http://www.nola.com/education/index.ssf/2015/03/new_orleans_charter_school_vio.html
New Orleans charter school Lagniappe Academies illegally deprived special education students of the teaching they needed -- and then faked forms to hide it once the Louisiana Department of Education was on its trail.
Those are just two of the explosive findings in a report released Tuesday (March 3) by the state. More:
- The school held back almost one third of its students last year, sometimes despite spring report cards saying the child did well.
- Administrators refused to screen students for special education services even when families had a diagnosis from a doctor.
- They created a "Do Not Call" list of families whose children they did not want back, and instructed staff to skip them when phoning families with key information about registration and summer session.
- When state officials were to visit, administrators asked staff to move furniture out of a storage space so it looked like the school had a special education room.
- And administrators put in for a very high number of disability accommodations requests when testing time came around -- although almost no students received those accommodations during the school year.
The state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education will consider this week whether to renew Lagniappe's charter with the Recovery School District. After the state sent Lagniappe an initial report in the fall, the charter's board
voted to transfer to the local Orleans Parish school system. That too is still pending.
The report also comes as a
federal court monitoring agreement begins overseeing special education in New Orleans to ensure students are properly served.
In a written response, the Lagniappe board asked for more time to consider the findings. It also submitted an affidavit from administrator denying a handful of the allegations.
Lagniappe board member Dan Henderson called the report "a big distraction" in a Monday email to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune. "We are continuing to serve all of our 160 students, and look forward to another round of high-stakes testing, showing again our amazing accomplishments."
The school's C letter grade would typically mean a renewal term of four to six years. However, the state may reject renewals for management problems or if officials lose faith in the charter administration's integrity.
"A preponderance of evidence provided by families and teachers and collected by the Department of Education suggests that the school administration is not able to adequately manage the needs of the students within the building," state officials wrote.
Lagniappe has 180 students in kindergarten through fourth grade and one of th e
lowest special education rates in the city: seven students when the school year began, or 4 percent, compared to a Recovery average of 13 percent.
The report is backed by affidavits and signed statements by eight former teachers and seven family members, plus additional interviews -- 24 people in all.
These people said Lagniappe's special education students were astonishingly ill-served.
Two were simply moved around instead of taught, the former assistant to Principal Kendall Petri stated in an affidavit, shuffled from place to place, never in a classroom. They were often unsupervised and seldom given assignments; "they often slept or sat with nothing to do."
Petri told this year's new special education coordinator that special ed was the third priority, saying,
"Students with (service) minutes can be squeezed in," according to an affidavit. Administrators told the coordinator "there was only enough funding in the budget for five evaluations." This employee quit.
Teachers also reported or discovered efforts to cover up the lack of services as well as outright cheating on tests.
"Students told me they were upset because the (test) administrators gave answers to some students during the test," one reported. A second teacher said administrator Alison McCormick told her to make up test scores for three kindergarteners.
Problems were found with several special education logs submitted after the state reprimanded Lagniappe this fall: When the state cross-checked dates, it found some fell during fall break. Some had the name of a staffer who denied providing the services they listed.
As far back as November 2012, one staffer "was asked to forge a phone log and service logs," and quit, that teacher wrote. The school reported that staffer as the teacher of record through 2014.
Yet another teacher was coerced into signing a federal special education form, threatened with not being paid.
The accounts in the report go on and on. McCormick wouldn't let one parent see their child's grades and said, "We don't have to tell you anything," according to a letter from the parent.
Lagniappe removed one student for 10 days and her "return to school was conditioned upon a requirement for her to get a blood test to prove that she was taking her medication," which is illegal, her grandparent reports.
One kindergartener received none of the services he was supposed to get, despite repeated parental requests, his parent attests. At the end of the year, he was held back.
That was typical, said a former teacher. "Lagniappe's leadership failed to follow up about the many students to which I alerted the administration about academic and behavioral concerns," that person said. "When students who likely had undiagnosed special needs did not receive needed services and subsequently performed poorly, Lagniappe often retained these students. Parents who protested the retention decisions often withdrew their students from the school."
That former staffer noted that data supported the claim. The number of students sticking around has dropped each year, according to the state: Last summer, almost half chose other schools.
McCormick disparaged several of these teachers in her affidavit. One "became overloaded," and the school's demands "possibly wore her down." Another was "dismissive and immature." A third "became disenchanted with Lagniappe because (she) was not able to see the strengths in our students." Teachers were not asked to fake a special education classroom before Education Department officials arrived, McCormick said; rather, some were sloppy and the school needed to be cleaned up.
The school's broader response, both as reported by former staff and as given to NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune, is that its small class size and instructional techniques mean special education services are often not needed. However, schools are legally obliged to provide the services that are in a student's individualized education program.
"Our methods may not be familiar to those following standard methods that have not succeeded nationwide. We're succeeding because we educate with proven but out of the box practices," Henderson said Monday.
He said the Lagniappe was "thankful to have the opportunity to have a check on our performance, and as a result are taking steps to install improved procedures and practices."
Lagniappe's board is considering suing the state.
When asked whether the Education Department should have uncovered the problems sooner, Recovery chief of staff Kunjan Narechania said the report showed its oversight process was working.
"The data review and the site visits conducted as part of the renewal process allow violations such as those seen at Lagniappe Academies to surface and be addressed," Narechania said. "Our state's charter accountability policy ensures that these violations are not tolerated and has consequences up to and including loss of a charter."
Recovery Superintendent Patrick Dobard will make his official recommendation on Lagniappe's charter renewal Wednesday.
