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Teachers and union tell Senate the department's pandemic response left special-education students behind
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Summary
Union leaders and classroom teachers told the Senate commission the department did not conduct a dedicated study of pandemic effects on special-education students, failed to include teachers in planning, and left gaps in access to devices, therapies and protocols; they urged school-level autonomy and concrete operational plans.
Representatives of the Asociación de Maestros de Puerto Rico (AMPR) and classroom teachers told the Senate's Special Commission on Legislative Monitoring that the Department of Education did not conduct a comprehensive study documenting how the COVID-19 pandemic affected students in the special-education program, and that teachers were excluded from the development of recovery modules and contingency protocols.
AMPR presenters said the department often prepared guidance and memoranda without prior consultation with the union and that the union was not invited to participate in committees that designed reopening protocols or emergency guidance. The AMPR also reported outstanding operational issues including unpaid stipends owed to contracted support staff who worked in the early reopening phases.
Classroom teachers gave detailed, personal testimony about March 2020 disruptions: school records, therapeutic appointments and assistive equipment were left in school buildings; many teachers resorted to phone calls, WhatsApp and informal home visits to reach students; some students missed therapies and academic continuity; and families faced poverty, lack of devices and limited or no Internet connectivity. Teachers said those conditions disproportionately affected students with sensory and attentional needs.
Teachers and union leaders challenged the department's reliance on MetaPR as the principal evidence of pandemic effects for this population. They argued that alternate or individualized assessments ("meta alterna") are not standardized and do not yield comparable systemwide metrics, and that the department has not carried out a distinct, documented study that isolates special-education outcomes. A union representative told the commission the department's data presentations lacked transparency about sampling, counts and methodology.
On operational fixes, presenters urged the department to: create banks of adaptable lesson videos and serious remote modules tailored for special-education needs; convene regional and school-level listening sessions to gather teachers' operational experience; prioritize the replacement and maintenance of distributed devices; and adopt school-level autonomy where appropriate so schools can tailor responses to their local context.
The AMPR provided staffing figures to the commission: 5,176 special-education teachers currently working under contract, of whom 3,625 hold regular/permanent appointments; the union said 484 teachers meet requirements for a status change but remain pending. The association requested the department provide documentation on payments owed to contracted support staff and an itemized list of schools identified in the union's school-condition survey.
The commission asked the department to submit the requested evidence and indicated it would continue oversight at the next meeting.
