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Disabilities
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team considered at least one other op-
tion and they must document the rea-
sons an abbreviated day is needed.
One example of when a shortened
school day might be permitted under
the law is if a child was undergoing che-
motherapy and didn’t have the energy to
attend a full day of class, said Tom Sten-
son, Disability Rights Oregon’s deputy
legal director.
But in lawsuits and complaints, par-
ents said their kids didn’t need short-
ened days or that the proper process
wasn’t followed when they were put on
a modified schedule. And when the par-
ents try to change that schedule, they
said, they’re met with a confusing,
lengthy complaint process.
Complaints about being denied equal
access to education have to go through
the teacher, the school administration,
the superintendent and the school
board before they make it to the Oregon
Department of Education, Gelser Blouin
said. This means the complaints could
be going through people who are already
aware of what is happening, and even
sanctioned it.
The current complaint process can
take a year or more.
“What was the point [of the short-
ened schools days legislation] if nobody
has to follow it and if there’s no conse-
quence for not following it?” she said.
“So the next goal is creating enforce-
ment mechanisms.”
This legislative session, Gelser
Blouin tried to push through a biparti-
san fix.
Senate Bill 1578 would have allowed
certain complaints — a violation of state
or federal law that led to physical harm
or the denial of instructional days — to
go directly to the Oregon Department of
Education.
The bill had broad support in the Leg-
islature, with both Democratic and Re-
publican sponsors. It passed out of the
Senate Committee on Education with-
out opposition.
But this year was Oregon’s short 35-
day session, limiting the opportunity for
bills to be introduced and crafted into
law. Gelser Blouin was told by legislative
leadership there wasn’t time to fully
consider her proposal this session. The
Legislature ended the session without
advancing the bill and, unless an emer-
gency session is scheduled, won’t con-
vene again until early 2023.
In the meantime, students with dis-
abilities will likely continue to face
shortened hours and other challenges to
their right to a free and equal public
education, families say.
Those in support of the bill said they
plan to keep bringing attention to the is-
sue. And they’ll work to support families
within the current system.
Benjamin’s story: Four days in
person, one online
Nicole Silverman’s son, Benjamin, is
one of many kids whose parents say
they are not receiving equal access to
educational time.
Benjamin is medically complex and
nonverbal, with autism and cerebral
palsy. The 13-year-old attends life en-
richment classes through Clackamas
Education Service District, which pro-
vides support to the 10 school districts
in Clackamas County.
The pandemic made school tough for
the Silvermans. With Benjamin’s med-
ical needs, it was nearly impossible for
him to do anything online.
His mom said during that time, they
saw a “horrible regression.” He stopped
walking and reverted to crawling. He re-
gressed in his ability to communicate,
sit through things, listen and learn. His
energy levels dropped dramatically and
now he can’t make it through the day
without a nap.
Even though public schools across
Oregon returned to full-time, in-person
learning months ago, Silverman said
Benjamin still isn’t allowed to attend
five days a week.
He is on a 4/1 schedule, meaning he
attends in-person school four days a
week and then attends virtually one day
a week. Silverman said none of the able-
bodied students in the Clackamas area
public schools are on that schedule,
only the students with disabilities.
“This [schedule] was implemented in
the fall because of staffing shortages in
our special education team,” Shirley
Skidmore, Clackamas ESD communica-
tions director, said.
Skidmore said this particular pro-
gram needs significant staffing to en-
sure the students’ safety while at school
and they don’t have those numbers right
now. She said they are particularly lack-
ing in educational assistants.
Digital
Continued from Page 1A
Spanish, simplified Chinese, traditional
Chinese, Vietnamese, Russian, Korean,
Portuguese, Hmong, Somali, Marshall-
ese, Chuukese and Arabic.
Digital vaccine cards have been
widely available across the county, in-
APPEAL TRIBUNE
Because of this weekly day of virtual
schooling, along with other days with no
class like holidays and snow days, Ben-
jamin was able to attend school in per-
son a mere seven days in February, Sil-
verman said.
This inconsistency takes a toll on
Benjamin for several reasons. For one,
Benjamin relies on schedules to keep
him calm and focused. On top of that,
school is his main outlet to develop
communication skills and socialize with
his peers. Virtual school takes that al-
most completely away from him.
“We’re supposed to be talking about
how to move these children forward …
because they’ve lost so much education
in two years and they’ve regressed so
much, but we can’t even get our kids
back to baseline, let alone moving for-
ward,” Silverman said.
