Fifteen-year-old David Rushing was excelling in school. The energetic teenager from the inner city liked to play baseball and basketball. He was a great swimmer and part of the Jesse White Tumblers, doing backflips and somersaults in front of crowds.
Things were going well, but when the pandemic hit and schools in Chicago shifted to remote learning, Rushing’s world took a turn for the worse.
The young teenager, who had been diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and oppositional defiant disorder, couldn’t participate in sports and was forced to focus on online classes without the proper support.
The freshman who attended Dubar Vocational Career Academy last fall had an Individualized Education Program, a legally binding document that outlines what special education services and interventions a student should receive in the school system. Rushing’s was set to expire on Nov. 5, 2020. He had been scheduled to be reevaluated a month before, but that didn’t happen.
Before the coronavirus pandemic shuttered schools last year, David Rushing was an energetic 15-year-old who liked to play sports.
It only took a matter of months for his life to spiral out of control. #EdChat #SPED #k12 #COVID19 https://t.co/tZiGaMWrFa pic.twitter.com/T73ifXVxZ5
— Chalkbeat Chicago (@chalkbeatCHI) August 3, 2021
Without the dedicated, structured support system he needed, Rushing’s life spun out of control, Chicago Chalkbeat reported.
His grandmother, Yvonne Bailey, told the outlet that Rushing “got involved with the wrong people in the neighborhood.”
“He was running away from home and staying out all night,” she said.
The family felt helpless and forgotten.
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The pandemic, which pushed some public school systems to their breaking point, also exposed serious flaws in the system for students with disabilities.
The year at home created a huge backlog of old IEPs that will likely lead to widening academic gaps for students who depend on special education services. In Chicago, students with disabilities make up 14.6% of the city’s enrollment. Of the 50,000 students who need extra help, nearly half are Latino, and 40% are black.
Data obtained by Chalkbeat revealed that during the 2019-2020 school year, more than 10,050 reevaluations, initial evaluations, and annual reviews were incomplete, a threefold increase over the previous year. More than 3,500 students were still waiting for a reevaluation, which is required by federal law.
During the 2020-2021 school year, 1,768 students were still waiting to be reevaluated, while 230 still hadn’t received an initial evaluation to get an IEP.
Delays in IEP reevaluations landed Chicago Public Schools in hot water before the pandemic. In 2018, the state board of education appointed a monitor to make sure Chicago wasn’t skipping services for its special needs students. The state board of education approved an additional year of state oversight in June.
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The full scope of the problem still isn’t clear because Chicago Public Schools has not released key data points, despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests. CPS has also withheld information that would indicate compliance with federal special education law, including how many referrals were initially requested by parents or teachers.
CPS District spokesman James Gherardi acknowledged there had been complications in reevaluating students the past couple of years but didn’t give an estimate on when the backlogs would be completed.
“The COVID-19 pandemic added a layer of difficulty to the evaluation process that our school leaders and staff are still working through to ensure each student that needs an evaluation receives one,” he said.
