"It's time for Vermonters to take a close look again at our school budgets. What will our tax dollars buy for the children of our community? Where are the problem spots?
While the townspeople talk budgets, there is a child unaware in just about every classroom who is about to be the focus of budget frustration and resentment. Even more than the others, this child's future hangs on their words.
This is the child with disabilities, who needs special education services.
This month, he is called an unfunded federal mandate. She's a budget problem. He's a drain on taxpayers. Even leaders who usually stand up most for children, our Governor, school officials and school board members, point to these children as a key source of their budget pains. They cost too much. Their parents demand too much.
I often wonder if these good people know any so-called special education kids. I do. One is a little girl who has brain-damage from birth. With an IQ of 56 and a dedicated family, she can learn if she gets some extra help at school. I know a second-grade boy who has epilepsy and a severe form of painful arthritis. And a bright child with a learning disability that, uncared for, means certain failure in school.
Too often, these children sit isolated in class, fervently wishing to be like the others, not understanding, and waiting for help. I'm sure most of us would not begrudge these children an opportunity to learn, even though helping them costs money. But words can hurt and the language used about special education creates hostility to these children who are differently-abled and their families. And it creates resistance to giving them services.
Recently, Governor Dean characterized the problem as parents who want more for their children than the schools should have to provide. That kind of talk hurts. The law does require schools to provide an appropriate education, but it allows the schools to deny unnecessary services.
More often, the parents enter the world of special education feeling apprehensive, even apologetic, that their children have extra needs. They have hope that their child can be educated with other children in a normal classroom and they appreciate the efforts of the school and the classroom teachers to make that work.
The parents I know whose children are in special education are the hardest-working, most dedicated people I have ever met. When people work with them, they're grateful. But too often they are heartbroken and disappointed. Too often our schools deny vital services, or they agree, then fail to deliver. In some communities, resistance to helping their children is real, and it's destructive. Too often these parents are driven to the courts to advocate for their children.
This pits parents and children against their communities. It's ultimately the most expensive outcome and the least successful for all the children in our schools. When the needs of children with disabilities are denied, all children in the school are hurt. Classroom disruptions, stressed teachers and distracted classmates are the result.
All of that starts now, when special education is made the scapegoat for budget increases. It starts at the top and filters down when the language of leaders creates resentment against children and their parents.
Last year, the legislature recognized the budget burden on local schools and sharply increased state special education funding. The increases come with responsible boundaries on inflation. But already, there's talk of backing down.
This is a commitment we need to keep. It's not about federal mandates or greedy, demanding parents. It's not about just a few children. All of our children deserve to grow in a community where all of its members are respected and cared for.
It's not about a federal mandate. It's about
a child. "