Salem has a special ed problem

A ranking of Massachusetts school districts in regard to the number and percentage of student classified as needing special education was just released. A review of the data makes it clear that the city of Salem has a special ed problem.

According to the data, Salem ranks 23rd of all of the 393 public school districts in the state. That number is actually even a little worse than it sounds. Most of the schools ahead of Salem on the list are either vocational technical schools, or public charter schools specifically for children with issues. Looking strictly at regular public school districts, Salem comes in sixth of 298, with a special ed classification on 23.9 percent of our students. On the plus side, back in 2008 we had 25.3 percent of students on the sped list. That number would have been good enough for fourth today. The average sped rate for regular municipal school districts is 16.2%. Salem even outranks the average of the vocational schools, which average 23.8%.

Why does Salem have such a high percentage of special ed students? Outgoing superintendent Dr. Cameron tried to blame it on Salem being an urban area back in 2008. Looking at the numbers, I'm not so sure that's the real answer. Check out the map below, where I've plotted the locations of the five public school districts that have higher percentages than Salem. Don't miss Martha's Vineyard. Holyoke, which is number 1, is fairly urban. The rest just aren't. In fact, I'd argue that inbreeding might be the problem in Athol. (If you haven't been there, trust me. If you have, you know I'm right.)

So I'd say Cameron is wrong, or making excuses, and digging deeper would seem to prove this. Looking at the largest cities in the state, we see Salem outpacing all of them. Lynn, the closest geographically, and also with a large (probably larger than Salem) English language learner population, has a special ed rate of 16.1 percent. On average, the ten largest cities in the state have a special ed rate of 18.5, again outpaced by Salem.

After blaming Salem's rate on being an urban district, Cameron followed with a second, and I'd guess more correct reason. From the Salem News:

"The second reason we may have such high numbers, through no fault of anyone," he said, is that the schools don't have consistent standards to qualify children for special education. There is a team in each of the nine school buildings to review cases. Now, he said, they're working to make sure each of the teams uses the same standards.

I think this is probably more accurate. You know, other than that part about "through no fault of anyone." My guess, and admittedly, it's just a guess, is that the Salem schools have a real problem saying no to little Timmy's parents when they decide maybe he needs an IEP. Rather than saying, "No, Timmy needs to buckle down a little bit, behave, and learn some discipline at home," the Salem schools kowtow. In addition to not having any standards between our own schools, it seems like there are no common standards from district to district.

Why do I care? Money. It's really, really expensive. Special ed eats up about 37% of the school budget, while serving less than 25% of the population. You'll never get rid of the most expensive cases, because they are the ones who need it the most, but you could lower the costs some by making sure students really need the services. This would, in turn, make more resources available to the rest of the population, and hopefully stop little Timmy's parents from feeling like they need to get him special attention to get any at all.* Additionally, we wouldn't have to hire a new Special ed coordinator every few years at spiraling six-figure salaries. Seriously, this job has no incentive to decrease special ed spending at all.


*There is no little Timmy. Any resemblance to anyone anywhere is merely coincidence. The name Timmy is fictional. He may be a she. Sally, for example. Also, Sally is fictional. He may not have parents. The example was for illustrative purposes only. I've been threatened with enough lawsuits recently. Hi Brian! (Really, one of the threats was from a man named Brian who has very little understanding of the first amendment, or what the standards for defamation are when you're a public official.) Brian is real.

School superintendent finalists have had controversy

The Salem School Committee will be interviewing two finalists to replace the departing Dr. Cameron in about an hour. I hope they really consider the backgrounds and working relationships that these two candidates leave behind.

We have a current superintendent who jumped ship in the middle of his contract for family reasons. We have a current candidate before us who also has a history of jumping ship in the middle of a contract, as she did in 2003, with 2 years remaining on her contract. She also left the school she jumped to after just a year, with controversy, to the point where one school board member said that she was either crazy, or was trying to force the board to fire her so she could retire, and a $350,000 pay day in her pocket. The committee should dive into this and ask numerous questions about this candidate's ability to work well with others. This relationship appears to have gone bad right away, and that's rarely one-sided. There was also a two year gap in her work after that situation, and she ended up going from a district with 40,000 students to a district with only K-8th grade, and only 300 or so students. Pretty good work for $174,000 a year.

