District 75 is a city-wide district comprised of schools serving children with moderate to severe challenges. Despite spending millions of dollars to survey parents, teachers and students, the DoE has made a shameful decision to exclude parents in D75 from the parent survey. The Daily News covers the story here.
In their defense, senior DoE officials claimed parents were unhappy with the absence of questions addressing special education on the survey. But that was the common complaint of parents who participated in the survey design process; questions on the issues most important to parents were either stripped from the survey or jumbled together in a single question, a methodologically unsound research approach.
The survey eventually sent out was so bland and general, it's hard to understand why the DoE couldn't make the minimal effort to be inclusive.
The News quotes John Englert, President of the Citywide Council on Special Education: "We're part of the New York City public school system, and I would think that if you're going to survey the parents, you'd want to include parents of children with disabilities."
This link provides more information on District 75. Click here for an earlier post on the parent survey including news of Mayor Bloomberg's attack on parents critical of the survey.
I have been searching to find a place to post a comment and bang I came across this one the help prove yet again that our special needs children are once again being ignored. I understand how these parents feel, my son is presently in a middle school that I was told he had no other oprion but to go there. And my list of complaints and negligence continues to grow as does their rug that they push everything under. Well my patience has just grew very thin. My child's school is offering a dance to ALL students who have had good behaviour and obeyed the uniform policy,,two things which I know my son and a few of his close friends have obeyed. Invitations were to be given out by the dean of their floor and guess what my Special Needs child once again has not been invited to attend a school function. Please correct me if I am wrong student body means ALL CHILDREN RIGHT????
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