Tres Whitlock has cerebral palsy, and he said school officials told him they did not have the staff to meet his needs.
Whitlock’s mother, Tonya, said she still doesn’t understand the law’s ambiguity after months of dealing with school officials.
Tres was at the center of our investigation of charter schools. StateImpact Florida discovered that 86 percent of state charter schools did not serve a single child with a severe disability — compared to about half of public schools.
When we published and aired our investigation featuring Tres, one of the biggest questions was, “Doesn’t the law require charter schools to accommodate students like Tres?”
The answer, as you will see below, is complicated. Here are five questions about what the law requires for students with disabilities.
New investigations by the Miami Herald and StateImpact Florida raise serious concerns about Florida’s charter schools – including who’s profiting from them, and whether they are serving kids with severe disabilities.
Fernando Zulueta, president of Academica, gets a drink at the bar in Cain at The Cove, Friday, September 16, 2011, an exclusive beach club in the Bahamas' Atlantis resort. Academica held a leadership retreat for principals of several charter schools there. MIAMI HERALD PHOTO
That’s the topic of a one-hour radio special, “Cashing in on Kids,” by WLRN/Miami Herald News in conjunction with StateImpact Florida and WUSF Public Media.
Both stations aired the program at 2 p.m. Thursday (a first time this has happened in recent memory) and there was a great response from callers and followers on Twitter.
Two callers said they were parents of kids with disabilities who had seen charter schools rejecting students with special needs themselves.
StateImpact Florida reporters Sarah Gonzalez and John O’Connor talked about the main finding of their three-month investigation: that 86 percent of Florida’s charter schools do not serve a single child with a severe disability.
Legislation filed in the Florida House of Representatives would require all Florida public schools to teach students about the events surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and the impact of those events on the country.
Representatives Joseph Abruzzo (D-Wellington) and Lori Berman (D-Delray Beach) filed the legislation this week, known as House Bill 1027. “The best defense of our nation is through the education of our children. We must teach the history of 9/11 to avoid a recurrence of these tragic events,” said Abruzzo in a written statement.
A proposed constitutional amendment in Florida that would have allowed taxpayer funds to go toward religious institutions, including schools, was struck down by a judge Wednesday. Amendment 7, titled “Religious Freedom,” was slated for the November 2012 ballot. It was crafted by legislators last spring to counteract a provision of the Constitution known as the Blaine Amendment, which says taxpayer dollars cannot be spent “in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.”
The proposed “Religious Freedom” amendment states:
Proposing an amendment to the State Constitution to provide, consistent with the United States Constitution, that no individual or entity may be denied, on the basis of religious identity or belief, governmental benefits, funding, or other support and to delete the prohibition against using revenues from the public treasury directly or indirectly in aid of any church, sect, or religious denomination or in aid of any sectarian institution.
Three months ago we sought to put some hard numbers on how many students with disabilities are enrolled in Florida charter schools.
We had no idea how elusive that data is.
First, we’ll skip to the end and tell you what our investigation uncovered: More than 86 percent of Florida charter schools have no students with severe disabilities. By comparison, more than half of traditional public schools have severely disabled students.
And students with disabilities in charter schools are often limited to schools that specialize in disabilities, creating a system that separates students with disabilities from their peers.
But getting to those numbers was a lot harder than it looks.
Tres Whitlock types on the DynaVox tablet that serves as his voice. Whitlock, 17, has cerebral palsy and can’t speak on his own. Whitlock is trying to enroll in a Hillsborough County charter school, but has yet to enroll because of concerns about the therapy and services he needs.
Tres Whitlock is stuck in a public school where he feels ignored. He wants out.
The 17-year-old would-be video game designer researched his options online and found his perfect match – Pivot Charter School.
“It’s computer-based and I think I will do better,” he says.
But when Whitlock tried to enroll in the school he found a series of barriers in his way.
The reason? He has cerebral palsy, and the Whitlocks say school officials told them they don’t have anyone to take Whitlock to the bathroom.
For the past three months, StateImpact Florida has been working on an investigation of charter schools. Wednesday morning, the truth comes out — both here and on NPR’s Morning Edition.
The question: How many of Florida’s charter schools serve children with severe disabilities? Here’s a hint: surprisingly few.
Patrick Farrell / Miami Herald Staff
Jeremy Rosende participates in his first-grade art class at the Renaissance Charter School in Coral Springs.
This is being done in conjunction with a six-month investigation involving the Miami Herald called “Cashing in on Kids.” Check out their findings on self-dealing by charter school officials and even politicians cashing in on the system.
Other stories have included anecdotes suggesting charter schools are cherry picking their kids, and excluding kids with disabilities.
StateImpact Florida got the data (it wasn’t easy, more on that later) and it shows some interesting patterns.
NPR is also airing a version of our story during Morning Edition Wednesday morning. Right now, the story is scheduled to start at 6:21 and 8:21 a.m. EST.
Florida’s education commissioner is defending his decision to toughen the standards for tenth grade reading. Commissioner Gerard Robinson acknowledges more students are likely to fail that portion of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (FCAT). He is seeking a passing score that’s two points higher than a panel of school and business experts recommended.
Robinson told The Palm Beach Post editorial board this week that tougher scores are necessary to make sure high school graduates are ready for the next step. Tenth graders must pass the FCAT reading exam in order to graduate.
Florida’s graduation rate has been on the rise for the last six years. In fact, the rate has reached its highest level ever. That’s the news from the Florida Department of Education, which just released a report for the 2010-2011 school year.
The results show minority students in particular continue to graduate at higher levels. Hispanic students have increased graduation rates 13 percent and African-American students are up 11.5 percent since 2006-07. Overall, Florida’s graduation rate rose more than one point to 80.1 percent last school year. That’s an increase of nearly 10 percentage points since 2006-07.
The current graduation rate is 68.4 percent for African-Americans, 77.3 percent for Hispanics, and 86.8 for white students. Continue Reading →
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