Get Full Government Meeting Transcripts, Videos, & Alerts Forever!
Get email alerts on the Special Education topic
No spam. Unsubscribe anytime.
District reports progress on special-education reforms after FICMAT review; trustees and parents press for more data
Summary
Ventura Unified told the board it has expanded co-teaching, launched TK inclusion and updated assessment practices after a FICMAT review; district staff reported that roughly 50% of students with disabilities are now in general education more than 80% of the day (up from 44.9%), and officials promised written outcome data in response to trustee and parent requests.
Ventura Unified leaders delivered an extended update on Aug. 27 about their response to 30 recommendations from a February 2024 FICMAT review, describing programmatic changes and early impacts while parents and trustees pressed for written outcome metrics.
Neil (Ed Services) and Superintendent Dr. Antonio Castro summarized a broad set of reforms: expansion of co-teaching (the district reported moving to 67 co-taught sections this year), a TK inclusion initiative to bring identified students into TK/K settings with added supports, expanded paraeducator training and mandatory year-round professional development, improvements in bilingual assessment practice, and a shift to data monitoring that runs extracts more frequently than the annual census-day reports.
District presenters said special-day-class enrollments had declined in targeted areas (from seven SDC classes to four in one program) and that early local data indicated approximately 50% of students with disabilities were now participating in general-education settings for more than 80% of the day, up from the previously reported 44.9%. The presenters cited a state goal of roughly 70% for that indicator.
Board members and parents asked pointed questions about the real-world impact on students, classroom staffing and reasonable accommodations. Public commenters warned against moving students into inclusive settings without adequate assistive technology and staff capacity; Deborah Meyer Morris and Ashley Pope (president, Autism Society Ventura County) urged transparency and regular public reporting of outcomes.
Neil and Dr. Castro said the district would provide written data and an interim update as the year progresses, and they described practices intended to prevent misidentification of English learners (bilingual assessors, language sampling prior to formal testing) and strengthen student-study-team (SST/MTSS) processes so interventions are tried before special-education referral.
District staff said that the implementation includes coordination through an educational directors’ student-assistance team (EDSAT), expanded bilingual assessment capacity, and a plan to produce written outcome measures for the board and public. Several trustees requested that special-education outcome data be brought to the board on a quarterly basis and asked staff to survey school-site-council participants about the new school-site-council bylaw changes.
The board did not vote on policy changes at the meeting but asked staff to return with both written outcome data for the special-education initiatives and a plan for school-site-council implementation/feedback.
