Home Stretch for the Consent Decree

Lawyer: Principal Skinner, "The Happiest Place on Earth" is a registered Disneyland copyright.
Principal Skinner: Oh now, gentlemen, it's just a small school carnival.
Lawyer: And it's heading for a great big lawsuit. You made a big mistake, Skinner.
Principal Skinner: Well, so did you. You got an ex-Green Beret mad.
[Skinner finger-thrusts the first goon in the Adam's Apple, then kicks the lawyer in the chest; they both go down groaning; as the second goon runs away, Skinner picks up the lawyer's briefcase and flings it; in the distance, it knocks down the goon]
Principal Skinner: Copyright…expired.

--The Simpsons, “Lisa the Beauty Queen” (10/15/92)

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With neither a bang, nor a whimper, it was more like a whisper around the Puzzle Palace today.

First there was the rumbling of rumor, then the email went out to everyone, which also involved a link to a press release. It was over an hour before it appeared on the Sun’s website. (The Inside Ed blog still hasn’t picked it up yet. Nice job, guys. Where the hell is Sara Neufeld when you need her?)

The short version: the Vaughn G Consent Decree is over.

The longer version: it’s almost over. If City Schools can keep its nose clean for another two years, it’ll be over for good.

The Consent Decree, which got started back in 1984, came about because there were allegations that the Baltimore City school system wasn’t providing for Special Education students. Some students weren’t getting their services, some students weren’t getting identified in a timely manner, and so on. So a lawsuit was launched, and a Consent Decree was entered.  Under the Decree, which has been monitored by Judge Marvin Garbis, the Court would monitor Special Education activity until the school system met with a set of “Disengagement Outcomes”.

Only twenty-six years later, everyone agrees that there has been “great improvement and collaboration” among the parties, and an agreement was hammered out that will end the court monitoring as of July 1, 2010. The Special Master’s office will be dismantled, and the City will have to answer only to the Maryland State Department of Education, as all districts in Maryland do. There are still a few issues to be dealt with, such as discipline (suspension of students with disabilities), supplementary aids (always a hazy topic) and make-up of missed services, but from where I stand they’ll be fairly easy to address.

It was kind of weird, but somehow I expected something—I’m still not sure what—to happen at the Puzzle Palace. But everything was quiet. Maybe even a little quieter than I’m used to.  It was business as usual. This, to me, was pretty monumental, and maybe that was the problem. It’s been part of the status quo for so long that nobody really knows what to do with it yet. I mean, look at the picture on the left. That one was taken before the news was announced. Now look at the right: that was taken after the news was announced. Can you see a difference?

I did a little research and, so far as I can tell, it’s a rare school system in the US which has completely exited its Consent Decree. New York City has been under one since 1972. That’s not a typo; it’s been thirty-eight years. Chicago got out of one last year related to segregation; that one went for twenty-nine years. San Francisco had one that started in 1983 and was allowed to simply expire in 2005, so that doesn’t really count as “exiting”. Washington, DC, is just getting underway with one that started in 2007. Los Angeles is going on fifteen years, now. Hey, these things take time. I’ve always thought it was kind of like Moses and the Israelites wandering the desert: we had to wait for the previous generation to die off before things would change enough to make it work. And it was practically like that: most of the people who were working in the system when the Consent Decree began are long retired.

If nothing else, this is going to mean Big Bucks for the system. City Schools had to pay for the Special Master, had to pay for practically everything for both sides—including the attorney fees—whenever a Consent Decree-based lawsuit was filed, had to pay gazillions in Compensatory Services (which will probably still happen, though at a greatly reduced rate of incidence), had to pay for the extra audits and whatever else it’s had to deal with. This is literally millions of dollars that don’t need to be spent anymore.

So, it’s Kudos to the Special Education teachers, to the related service people, to the IEP Chairs, to the people in the Special Education office, to the parents who advocate for their children, to the principals who supported all these efforts, and to just plain everyone for a Job Well Done.

Comments

[sailorgrl21]

Just makes me want to rip up the paperwork for confetti in celebration...but I won't until mebbe July 1....we're all quietly celebrating!

Quit poisoning the well, already. My guess is that most of those forms WON'T go away, but will change in their specific content. There are plenty of jurisdictions that don't have a CD but which do advise parents of their rights. Plus, this isn't quite over yet... --C.

[a parent]

I was struck by the email announcement as well. InsideEd is pathetic to not at least just post the email and let the readers start a discussion. I guess they're too busy yacking about Catholic schools.

As a parent advocating for my special needs child I really wonder what this means to us. At the moment we're aging out of a school that has served us well and I'm thinking there is no placement available for him that is FAPE in City Schools' middle schools. So, on a personal level, I'm not finding much to cheer about these days. I do realize there's been a lot of progress and a lot of hard work and this is a reason for many to celebrate... just not us, I'm sad to say.

[elisabeth]

How about kudos to regular ed and resource teachers who also teach most of the kids with IEP's? They have done a great job. A resource teacher sees a huge number of kids with IEP's each week.We are never noticed unless there is a problem.