Parents seek special
education ‘master’

By Gary Kubota
Star-Bulletin

WAILUKU -- Colleen Jones says her son is a manicdepressive and needed therapy to develop writing and speech skills in 1992. But she said he was unable to get any services on Maui until 1997.

"The public schools could not provide for his special educational needs," said Jones, also executive director of the Mental Health Association on the Valley Isle.

Jones' son reads at a third-grade level when he should be at an eighth-grade level, she said.

Maui District Superintendent Ralph Murakami retires today, acknowledging not everything has gone smoothly in his job, including his attempts to provide help for special education students.

As an interim leadership team is to be named today to assist new school Superintendent Paul LeMahieu, state school officials are facing a renewed court challenge by parents of special education students especially on Maui.

Attorney Eric Seitz is seeking to have a court-appointed master oversee federal compliance with special education programs on the Valley Isle.

The administration of Superintendent Herman Aizawa wants to hire a special deputy district superintendent to administer the special education program on Maui.

A hearing on Seitz's motion is scheduled for July 30 before U.S. District Judge David Ezra.

"That has been a real challenge because of the growth," said Murakami, 65, who has offered to serve in an interim capacity until his replacement is selected.

"We've had a tremendous increase in referrals. We've had a tremendous shortage of qualified special education teachers. We've had special education teachers leaving the positions."

Murakami points out the Maui district's student enrollment has grown by 3 percent to 4 percent a year in the last several years, creating a demand for more services, including special education.

The numbers have increased from the state identifying students in the public system who have special learning needs.

Since 1994, the number of special education students has increased by 100 percent to 2,000 on the Valley Isle, Murakami said.

The needs of the special educations students vary from difficulties in learning mathematics to attention deficit disorders, requiring individual lesson plans for each child. "You have a wide range of handicap conditions," Murakami said.

Adding to the problem has been the absence of a state district health officer on Maui since February.

The department is in charge of assessing the learning disabilities of special education students.

"It has created some problems in terms of coordination of services," Murakami said.

Kelly King, Maui member of the state Board of Education, said she believes the state has tried in the past couple of years to provide special education services but has lacked the resources.

She said she's for the best solution, even if it means a court-appointed master taking charge of special education needs on Maui.

"We need to do whatever works," King said.

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Schools system making
progress in evaluating
needs of students

By Debra Barayuga
Star-Bulletin

The Department of Education has reduced a backlog of evaluations to determine whether students are eligible for mental health or other related services.

Completing evaluations on a more timely manner was one of the problems identified at a hearing on the state's progress in complying with a federal consent decree.

The state has until the year 2000 to identify and provide mental health and other educational services for children with needs that interfere with their learning.

The state is required to evaluate students' eligibility for services within a 100-day period.

As of February, there were about 900 evaluations that had gone beyond the deadline.

The department has spent $250,000 to contract with providers to complete the evaluations.

At last count, the number of overdue evaluations is down to 18, Douglas Houck, special education specialist for the Department of Education told a Board of Education committee yesterday. And the referrals for evaluations keep coming in, he said.

The department is shifting $1.2 million to the University of Hawaii to expand programs to produce more teachers and service providers to meet the increasing number of students with learning disabilities.

The number of students in the public schools identified with some type of learning disability has grown from about 12,000 in 1994 to nearly 21,000 currently.

"We're playing catch-up in getting personnel and programs in place, but we are making progress," Houck said.

The department is hoping the appointment of a qualified and capable person to oversee Maui District's compliance with the consent decree will avoid having a special master appointed by the court.

The cost of filling the position will have to come out of the department's current budget.

But finding the money is not the issue, said John Compton, chairman of the school board's special programs committee.

"We've got to solve the problem. If this is a plan that will solve the problem, it's money well spent," he said.

"We have to be committed to make sure students who aren't getting the services get them. One way or the other, we'll do it."