The Special-Needs Kindergarten Crunch

New York Times
Tue Sep 23, 2008
The Special-Needs Kindergarten Crunch
By Christine Gralow

It’s the third week of pre-school. Kids are still settling in, and many are still crying when their parents drop them off in the morning. During these first weeks of school, pre-school teachers do a lot of waiting and wondering — waiting patiently for the separation tears to end and wondering what fascinating young characters will begin to emerge in this year’s class. My students’ parents, however, are already thinking about next year — they’re worried about getting their kids into kindergarten.
As a pre-school special needs teacher in New York, I’ve learned that the city’s culture of cut-throat competition extends to kindergarten admissions. And from that, an unexpected part of my job has evolved — providing psychological and emotional support to parents as they undertake the daunting task of finding an appropriate placement for their child. Securing a good spot in an oversubscribed New York City kindergarten, whether public or private, is difficult enough for most parents. But for the parents of children with special needs, it is especially challenging.
Last weekend, I had a long conversation with one mom who is already very worried about finding a placement for her child, who has an autism spectrum disorder. Like many Manhattan parents, she’s already calculating what connections she might be able to use and what strings she might be able to pull. She is considering the possibility of either mainstreaming him with some level of special-education support or enrolling him in one of the city’s private, special-needs schools (for which admissions competition is also very tough). It’s frustrating that she has to begin making the call at this point in the pre-K school year, when it’s far too early to tell which kindergarten option will be best for her son. But since many kindergartens have pre-Thanksgiving application deadlines, she has to begin the process now.
I wish I could tell her not to worry, that everything will be O.K. But I can’t. I’ve seen parents of children with autism go through particularly trying battles with school directors and the city’s Department of Education (D.O.E.) officials, often without a good result.
When I first began going through this process with parents, I was shocked. I’ll never forget what David — one of the first autistic pre-school students I taught — and his parents went through. At the time, David was a mild-mannered 5-year-old. I was his pre-K special-ed itinerant teacher (SEIT). David was an early reader, and he was good with numbers and music, but he had a speech delay, displayed overly repetitive play skills and had trouble focusing on one activity at a time. He exhibited few behavioral problems in the classroom, though, thanks to the intensive early intervention behavioral therapy he received. In fact, many of his mainstream peers had bigger behavioral issues. All of David’s teachers found him a pleasure to work with, and we all recommended that he be placed in a mainstream kindergarten class with special education support — or what is known in the special ed field as a team-teaching class. David’s speech skills had thrived in a class with mainstream pre-K peers, and it was vital to his language development that he continue his education in that environment.
After meeting with their local Committee on Special Education David’s parents were given the option of placing him in a public, team-teaching kindergarten class. The class would have one regular teacher and one special education teacher. Sounded good. Until we found out that the kindergarten class would have 31 students — far too many to allow the type of support David would need. It was the best his district had to offer him, but it wasn’t remotely good enough.
David’s dad then stepped up his efforts to get his son into a new, highly-touted Department of Education program designed specifically to mainstream high-functioning autistic students. This program seemed perfect for David. The application and evaluation process was lengthy, but David’s dad navigated it well. A school psychologist observed David in pre-K and determined that he was right for the program. David’s head pre-K teacher and I then spent significant time out of the classroom completing reports for his final application. David’s parents also spent significant time sending letters and patiently rescheduling canceled D.O.E. meetings. David made it to the final interview — a one-on-one evaluation with the program director. He did well. But after all this, the director informed David’s parents that the program did not accept students with speech delays.
Huh? This program had been touted for being an innovative program for autism spectrum students, like David, who should be mainstreamed. But despite all his reading, math and musical talents, and his significant speech progress in pre-K, David was not considered high-functioning enough for the program.
In the end, there was no appropriate public kindergarten option for David. Even the head of his Committee on Special Education acknowledged this. David’s parents made a last minute decision to move out of the city. Had they stayed, the D.O.E. would have been legally required to pay for a private school placement, since they failed to offer David a free, appropriate public education. However, getting the D.O.E. to fulfill such legal obligations requires having the financial means and the legal savvy to hire the right attorney. And so the kids who need services the most — the poor and disavantaged — get them the least. (I directly experienced this when working with a single mom and her autistic son in their East Harlem studio apartment. It’s a story that I’m still too upset about to tell.)
All this is not to say that there are no good public kindergartens in New York City, or no good public kindergarten programs for special needs children. They do exist, and some parents of special-needs kids — those enough lucky to live in one of the city’s coveted public education districts — do find good placements for their kids in well-run team-teaching classrooms, or, when appropriate, in well-run self-contained classrooms. But such placements are few and far between. Even in the coveted districts, I’ve rarely seen an appropriate special-needs kindergarten placement come without a parent struggle.
There are, of course, also several private schools in New York City for autistic children, such as the McCarton School. But at $90,000 per year, clearly, the kid from East Harlem isn’t going to make it. The city’s handful of public and non-profit charter programs for children with autism, such as the P.S. 255 schools in Queens and the New York Center for Autism Charter School, clearly need to be expanded and replicated, and those working to make such programs succeed should be applauded.
As for David, luckily, he ended up in a good kindergarten class in another town. He has just begun first grade, and he’s doing well. But needless to say, parents of children with autism should not have to move out of the city at the last minute to enroll their kids in a decent program. I really hope the mom I’m working with now has an easier time.