Chesapeake faces hit from end of special-ed test exemptions

CHESAPEAKE

Throughout the state, special education students were exempted from about 5,000 Standards of Learning tests in writing, history and science last school year.

Nearly 1,000 of those exemptions were given in Chesapeake. No school division in South Hampton Roads or the state grants anywhere near the same number of exemptions as Chesapeake.

Special education advocates say these exemptions can be used as a way to dodge accountability for the test scores of students with disabilities.

While the state has not objected to their use, starting next year, school divisions will no longer be allowed to exempt students from taking SOLs in writing and history. That change could hit Chesapeake hardest.

A data analysis by The Virginian-Pilot shows that about 1,500 tests in South Hampton Roads public schools were not taken in the 2008-09 school year. Of those, 972 were in Chesapeake schools.

Even divisions with more than twice as many students don't approach Chesapeake's number. Fairfax County, the largest school division in the state, granted only 272 exemptions that same school year. Virginia Beach, the second largest, had 428.

Leading the pack in Chesapeake is Thurgood Marshall Elementary. Of its 70 fifth-grade students, 27 percent did not take SOLs in writing in the '08-'09 school year. That percentage puts the school second in the state for use of exemptions in writing, behind a Richmond school for special education students. Thurgood Marshall serves many of the city's most economically disadvantaged students.

At Deep Creek Middle, another school that serves many low-income students, 17 percent of 450 eligible students did not take the SOLs in history and social science. Deep Creek Middle is also second in the state for overall use of exemptions, in all three subjects.

Special education advocates say clamping down on SOL exemptions is overdue. They say school divisions need to be more accountable for the performance of their special education students.

"We want accountability for everyone, and we want instruction for everyone," said Cheryl Ward, the educational advocacy coordinator at the Endependence Center, which helps people with disabilities. "They've had a long time to prepare."

School divisions were given word from the state in 2009 that exemptions in writing and history would no longer be allowed next year.

The state barred schools from exempting students from science tests last school year, although a handful of school divisions, including Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Norfolk and Suffolk did still exempt some, The Pilot analysis shows. The state says it is contacting the divisions to inquire about the reasons behind the exemptions.

It's too early to tell whether barring science exemptions has had an effect on schools' accreditation statuses, said H. Douglas Cox, the state's assistant superintendent for special education and student services. It's only been a year, and science is a subject in which special education students have tested well in the past.

But even if some schools do lose their accreditation, that's not the point, he said.

"I don't know that we have any particular consequence or result in mind," he said. "This is a matter of policy, and we're trying to enforce policy."

Chesapeake's director of assessment and accountability, Cynthia Sparks, defended exemptions in an e-mail.

Exempting a student from one assessment allows teachers to devote additional instruction time to other subjects - typically reading - where it might be more necessary, she said.

She said teams that consist of school personnel and parents decide who should be exempted from testing and the recommendations of those teams have to be followed.

"These decisions are made with the best interests of the student in mind," she said in the e-mail.

Sparks said the high number of exemptions given in Chesapeake could be due to high numbers of special education students enrolled at the schools.

Chesapeake has the highest percentage of special education students in the region, with about 17 percent of its population classified as students with disabilities. Norfolk, the second highest in the region, has about 15 percent.

Statewide, Chesapeake ranks 21st among 132 school divisions for percentage of students with disabilities.

State officials, who recently chastised some schools divisions for misusing a special test designed for students with disabilities, say they haven't been concerned about school divisions overusing exemptions.

"When it was allowed it was allowed, and when it was not allowed, it was not allowed," Cox said. "We never felt that there was an overuse of exemptions in any way."

Next year, state officials say they're expecting a boost in the number of students taking standardized tests, in both the form of tests with special accommodations and tests specially designed for students with disabilities.

"The thinking is, we no longer want any exemptions from the accountability program at all," Cox said. "When we say no exemptions, we mean no exemptions."

The change comes about because of a 2004 change in the federal law that governs education for students with disabilities, Cox said. The state read the change as barring any student from being excluded from testing.

Special education advocates worry that a lack of accountability - because of testing exemptions - means teachers haven't focused as hard on making sure students with disabilities learn.

"If there's no accountability through assessments to find where students need more help, it also lends itself to, do we really have to focus as hard on instruction?" Ward said. "Can there be discrimination in how we teach students with disabilities?"

So far the exemptions have provided a "cushion," Ward said.

"Chesapeake kind of has an image to uphold and protect" as a place with good schools and good test scores, said Shawn Hill, a special education advocate who also does homebound instruction for Chesapeake.

She said the school division has a reputation in the special education community as being a good place for students with disabilities.

"I think... it's going to make them really have to dig down deep and make sure these students have what they need," she said.

Sparks said teachers had been alerted to the upcoming changes in state policy for exemption use.

For now, the division isn't worried about potential effects on schools' accreditation statuses.

"Since most schools are far above the accreditation requirements, we do not expect this to be an issue," she wrote.

Pilot writer Amy Jeter contributed to this report.

Alicia Wittmeyer, (757) 222-5216, alicia.wittmeyer@pilotonline.com