So far, there’s been no recourse from
the district.
Skidmore told the Statesman Journal
they’re working to get students back to
five days in person, but they don’t have
the staffing right now to make that pos-
sible.
Silverman said she filed a complaint
with the U.S. Department of Education’s
Office of Civil Rights a couple months
ago alleging this model is discrimina-
tion because it applies only to students
with disabilities.
She said they haven’t decided how to
proceed and by the time anything would
come from it, school could be over for
the summer and Benjamin will have
missed more than a dozen additional in-
person instructional days.
“You cannot make up that time. It is
lost. And that’s heartbreaking,” Silver-
man said. “There has to be more imme-
diate answers and resources and solu-
tions.”
Despite legal protections, she said,
there’s little enforcement of the law,
making these situations possible every-
where.
“I feel like our system is on fire and
people are not actually grasping what is
really going on in the disability commu-
nity,” Silverman said.
‘Such a pervasive problem’
There are two policies that districts
or schools employ to shorten the days of
students with disabilities, Disability
Rights Oregon said.
Some parents are told explicitly their
child’s bus will pick them up and drop
them off at certain times, hours differ-
ent from students without disabilities.
Other parents get a more informal
shortening of their child’s school day,
organization officials said. In theory,
these kids are scheduled for the same
time as their peers, but their parents will
get calls once or twice a week, every
week, telling them they have to come
pick up their child.
And this isn’t just happening in one
or two districts.
“It’s such a pervasive problem that is
happening in so many districts and af-
fecting so many kids, that it really calls
out for a statewide solution,” Stenson
said.
Parents don’t always know what to
do when their children’s school hours
are cut. Gelser Blouin’s legislation
would have made it easier for them to
get help from the state, instead of hav-
ing to go through the current years-long
process or take legal action.
These complaints take a huge toll on
families. They have to proactively advo-
cate for their child at each step, and the
burden of proof is on them. Parents have
to prove their child is being denied edu-
cational time, instead of the district
having to prove that they have provided
equal access, Gelser Blouin said.
“Most people don’t have the energy to
file a complaint or know how to do it.
Those that do, and do it in an effective
way, get pulled aside and their situation
gets fixed for their kid, not for anybody
else,” Gelser Blouin said.
Even if complaints make their way up
the levels, it can take years − all while
the child continues to miss out on learn-
ing.
“If a school district just doesn’t want
to cooperate, doesn’t want to provide
the services and just digs their heels in,
they can make the process last years
and years. And that’s not how education
is supposed to work,” Stenson said.
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giving education to kids with disabili-
ties,” Stenson said.
Gelser Blouin thinks it’s getting
worse, possibly due to challenges relat-
ed to COVID-19.
“When I heard about this problem in
the past, it was almost always kids that
had significant behavioral support
needs, but the population that it’s im-
pacting is much broader now,” Gelser
Blouin said.
One of the biggest things districts
cite when they reduce in-person in-
struction for students is staffing, ac-
cording to both families and the dis-
tricts themselves.
Across the nation, schools are strug-
gling with staffing shortages and teach-
er burnout. Locally these shortages
have greatly impacted special educa-
tion, especially when it comes to having
an adequate number of educational as-
sistants, Skidmore said.
Sam’s story: a lack of trained staff
This issue has existed in the disabil-
ity community for years.
In 2018, a judge ruled that over the
course of two years, Dallas School
District violated the law in five special
education cases, including cases re-
garding shortened school days.
“[Shortened school days are] hap-
pening in dozens of different school dis-
tricts all over the state and it’s a very de-
liberate and calculated way of avoiding
Karen Houston’s son, Sam, has felt
the full weight of untrained staff.
Sam, who has autism and apraxia,
was allowed back at his school full time
this year. But the 11-year-old, who Hous-
ton said should have been in general
education classes, is rarely in those
classes.
“He was essentially being babysat in
a different room, alone with a grown-up
that he didn’t know, who let him watch
Disney movies or wander around in the
schoolyard outside,” Houston said.
This took an immense toll on Sam’s
stress and anxiety, his mom said.
“His body was physically there, but it
was just chaos. And there was no at-
tempt to educate him because there
wasn’t anybody to take the lead on it,”
Houston said.
This is Sam’s first year in middle
school. Going in, Houston said, the
school east of Portland assured Hous-
ton that they had the perfect staff per-
son to provide consistent 1-on-1 support
to Sam. The family was told there would
be a staff member who knew how to do
things like use Sam’s “talker,” his aug-
mented communication device.
