ACTION ALERT: FLORIDA - Public Hearing Jan 19, 2010 to Discuss Excluding Alternative Schools From Accountability

Forwarded Message from Attorney Rosemary N. Palmer:

Please forward this email as widely as possible, asking your friends and friends of those who oppose discrimination to write the Board of Education in opposition to excluding alternative schools from the same accountability as other schools.

https://www.flrules.org/gateway/readFile.asp?sid=2&tid=8045585&type=1&File=6A-1.099811.htm

FLDOE has just announced its differential accountability rule, which is set for public hearing January 19, 2010 in Tampa (unknown time and place, contact lynn.abbott@fldoe.org). The rule sets out what schools where students aren't learning have to do to fix it. The rule excludes alternative schools, including special education day schools, second chance schools which are disproportionately populated by students of color and students with disabilities, whether or not identified under IDEA or 504, who have typically been sent there because school districts have failed to provide research proven interventions in less restrictive environments, and similar schools, from full accountability when they continue to fail students .. (See http://info.fldoe.org/docushare/dsweb/Get/Document-5588/dps-2009-215.pdf )

Apparently school districts have argued that the populations are too fragile and and too mobile for school districts to be required to close them when they cannot fix the problems after 1 year in Intervene status (which follows multiple years in prevent and correct status --- most of the ESE schools are now in Correct or Correct II status throughout the state).

However we know that students with disabilities whether or not identified and students of color ought to be equally entitled to the benefits of differentiated accountability. After years of knowing that such schools do not implement research proven interventions with fidelity and do not produce results (not to mention assigning personnel to such schools after they have failed in some way in non-alternative schools), we all know that school districts will NOT have any incentive to fix the problems until they know that they must implement interventions that actually educate in those schools too, and they are subject to ultimate sanctions of disbanding the schools if they cannot find a way to successfully educated the students there assigned, just like other schools are. Indeed, exempting alternative schools gives districts additional incentives to throw away students with disabilities rather than educate them, and also continues practices of using more restrictive environments that clearly don't work any way, which are also in violation of the law..

I say that students with disabilities (and students of color to the extent that they are disproportionately represented in alternative schools) deserve to be in schools that teach. Let's tell FLDOE and the Florida Board of Education that passing a rule exempting alternative schools from Intervenor status is discrimination, pure and simple.

People you need to contact

Dr. Eric J. Smith Commissioner of Education Commissioner@fldoe.org
Office of the Commissioner Turlington Building, Suite 1514
325 West Gaines Street
Tallahassee, Florida 32399
Phone: (850) 245-0505
Fax: (850) 245-9667

STATE BOARD of EDUCATION
(850) 245-9661
325 W. Gaines Street
Suite 1520
Tallahassee, Florida 32399

T. WILLARD FAIR, Chairman
President and Chief Executive Officer of the Urban League of Greater Miami, Inc.

PETER BOULWARE, Vice president of Legacy Toyota, Tallahassee FL
DR. AKSHAY DESAI, President, CEO and Chairman of Universal Health Care, St. Petersburg, FL
ROBERTO MARTÍNEZ , Colson, Hicks, Eidson, Coral Gables FL
JOHN R. PADGET , Key West FL
KATHLEEN SHANAHAN, CEO WRSCompass,
LINDA K. TAYLOR, Ft. Myers, FL

Thank you for your help. It will take us all writing and calling to make a difference.

--
Rosemary N. Palmer
Attorney at Law
FBN 070904 UBN 005004
5260 Pimlico Drive
Tallahassee FL 32309
floridalawlady@gmail.com
850 668 9203

PA: School firm hired to run Philly schools has ties to centers where 5 students died

By VALERIE RUSS
Philadelphia Daily News

russv@phillynews.com 215-854-5987

Posted on Thu, May. 14, 2009

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/homepage/44960742.html?cmpid=15585797

PHILADELPHIA School District officials are reviewing the background of a company with $13.1 million in contracts to run three alternative schools, after a city councilman raised concerns about the firm's ties to treatment centers at which five students died.

The company, Camelot Schools of Pennsylvania, also had ties to Brien N. Gardiner, founder of the Philadelphia Academy Charter School, who had been under federal investigation when he committed suicide yesterday.

On Tuesday, during budget hearings at City Hall, Councilman James Kenney asked the district to reconsider renewing its contracts with Camelot Schools, saying that he had heard reports that the firm was managed by some of the same executives who once ran problem-plagued centers for troubled children.

Five students at those centers died after being physically restrained, according to a Texas teachers' union official.

"When you're talking about issues related to child safety, I just want them to make sure they look under every rock," Kenney said yesterday.

In 2000, a 9-year-old Nevada boy died of a heart attack a day after he was held facedown by employees at the Laurel Ridge Treatment Center, in San Antonio, Texas, for throwing a temper tantrum, the San Antonio Express-News reported at the time.

Laurel Ridge was run by the Brown Schools, a now-defunct company that operated 11 treatment centers in several states for children with emotional and behavioral problems, according to Gayle Fallon, a top official of the Houston Federation of Teachers.

Camelot Schools has contracts worth $13.1 million to run the Excel Academy, an alternative school for "over-age" high school students on Bustleton Avenue, near Harbison, in the Northeast; and two disciplinary schools, Daniel Boone, at 26th and Jefferson streets, Strawberry Mansion, and Shallcross, at Woodhaven Road near Knights, in the Far Northeast.

