Disabilities group to CPS: Make sure charter schools welcome special ed students
A disabilities-rights group is asking Chicago Public Schools to consider the track records of some charter schools in serving students with special needs before it renews their operating charters this spring.
Equip for Equality examined the number of students with special needs across the district. It found that charter schools — which are publicly funded but privately operated — have fewer students with written plans detailing their special needs and rights than schools run by CPS.
Special needs students at charter schools are also more likely to leave or be expelled than special needs students at CPS schools. And at some charter schools, Equip for Equality says, students with special needs were twice as likely as their classmates to leave or be kicked out.
In an open letter to CPS on Monday, the organization urged the district to hold charter schools accountable.
“These schools were launched with the promise of innovation and spreading educational opportunity,” the letter reads. “Based on the findings in that we highlight in this letter, we encourage CPS to take several steps to enhance its reauthorization process to better protect students with disabilities.”
While 12.5 percent of students in CPS schools have ”Individual Education Plans,” just 9.5 percent of charter school students have IEPs, the letter says.
Despite having fewer special needs students on their books, charter schools expelled and suspended more students with IEPs than the district — students with IEPs constituted about 22.5 percent of students expelled from CPS schools in 2013-14, but 26.2 percent from charter schools, Equip for Equality says.
Two charter high schools, Urban Prep and EPIC, have lost an unusually high number of special needs students, it adds. ”Urban Prep reported a 14.7 percent net drop in students with IEPs during the 2013-14 school year, compared to a total decline of 7.5 percent for Urban Prep students overall,” the letter states. “The gap was greater at EPIC: a 26.7 drop in students with IEPs in 2014 compared to 10.6 percent overall.”
Charter schools operate under governing charters, which last for five years each. So every five years, CPS re-examines each school’s operations to see if it should remain open another term. This spring, CPS is reconsidering 14 charter agreements and a contract school agreement that will expire on June 30.
“We are very explicit that we are not for or against any charter Disabilities group to CPS: Make sure charter schools welcome special ed students | Chicago:
