Oct 28, 2004 - 23:15:54 CDT
MANDAREE -- A team investigating complaints about the special education program at Mandaree will release its findings next month.Bureau of Indian Affairs education specialists were at Mandaree recently after some parents filed formal complaints this summer.
The parents say their children don't make any progress in the program, even after many years, and that they suffer emotional abuse from special education staff.
They also allege the program's facilitator, Connie White Bear, falsifies records to make it look like parents have been legally notified of meetings to write their child's individual education plan and is verbally abusive to some parents.
Keith Nevens, education specialist with the BIA's Center for School Improvement at Albuquerque, N.M., headed up the four-person team.
Nevens said he could not comment on what the team heard or investigated during its two days at the school.
Some of the parents belong to a group called Concerned Parents of Education.
The group has taken its concerns about White Bear and other problems to the school board, the Three Affiliated Tribes governing council and other agencies.
Tribal spokeswoman Glenda Embry said tribal officials would withhold comment until they see the results of the BIA's investigation.
White Bear initially agreed to an interview and then would only say she'll talk when the report is released.
"It's an ongoing process, and I'll be happy to talk after the report," White Bear said.
Mandaree School Board president Nathan Hale said the BIA team told him that 10 complaints will be studied for recommendations. Parents of special education students and school administrators will get findings and recommendations in about two weeks.
Hale said the school will work to meet any recommendations, which he's been assured would not include recommendations to fire any staff.
Mandaree has 194 students in grades kindergarten through 12, with about 25 percent of them in special education programs.
That's above the statewide average of 13.6 percent.
Leona Scheets was an instructor in the Mandaree special education unit for two years, resigning this spring.
Scheets said White Bear hindered teachers who tried to meet legal requirements for special needs kids' education and that basic re-evaluations and progress reports of students were overdue, and some evaluations were never produced.
Scheets said White Bear avoided her staff and preferred to work around, rather than with, them.
"It was follow her directive, or you're gone," Scheets said.
Scheets said Mandaree doesn't modify the curriculum for special education students to ensure they remain with their appropriate age level. She said that results in some students being far older than everyone in their grade, like a 16-year-old girl in seventh grade.
This year, White Bear is the only certified special education teacher remaining in the department.
Hale said the school has tried to fill the vacancies.
Hale said White Bear is his niece, but that he holds her accountable for student progress, just as he does all other staff. He said nepotism is hard to avoid on the reservation, where everyone is related.
Parents say White Bear uses her uncle's position to threaten firing of staff who complain about her.
Mike Ross, who heads a cooperative special education unit based in Williston that serves Mandaree, said Mandaree has a problem with staff turnover. He blamed the turnover, at least in part, on Mandaree's rural location.
"There's always quite a turnover in general" at Mandaree, Ross said.
The special education unit Ross heads serves schools in Williams and McKenzie counties. Ross said he's aware of parents' complaints, but none have been made directly to him. Nor has his own staff, which provides services like occupational and speech therapy, expressed any concerns about Mandaree's overall program, he said.
Valerie Poitra, of Mandaree, said she worked as an aide for the special education department. She said she was asked to go out and get parents' post-dated signatures, so the files would show parents had been legally notified of meetings to write their child's individual education plan.
The law requires three attempts to make contact.
Maggie and Ervin Halvorson said two of their sons have been in the special education programs at Mandaree.
Ervin Halvorson said one of his sons was disciplined repeatedly -- 30 to 40 times in a year -- by being removed from school and dropped off at his parents' workplaces.
They have since sent their children to New Town, where they've never been disciplined and where their 16-year-old has since learned to read, they said.
They said their son's New Town special education teacher met with the BIA inspectors and said she's had no problems with him.
Ervin Halvorson said he's made many complaints about White Bear and the special education program "but I think they hit the trash before I hit the door."
Robert and Diana Mischel, of Mandaree, said the BIA investigators told them their children's individual education plans were "incomprehensible" and that required parental notices were missing from the files.
Robert Mischel also said White Bear taunted him for being a "whitey" who didn't belong in the school.
Diane Mischel said White Bear never explains the plan for their children's educational progress.
"She makes us feel like our kids are there because we did something wrong," Diane Mischel said.
Hank Bolman said he's requested that White Bear have no involvement in writing his daughter's individual education plan.
"She will not listen, she'll do what she wants," Bolman said. "What it all comes down to is she should have never been hired in the first place."
He said his daughter has been found wandering around Mandaree when she was supposed to be in school.
Hale said the school has identified its special education staffing as a weakness in its overall school improvement plans.
He said the school board has asked regional BIA school officials -- called in-line agencies -- to look into its special education program, but so far, an audit of that nature has not been conducted.
"We want the whole program looked at. It's not that we aren't doing anything. Parents have concerns and some are very personal," Hale said.
Hale said he has confidence in the upcoming Albuquerque BIA team's report.
"I don't know if it will satisfy the parents," he said.
He said the school board intends to settle public questions about White Bear's qualifications and the qualifications of other administrators by publishing them in the local newspapers.
Hale said the school is making progress.
This is the first in many years that the Mandaree elementary and middle school has not been required to file a school improvement plan with the state Department of Public Instruction, said Laurie Matzke with the DPI's Title 1 program.
The two schools also have met Annual Yearly Progress under the federal No Child Left Behind Act. However, the high school has not, and with all schools taken together, the district did not in the 2003-04 school year, Matzke said.
Matzke said special needs students are identified as subgroups in the math and reading testing required for Annual Yearly Progress reports. However, there is no improvement plan mandated when subgroups, like special needs, don't meet the school's standard, even if the school does as a whole.
Matzke said she expects that will change as No Child Left Behind matures and develops.
Such a requirement is not imminent.
For now, some parents say the only thing that will satisfy them and make a difference in the short term is White Bear's departure.
Scheets said parents of special education students have had difficulty getting anyone to listen to them, though they have made calls and presented information to tribal and state agencies.
The recent investigation by the BIA education team should determine whether the parents' complaints are valid.
Scheets said trying to attract attention to Mandaree's problems has been a challenge.
"If I called and said there were three dead eagles on the steps of the Mandaree school, state and federal authorities would respond," she said. "But here we have 40 children in trouble and no one would come."
(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@westriv.com.)
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