They should also question her on her dedication to this role. She announced a few short months ago her intention to retire and enjoy life, while traveling.  "She said she has a lengthy list of places to go and things to do that she’s added to as she has heard stories from other retired people. “I think it’s time now for me to bring out that list. It will be a new adventure." So why, a month after she left that job, is she looking for a superintendent job? I hope we are focused on finding a leader who won't be jumping ship in a year or three.

There's not as much interesting info out there on the other candidate, Dr. Stephen Russell, the just departed superintendent of the Dartmouth MA school system. Of interest is the fact that he's available because he was unable to come to terms to remain the superintendent in Dartmouth after an eight year stay. I'd definitely want to know what gives there. His prior salary was $145,041. It sounds like this might be all about straight cash homie. His assistant was hired to replace him, I'd guess at a lower salary. Was he looking for a big raise? Did they want him to take a pay cut? How much does he expect here?

Shortly after it was announced that an agreement couldn't be reached, the Standard-Times named him Dartmouth Man of the Year for his ability to be a bridge builder. So, maybe this was Dartmouth's loss.

Do I know who should be picked? Absolutely not. I hope the interviews are rigorous.

School Committee doesn't understand insurance

I'm a little late with this one, as it occurred on July 18th, but the following video from the Salem School Committee meeting of that night makes me giggle. I would link to the agenda for the meeting, but for some reason it was never posted. In fact, the section of the city website for school committee info is woeful. Most recent meeting minutes posted are from April. Let the sun shine!

Anyway, watch this video, and we'll discuss what we learn.



You can watch the entire meeting here.

First, apparently a final location has been selected for Salem Community Charter School. Must have missed that. Interesting that the school will start the year in a store front before moving into office space. Not really an ideal thing to do in the middle of a school year.

Second, and funnier, or maybe sadder, apparently nobody on the school committee understands the difference between property insurance and casualty insurance. Considering the amount of money we give them to spend, this lack of understanding of basic risk management doesn't make me very comfortable.

Fleming asks why we would insure property we don't own. We aren't. The mayor says you would insure contents, not the physical structure. We aren't. Liability coverage doesn't cover either one. We are insuring ourselves against any liability claim that would arise from our negligence at that location. I've heard it said several times that we don't take good care of our public buildings. Let's say, for example, that whoever is responsible for cleaning the school goes to mop the floor, floods it with water, and walks away to do something. They don't put up any warning signs, and in the five minutes that they're doing something else, someone walks into the school, slips on the wet floor, and breaks their neck.

In this situation, the city is negligent, not the landlord, and would be on the hook for damages, probably into the millions in a case of paralysis. If it happened outside the school area, the landlord would be negligent, and should be covered as well.

A clause in a commercial lease requiring the tenant to maintain liability coverage on the premises is extremely common. I doubt there is a single property in Salem that the city rents that doesn't include such a clause. Ask some downtown store owners if they're required to carry liability coverage. You'll have a hard time finding many who aren't. You can read an example of such a clause here, under 8C.

The city can likely add this property as a covered location on it's existing liability policy, at little or no cost at all. That said, the city should also look into purchasing tenants insurance, which would cover theft or damage of any equipment at the location, as well as any improvements that the city makes to the location, in the event of a fire.

I'm not thrilled that they don't seem to be aware of any of this. I've wondered about our risk management strategy since the dock at the Blaney Street Pier was damaged a year and a half or so back, and the mayor didn't think that insurance covered damage from mother nature. The reason you practically can't get property insurance in Florida, and carriers are fleeing the state is the amount of money they've spent on paying hurricane claims. Mother nature's fury is the number one reason to buy insurance.

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One other note, from the twitter stream of city council at-large candidate Darek Barcikowski:

"This just in - all 10 candidates for at large who pulled papers have filed them and we will have a primary on 9/20 to narrow down to 8."

If you really want to get rid of an incumbent or two, your best hope is that they take it easy for the primary. Turnout will be absolutely anemic for it. If the anti-incumbent folks really mobilize, this is your chance to knock them off of the final ballot.

I'll be interested to see if enough of the school committee people turned in their papers to force a primary there as well. Based on the above video, I'm ready for some new blood there. Especially some that lives in Salem year round and can attend more than 66% of the meetings.