right to request an IEP meeting at any time. You must do this in writing, and the school must hold the meeting within 30 calendar days of the date they receive the written request (for this reason, it is wise to keep proof of when you delivered that written request). School breaks for more than five days in a row stop the timeline, so the summer break and longer holidays don’t count. Because it can take up to 30 days to hold the meeting, act quickly to request one when there are issues that are time-sensitive.
Bringing the IEP team together outside of the annual meeting can be helpful or necessary. For example:
- You might want to check in more formally to discuss how the student is doing, monitor their progress, or share information from outside providers.
- The student is not making enough progress toward their IEP goals and may need more or different services in order to do so.
- The student’s placement is too restrictive (not enough time with students without disabilities) or their needs are not being met.
- The student has new needs that the team did not anticipate or previously address, such as mental health challenges, social difficulties, behaviors, academic difficulties, medical issues, or recent hospitalization.
- The student is being bullied or is not safe at school.
- The IEP, including the behavior support/intervention plan, is not being followed as required, and services have been missed or delivered inconsistently.
- The parent is being asked to pick up the student early or to shorten the school day because the student is struggling with behavior, needs medical care (such as diabetes management) and the school does not have the resources or know how to support the student.
- The student is not able to attend school because of anxiety, overwhelm, or other challenges and the team may need to create a reintegration plan to help them.
See Requesting a Meeting to Review Your Child’s IEP | Center for Parent Information and Resources for more information about when and why an IEP meeting may be needed.
The partnership between parents, students, and schools is an essential part of IDEA. Because an IEP must be individualized to the unique needs of each student, and because every individual’s needs change over time, or because of changes in their school situation, using the IEP process to adjust the plan is an important part of your advocacy.
November’s Special EDition reviewed how to prepare for an IEP meeting. Here are some key advocacy tips to keep in mind when you are calling a meeting for specific reasons:
- Request the meeting in writing and be sure to keep proof of delivery. Use the calendar to count 30 days (excluding any break of more than five days but including weekends and shorter holidays) to identify when the 30 days would be up and write that you expect the meeting to be held before that date.
- Include detailed information about why you want to meet and which staff members may particularly be needed (for example, if your student has more than one teacher, and you have concerns about their progress in math, you might request that the math teacher be the required general education teacher who attends the meeting. See Who Is On My Child’s IEP Team? – PACER Center to learn more about who are the “required team members.”
- Clarify that you expect all required team members to be present for the entire meeting. For example, if you want to discuss mental health needs, the counselor or mental health provider’s participation is key, but you may be willing to excuse the adaptive physical education teacher if you are asked to excuse them. Note that if a team member can’t attend, you must be notified in advance so you can determine if excusing them and holding the meeting is appropriate, or whether it should be rescheduled. See When the IEP Team Meets to learn more about things to consider when excusing team members.
- If you plan to record the meeting, provide the school with 24 hours written notice. You can also include this in your meeting request.
- Include the times or dates when you are NOT available to help find a date and time that works for everyone as efficiently as possible. Remember, IEP meetings must be held at a date and time that works for both parents and school staff.
- If you plan to bring an attorney or advocate, let the school know. If there are others you intend to include (you can bring anyone to support you) let the school know so that there is enough space.
- If you prefer that the meeting be held virtually (not in person), be sure to include that in your letter.
- If you need help preparing to participate, contact your Parent Training and Information Center (PTI) as soon as possible. Learn as much as you can about the IEP process, your rights, and your child’s rights in advance. PTI’s provide valuable family friendly resources, training opportunities, and advocacy strategies. Find Your Parent Center.
- If you need an interpreter (interpreters for LEP parents) or disability-related accommodations (ADA Q&A: Back to School) let the school know in advance and in writing.
- You have a right to meaningful parent participation in these meetings so removing any barrier to achieving that is important. See Parental Right to Participate in Meetings.
- Here is a sample letter and instructions to use: DREDF’s Sample Letter to Request IEP Team Meeting.
Other Resources:
- SERR – Special Education Rights and Responsibilities –Disability Rights CA.
