California Special Education Students Left in the Dark About Graduation

Tax time has come and gone and proms and high school graduation days are just around the corner. Still, in California, many special education high school students don't yet know if they will be allowed to graduate. In past years, special education students who had taken the California High School Exit exam but had not passed it, were allowed to graduate, providing they had met certain conditions. That came to an end last year. Politicians hinted that new laws would be passed to put something in place to accommodate special education students, but so far nothing has been passed.

In the April 14, 2008, edition of EdCal, the official newspaper of California School Administrators, it reported that State Senator Gloria Romero has introduced legislation (SB 446) to extend the CAHSEE exemption for special education for the class of 2008. It also reports that it would require the Superintendent of Public Instruction would convene a panel to make recommendations on assessment of students with disabilities. In the article, Romero estimates that 40,000 students may not be able to graduate if this legislation is not passed.

Special education students can use approved accommodations when taking the CAHSEE if they are written into their I.E.P. (Individual Education Plan), according to both the article and the California Department of Education website, but they must receive a passing score and get a waiver from their district. The problem is that the test is supposed to show competency at an 8th grade level.

Students in special education under a Special Day Class placement are there because they cannot function academically in a general education classroom. Therefore, if they had truly been able to function academically at an 8th grade level, they would not need to be in a Special Day Class in the first place. Therefore, special education students are caught in the middle. Some will manage to pass, but the others will find it too challenging, even with accommodations.

Everybody needs to be accountable to some standards in order to receive a high school diploma, but legislators and educators must come up with a well-thought-out plan to accommodate the needs of special education students by spelling out exactly what they need to graduate, what they could do to get support, and is easy for parents and students to understand. There needs to be consistency so that a student beginning high school this year and all future years can have a road map that will guide him or her in the direction of graduation.

It is good to know that someone is working on legislation to help special education students, but what do you tell parents who want to know whether or not their child is going to graduate this year? Are they going to be comforted by the knowledge that legislation may or may not be passed before it is time for their class to graduate, or that maybe they'll graduate and then afterwards they'll find out if they graduated or not.

It is too late to do things right for the 2007-08 school year. I hope that those students and their families will have an answer soon as to whether legislation will pass to address this issue, but that is doubtful. Even if that does happen, that is not the right way to do things. Everything should be in place long in advance so that everybody can plan accordingly. The time to start planning for the 2008-09 school year and beyond is now.