A $12 million-a-year Department of Education program to address the social, emotional and physical needs of students to keep them from "falling between the cracks" got bad marks yesterday from state Auditor Marion Higa. Auditor’s report
raps school programBy Bruce Dunford
Associated PressThe DOE's rushed expansion of the Comprehensive Student Support System "resulted in a multimillion-dollar system that lacks accountability and effectiveness measures and experiences difficulty in implementation," Higa said in an audit report.
The DOE rushed what was a pilot program into a statewide program "to take advantage of the funding opportunity available throughout the Felix consent decree," she said.
The 1994 decree resulted from a 1993 class-action lawsuit filed by the mother of Jennifer Felix which claimed the state was violating federal law by not providing adequate services to children who need mental health services in order to participate in public education.
"Realizing that additional funding for student support could be obtained through the decree, the department convinced the (federal) court monitor that CSSS would provide the system of care required by the decree," Higa said.
Under the threat of a federal contempt order against the state under the consent decree, the DOE got the Legislature to fund 420 program positions statewide in the 2000-2001 fiscal year, Higa noted.
"Without the lessons learned from a completed demonstration project, CSSS has resulted in an inadequately planned, ill-defined and difficult-to-implement system," she said.
The department has created more than 500 new staff positions without clearly defining their roles, and the department "continues to fund CSSS under the pretext that it established the system of care required by the Felix consent decree." Higa said.
The coordinators and assistants were assigned to schools on short notice, and some were found working out of libraries, in hallways and in closets, the report said.
The report says the DOE created the student-support positions without clear responsibilities and did not make sure the staff was qualified.
Some principals have used the support services staff for other purposes, such as doing clerical work, it said.
"Although the CSSS educational assistants who predominantly engage in clerical tasks may currently be overpaid, confusion over their role led to lost career opportunities for some of them," Higa said.
In her response, Schools Superintendent Patricia Hamamoto acknowledged the expansion was rushed and said efforts are already under way to address the shortcomings outlined by Higa's report.
State Department of Education