- Parent participation – Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
- 12 Tips for Parent Involvement in IEP Meetings.
- Q&A about Part B of IDEA: Parent Participation.
- Developing Your Child’s IEP: The Parent’s Role.
- The Important Role of Parents in Special Education.
- CA Parents’ Rights.
- DREDF – Special Education Resources.
- Find Your Parent Center.
- Key Definitions in IDEA | A Reference List.
- OSEP English-Spanish Glossary.
- Parents’ Rights – Quality Assurance Process (CA Dept of Education).
- Sample Letters and Forms – DREDF.
How inclusive are our schools for Students with Disabilities?
According to the latest Department of Education Report for 2021, 15.5% of all disabled students in the US are in highly segregated settings (either in a separate classroom for more than 60% of the day or a separate school).
Top 5 inclusive States
Bottom 5 Inclusive States
Full Rankings
How do we compute the Education Inclusion Index?
References
2021 Annual Report to Congress on the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
Keep up to date (and your comments)
This video shows an excellent example of Proactive Inclusion for a disabled student, in this case an autistic girl. Proactive inclusion is not merely physically including a child in a classroom or other environment, but working to ensure that they are as fully incorporated into the educational, social, and other aspects of the program as possible.
Thaysa from Dan Habib on Vimeo.
more
Some selected findings
- For students with an IEP, including students identified in each disability category,
greater participation in a general education setting is a strong predictor of
academic growth and improved outcomes as measured by statewide
assessments (i.e., the CAASPP and the CAA). - Although California requires SELPA community advisory committees (CACs) to
support LCAP parent advisory committees as a way of ensuring that parents of
students with an IEP are represented in the LCAP process, CACs have relatively
little access to and provide relatively little input on LEAs’ general education
programming.
- For the years studied, California as a state had among the country’s lowest rates
for including students with an IEP in general education for at least 80 percent of
the school day and had among the highest rates for including these students less
than 40 percent of the school day.
- Subgranting and distributing IDEA funds to SELPAs and allowing multi-LEA
SELPAs, in turn, to subgrant funds to their member LEAs does not promote
transparency and may be inconsistent with federal policy guidance.
Selected Recommendations
- Recommendation 2. Provide each LEA with the sole decision-making authority,
autonomy, and necessary resources for entering into and exiting from
agreements with other LEAs, either individually or as consortia, and other types
of agencies (e.g., COEs, SELPAs, nonpublic agencies) to offer a flexible
continuum of services to meet the variable needs of its students with an IEP..
- Recommendation 4. Increase transparency and alignment of the state’s general
and special education accountability, monitoring, and technical assistance
structures. Amplify the voices of special education stakeholders, including
families, in all governance and accountability structures
- Recommendation 5. Increase state communication and guidance to LEAs,
communities, and families about the state’s special education priorities and
available resources for increasing the provision of special education services in
general education settings and improving academic and functional outcomes for
students with an IEP.
Read more
moreThe Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (formerly called P.L. 94-142 or the Education for all Handicapped Children Act of 1975) requires public schools to make available to all eligible children with disabilities a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment appropriate to their individual needs.
IDEA requires public school systems to develop appropriate Individualized Education Programs (IEP’s) for each child. The specific special education and related services outlined in each IEP reflect the individualized needs of each student.
IDEA also mandates that particular procedures be followed in the development of the IEP. Each student’s IEP must be developed by a team of knowledgeable persons and must be at least reviewed annually. The team includes the child’s teacher; the parents, subject to certain limited exceptions; the child, if determined appropriate; an agency representative who is qualified to provide or supervise the provision of special education; and other individuals at the parents’ or agency’s discretion.
If parents disagree with the proposed IEP, they can request a due process hearing and a review from the State educational agency if applicable in that state. They also can appeal the State agency’s decision to State or Federal court. For more information, contact:
Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services
U.S. Department of Education
400 Maryland Avenue, S.W.
Washington, D.C. 20202-7100
www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/osep
(202) 245-7459 (voice/TTY)
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
20 U.S.C. §§ 1400 et seq.
Implementing Regulation:
34 CFR Part 300
more