In 2001, several months before her third birthday, one of my daughters was diagnosed with autism Over the course of the next several years, we worked hard to find treatments and educational supports to help her reach her full potential. But in the course of navigating the special education system for our daughter, we found that parents who lack financial resources, advocacy skills and English language skills are at a tremendous disadvantage.
Soon after, I joined the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education, where I have sought to support families who are having trouble getting appropriate special education services for their children, as well as tried to advise the Board of Education on how we could improve our delivery of these services, and improve outcomes for children.
Unfortunately, the current Board has shown little interest or inclination to address the serious equity issues I and other parents see in our special education programs. This lack of interest has been a major factor in my decision to run for the Board.
Over the years I have developed expertise in Federal, state and local financing of special education, and also in how the laws work (or don’t work). I have become convinced that parents with direct experience in special education need to get more involved in school boards, to change the conversation from “encroachment” and “adversarial” to “investment” and “collaboration.” Decades of under-funding have left our system under tremendous stress, and there is little trust between administrators and parents, who are supposed to be acting together as equal partners in what is best for a particular child.
But special education is such a big topic it is hard to do it justice in one essay, so instead I have collected several of my interviews and articles to help voters get an idea of my specific views.
2008 Senior Dad Candidate Forum: Special Education (podcast); Oct. 15, 2008
Video: “What would you do to improve special education?”
Oct. 7, 2008
Autistic Woman’s Story Shows How Far we Have to Go, guest post on SF Examiner’s education blog; July 24, 2008
Reaching Special Education Ideals are Still Far Off
BeyondChron series May 31 – June 2, 2006:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
