Baltimore City school officials still have not delivered 26,000 hours of teaching owed to special education students, despite a 2-year-old “emergency order” from a federal judge, a school official testified in court Monday.
Taking the stand in U.S. District Court in Baltimore as a witnessin a special education lawsuit that has spanned three decades, Baltimore City Deputy Special Education Officer Idalyn Hauss told a federal judge that the city has provided special education students with about 70,000 hours of make-up education since the court?s 2005 emergency order, but still have about 1,100 students and 26,000 hours to go.
“It?s slow but steady,” Hauss said of the system?s progress.
Hauss told federal judge Marvin Garbis that teaching vacancies, especially in speech, have caused hundreds of special education students to miss out on the replacement education hours the court had ordered for education the system had previously neglected.
“We can?t even fill [the positions] we have,” Hauss testified.
City school officials believe it will take them until the end of the 2007-08 school year to provide the replacement education for all special education students, unless they begin replacing hours of what?s called “related services” ? such as speech or occupational therapy ? with tutors.
With contracted tutors, school officials say they could finish the task by the end of this school year.
“The children have grown and their needs have changed,” Hauss said. “We?re ready to make the switch [to tutors] immediately.”
Robert Berlow, an attorney with the Maryland Disability Law Center, argued that using tutors isn?t good enough.
“Have any of these tutors had experience teaching kids with special education needs?” he asked. “It?s possible none of them do?”
Hauss replied: “It?s possible.”
“Is it possible that a 75-year-old former shop teacher could be tutoring a little boy with special education needs?” Below asked.
“It?s possible, but not probable,” Hauss replied.
Garbis is expected to rule on the motion to switch to tutors today.
