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Local trends are showing an increased need for mental health care, with more behavioral challenges that lead to emotional disabilities, additional specialized programs, and larger learning gaps between students, Special Education Director Kellie Marciano says.
In 2024, there were 283 students with disabilities at Batavia City Schools versus 287 this year, and “by the end of the year we're going to have more students classified just based on the number of students from the multi-tiered system support that have been referred, as well as some parent referrals,” Marciano said during a report to the school board during its regular meeting this week.
"This year, it is an increase for us, though, from 13% to 14%. The region has a total of about 1,003 students currently classified, with 938 last year. So as a region, we've really been talking a lot about why we're seeing an increase. Why are we seeing a high level of need?” Marciano said. “We've kind of come up with, there's a lot of mental health concerns currently that we're supporting our students with. We're also seeing a larger academic gap in the last couple of years between the intermediate and middle school levels.
"We're also still kind of, as a team, have been talking about, is this because those students also missed a lot of foundational skills due to COVID. So how do we address that?" she said. "That's something we've looked at. They're seeing a bigger need in more of that specially designed instruction, and more of our students need more self-contained support. So that's a goal that we've been working on.”
The primary focus for the Special Education Department this year is to:
- Establish a guiding coalition for special education, known as the “Pupil Support Network.”
“This consists of our department leaders, who are our special education teacher department leader, we have related service department leaders, a counselor department leader, a social worker department leader, and then we also have a school psychologist who also serves as the UPK and preschool department leader,” she said. “They coined themselves "the pupil support network," so we're really trying to support a variety of needs. This year, they worked on a team, really looking at what our special education curriculum is.”
This network’s tasks include creating a special education continuum and determining a profile of current students in the continuum of services.
“We looked at our current continuum, and then determined what do our students need based on the profiles that we're now seeing for students, and is there any need for improvement or change?” Marciano said.
- Individualized Education Program (IEP) writing and development
- Develop professional learning communities for special education: developing a mission, vision, developing our values and our goals.
Mission - to promote logical progression, non-communication across the district with the usage of related services, specialized instruction, and the multi-tiered system of supports to ensure student success with a data-driven approach to support decision-making policies and processes.
Vision - will provide continuity between buildings with a logical progression of procedures and policies; communication within buildings and throughout the district through collaboration.
Values and Goals include collaboration between buildings and disciplines to support multi-tiered supports, measuring student success, developing policies and procedures, and using data to inform decision-making.
“It’s a nice team that works really collaboratively together that really represents the entire district,” she said. “We have people from every building who’s there, and our main focus, again, is that these are our students, we work together to create a newsletter that goes out to our special education staff.”
- Services related to professional learning teams include three domains of speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy.
- Continue to grow Batavia’s preschool program, which supports Genesee, Orleans, and Wyoming counties. This program provides service for 23 kids in Batavia, three each in Le Roy and Alexander, two each in Pavilion and Attica, one each in Medina, Albion, Pembroke, Byron-Bergen and Elba.
- Continue to grow the Work Study program, which may includes tasks of cleaning and organizing, sorting silverware and dishes, collecting cans and bottles, and helping a teacher hand out papers in middle school; and recycling, helping with mailing, putting menus in staff mailboxes, shredding, manning the coffee cart, making copies, or being part of the seedling sale in high school.
“So, we’ve actually expanded our work study to also make sure our middle school students are starting to gain access to work study skills,” she said. “We continue to make connections with the community organizations. This year is really exciting, our students are out at Tops, they’re helping with shelving, and they are helping get things organized in the back. We have more connections this year to different organizations, such as the Arc, and we’re really discussing post-secondary opportunities and helping families get connected so when they leave us, either at 22 or 18, they have a path to continue with support.”
- There will be a Special Olympics this year from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Van Detta Stadium, featuring athletes from the 12:1:1 classrooms at Batavia Middle and High schools and students from the New York State School for the Blind and Genesee Valley BOCES.
“It'll be a great activity for our students. And our hope is that we can expand it to more students … next year, and then maybe looking at adding districts who are interested as well, and then continuing focus for next year,” she said. “And our goal is going to be continuing that development of (a student’s) portrait, and in more professional learning communities, more professional development around goal writing for IEPs, looking at our professional learning communities for both our 6:1:1 teachers, and then also adding in our 12:1:1 who are our multi-age academic team. And then continue criteria for determining program placement, and looking at our students who need more restrictive placements, and how do we support them as long in the district as possible.”
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