Todd Bock, Camelot senior vice president for education services, said yesterday that he and others had been officers of both firms, but adamantly denied that his firm was the latest incarnation of Brown Schools, which went bankrupt in 2005.

"Camelot Schools is not Brown Schools," Bock said yesterday. "That's like the difference between IBM and Apple. They never have been affiliated.

"Whoever is putting that piece of information out clearly does not have the facts correct . . .

"We've been a partner with the School District of Philadelphia for over five years, we have an impeccable reputation in the city . . . and we went through a competitive-bid process just like other nationally recognized [firms]."

Asked if any Camelot officials also had run the Brown Schools, Bock said that he had worked for Brown Schools in Houston for five years and that John Harcourt, president of Camelot Schools, had been chief executive officer for Brown Schools.

Camelot Schools got its first contracts with the school district in 2004-05 to operate the Boone School and Excel Academy, Bock said. It won a contract to operate Camelot at Shallcross for the 2005-06 year, he said.

A federal probe into Gardiner's financial dealings found that he had helped Camelot Schools win its first contracts in Philadelphia in 2004.

Gardiner was not paid to help Camelot get that contract, the Inquirer reported last year. After it won the contract, Camelot paid Gardiner's consulting firm, Charter School Development Associates, a $108,000-a-year consulting fee, the newspaper reported.

Yesterday, before news of Gardiner's suicide, Bock told the Daily News that he took issue with any implication that Gardiner had smoothed the way for Camelot Schools to do business in Philadelphia.

"I wouldn't say that he helped us get a contract," Bock said.

The Inquirer article - published on May 14, 2008 - quoted Bock as saying: "The arrangement was, 'If you can help us negotiate with the school district and get us in front of the right people to pitch our program, we will enter this contract with you to provide services to Camelot.' "

Yesterday, Cecilia Cummings, a spokeswoman for the school district, told the Daily News in a statement that the district "is investigating the allegations raised against Camelot Schools that were first brought to our attention by City Councilman At-Large James Kenney during the May 12th City Council hearing. We take these allegations very seriously and will conduct an uncompromised review."

From 1999 to 2005, dozens of allegations against Brown Schools, including fraud, and physical and sexual abuse of students, were reported in several newspapers in Florida and Texas.

In 2001, Matt Leary, director of a Brown Schools residential center in Beverly Hills, Fla., was arrested for failing to report child abuse.

One Brown Schools case was profiled on the television show "Dateline NBC" in July 2005:

In 2002, Chase Moody, 17, died after he was restrained by counselors at the On Track wilderness program run by Brown Schools near Austin, Texas.

The program said that Chase was the fifth child to die of a prone-type restraint at a Brown facility and the 16th to die from such a restraint in Texas since 1988.

Although Texas regulators alleged that an improper restraint was used at the program, a grand jury later concluded that no criminal charges were warranted, the program said. But within weeks of Chase's death, Texas officials cancelled the lease with On Track, and Brown Schools closed its campsite program.

Moody and his ex-wife accepted a settlement from the Brown Schools.

Ironically, the newscast noted, Chase Moody's father, Charles, had been an attorney for the Brown Schools, defending it against a lawsuit brought by a woman named Judy Chandler, whose son, Brandon, 16, died in 1988 while in the care of a Brown Schools facility in Austin.

But that case never went before a jury. After seven years of legal maneuvers and skyrocketing legal bills, Chandler agreed to a settlement from the Brown Schools, which never admitted fault in her son's death.

After Moody's son died in the wilderness program run by Brown, Judy Chandler wrote Moody a letter saying how sorry she was for his son's death. *

AR: Report says alternative school substandard

Note: The school denies the problems are systemic and *only* involved one child....

Posted 12/12/2008 7:10 PM
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/states/arkansas/2008-12-12-2524477700_x.htm

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — A Hot Springs school has failed to adequately train its staff and maintain its facilities to serve students that have a mental illness or behavior problems, the Arkansas Education Department says.

In addition, Vista Alternative Learning Environment did not evaluate students as it should to determine if they could return to a mainstream school, failed to implement an appropriate education plan for one student, and failed to ensure the school meets state guidelines, the department said in a report Thursday.

"All special education facilities located in the Vista ALE building are inadequate with regard to size, location, accessibility, quality, and health and safety standards, as required by special education rules and regulations," the report said.

The state set deadlines for the school to address the problems, and could withhold funds if the school fails to come into compliance. The school serves about 60 students from seven Garland County school districts, and is run by the Hot Springs School District.

The department inspection was prompted by an October complaint from Karen White, whose autistic son attended the school for more than two years. She said her son failed to make any improvement at Vista. White also detailed instances in which her son was bruised, scraped and bloodied after staff tried to subdue him. She said she didn't think the injuries were deliberate but were caused by the staff's negligence.

"It's a throwaway school for throwaway children in Garland County," said White, whose son is now 13 and attends Hot Springs Middle School.

School officials acknowledged problems with the school, but disagreed with the state finding of "systematic issues."

"We're only talking about one student that they looked into so I don't know why it was systematic practice because we were only talking about one student," Superintendent Joyce Craft said.

However, Craft said the district would meet the deadlines. The district contracts with Therapeutic Family Services to provide case management and counseling.