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Two Cities: Are Charters Opting Out of Special Ed? NEW ORLEANS AND DETROIT (Michigan Radio) - All this week we're looking at what lessons Detroit Public Schools may be able to learn from New Orleans' schools. The majority of schools in New Orleans are charters, and a big criticism of charter schools is that they don't adequately serve special education students.

One of the first things you notice when you step inside Banneker Elementary in New Orleans is the elevator. You can't miss it: It's on your left, just past the security guard. And as Cheryllyn Branch will tell you, that is one well-worn elevator. Branch is principal of Banneker Elementary, one of the few remaining traditional public schools in the city.

"We're the referral school, basically, for kids with special needs," says Branch. "For us that means that every kind of need, special education child here, from deaf, blind, multiply handicapped, or the children with severe learning disabilities, across the spectrum, we're one of few schools that has some of everybody."

On average, about 8 percent of the student population at charter schools in New Orleans are special needs students. At Banneker, a traditional school, that number is 13 percent. Cheryllyn Branch says that's because her school is treated like a dumping ground for kids with disabilities.

"And I hesitate to use the word dump when describing children," explains Branch, "because I don't think it's appropriate, but I hear many people say they will not accept because they find out the child has special needs. And if a charter is considered to be a public school then they should lawfully, legally serve all children."

"Section 504 of the rehabilitation act is a civil rights law and it prohibits schools to discriminate on the basis of disability," says Eden Heilman, a staff attorney at the the Southern Poverty Law Center in New Orleans.

Heilman says a lot of parents are told that a school won't take kids with special needs, and when parents hear that, they don't end up submitting an application. So Heilman says it's been difficult to track just how bad the problem is.

"But again," says Heilman, "I think the way most discrimination works is it's more covert than anything. It's not going to be as blatant as: We're not going to take your child because the child has a disability. They're going to do it in subtler ways. Like, oh we don't have any specialists at our school to deal with this child, or if the child is already in school and they don't want the child back for another year, a lot of the time we've had parents told not to send their child back or not to reapply the following year."

Heilman represent about a dozen clients who say their children have been discriminated against on the basis of disability, almost all of them at charter schools. But she doesn't "necessarily think that students with special needs and accepting those is an inherent flaw in the charter school movement, I think it's something they need to be mindful of and schools need to plan for in advance."

Heilman says that could mean requiring charter operators to lay out a plan on how they intend to educate students with disabilities before they receive their charter. Another option would be to have a bunch of charters get together and contract with an outside agency to provide disability services.

Paul Vallas says that's the plan in the Recovery School District, which is trying to turnaround the worst schools in the city. Vallas is the head of the RSD.

"Also," Vallas adds, "a number of the charters are beginning to specialize. So there specialty might be autism, or visually impaired, or hearing impaired. So I believe in the next two or three years there will be no special ed issues when it comes to charters."

And he says, no charter will be renewed if it's not in compliance with special education mandates.

In Detroit, there are many similar complaints about charter schools and students with special needs.

Keith Johnson heads the union that represents teachers in Detroit's traditional public schools. He points to what's probably the city's best-known charter system, called University Prep. Johnson says he'd like to visit one of those schools and see a special needs classroom for himself.

"I'd like to see some of these autistic students," says Johnson, "see students who are cognitively impaired, those who have learning disabilities, those who are are emotionally and mentally impaired. I want to see some of those classrooms."

This is what Johnson would see if he made a visit to the University Prep elementary school: Teacher Shila Ducre giving extra help to two third graders with learning disabilities.

About seven percent of students in the University Prep schools have special needs. Theresa Henderson Jackson coordinates the schools' special ed programs.

"We have students with cognitive impairments, hearing impairments, visual impairments, we have a student with a physical disability," says Jackson. "We have students who fall under autism spectrum disorder, students with Asperger's. So we have a number of students who we serve here."

But just like in New Orleans, there's a big difference between the number of special ed students served by charters, and by traditional schools. University Prep's seven percent compares with more than 15 percent for Detroit Public Schools.

Robert Bobb, the state-appointed manager for Detroit Public Schools, says he deals with the reality of that statistic every day.

"My most recent example is a mom who took four of her children out of the Detroit Public Schools into a charter school, and one of the children was a child with special needs...only to find that the special needs child's education requirements weren't being met. And we wanted her to bring all four of her kids back, but she only brought one kid back."

And even charter school advocates will concede that the parents of the most severely disabled kids probably don't send them to charter schools.

Jim Goenner heads the Center for Charter Schools at Central Michigan University. Goenner says the state's large public school systems and intermediate school districts have special centers for students who need a great deal of care and assistance.

"The districts and intermediate school districts that run those do an outstanding job, and parents are satisfied with those," says Goenner. "But we tell every school we charter: If that student shows up and enrolls in your school, you're obligated by charter contract and by law to meet those needs."

But meeting those needs can be difficult for charters that are just starting up. Theresa Henderson Jackson remembers getting the special ed program up and running at University Prep when she was hired a decade ago.

"Had to create, had to find, had to call other schools," explains Jackson. "Called teachers where I used to work: Hey, can you fax me this form? Can you send this to me? 'Cause we didn't have a lot. So for the first couple years, we were definitely searching."

Jackson says the kinks have gotten worked out since then. And she says the parents of the schools' special needs kids are telling other parents about University Prep. So she expects the program will continue to grow.

To hear other stories in the series "Rebuilding Detroit Schools: A Tale of Two Cities" and see related photos, videos and information, click here.

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