That didn’t happen, Houston said.
Instead, Houston said, Sam has had
substitute after substitute, with a new
support person coming almost weekly
as staffing shortages left the district
scrambling.
“The message that our family got was
that you are less and so we will put sub
after sub after sub with you,” Houston
said.
That didn’t work for Sam. He needed
someone who understood his complex
needs, knew how to communicate with
him and was able to form a relationship.
This is the accommodation Sam needs
to be able to attend general education
classes.
“Without any familiar or trained staff
… and without having any sort of rou-
tine to his day, he quickly crashed and
burned,” Houston said.
Sam began to act out. He became a
distraction in school. He was pulled out
of his classes and put in a room by him-
self, Houston said.
The issues compounded and the
Houstons took him out of school com-
pletely to regroup and begin to ease him
back into schooling. Now, he’s going to
school from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. every
day and slowly introducing more.
To Houston, her family’s experiences
and others across the state prove the
cluding neighbor states California and
Washington.
In Oregon, the $2.25 million effort
has been slowly rolled out. OHA first
held listening groups and demoed it
with communities that have been dis-
proportionately impacted by the pan-
demic, Public Health director Rachael
Banks shared with members of the Ore-
gon House Interim Special Committee
on COVID-19 Response on Nov. 17.
Enrollment is optional. The option
comes the same month the state will
drop its mask mandate in public spaces
as COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations
fall. Moving forward, private entities,
businesses and venues will have the
choice to require masks or vaccination.
“While community virus levels are
currently declining, OHA anticipates
that the tool will still be an important
option for individuals who may need a
A long-time issue
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system is in desperate shape.
Looking forward
Gelser Blouin said she will bring the
issue back in some capacity next legis-
lative session. But she and other advo-
cates said the state must find a way to
address the issues now. They don’t want
children to have to wait another year.
“What we’re going to do is file all
these complaints … and that’s also going
to really demonstrate why it’s broken
when we come back,” Gelser Blouin said
of the complaints sent directly to her.
Gelser Blouin said her bill was misun-
derstood. She believes the decision was
made to cut the bill because people
thought they could solve the problem by
putting more money in the budget for
advocates and investigators.
But, that wouldn’t fix the system, she
said. To ensure kids are given access to
full-time schooling efficiently and
quickly, a statutory change is necessary,
the senator said.
Gelser Blouin and families are also
trying to bring more public attention to
the issue. In a Twitter thread last week,
the senator detailed some of the com-
plaints she had received from parents.
She wrote of a family in West Salem
who said their child with down syn-
drome had their educational days and
hours cut in half. Her peers continue to
attend in person, full time.
She wrote of a blind student in Klam-
ath Falls whose family said was as-
signed videos to watch and received 20
minutes of online instruction per day.
Over the course of the year, he’ll get 57
hours of virtual instruction time while
his peers get 1,000 hours.
And she wrote of a student in Lane
County who missed 40 days of class this
school year, after the district told his
family they didn’t have staffing.
She said the people within the dis-
tricts breaking these laws need to be
held personally accountable.
But more broadly, Disability Rights
Oregon and other groups have a class-
action lawsuit against the Oregon De-
partment of Education in litigation right
now. The lawsuit alleges ODE has not
done enough to ensure students with
disabilities have equal access to educa-
tion, thus violating federal disability
law.
The parties involved have brought an
expert in to examine the situation for
disabled students statewide, Stenson
said. The expert will then suggest
changes, with a report expected in June.
How to get help
Organizations such as Disability
Rights Oregon and FACT Oregon can of-
fer help to parents and guardians who
feel their child’s right to equal access to
education is being violated. They can
provide advice and suggest potential
next steps.
To reach Disability Rights Oregon,
call 503-243-2081 or 1-800-452-1694
between 9 a.m. and noon or 1-5 p.m.
Monday through Friday.
To reach FACT Oregon, call or text
(503)
786-6082
or
email
support@factoregon.org.
Eddy Binford-Ross is the education
intern at the Statesman Journal. Con-
tact
her
at
edbinfordross@statesmanjournal.com
or follow on Twitter @eddybinfordross.
copy of their COVID-19 vaccination ei-
ther for their own records or to share
with others in the future,” OHA spokes-
person Rudy Owens said in an email Fri-
day.
Contact reporter Tatiana Parafiniuk-
Talesnick at Tatiana@registerguard.com
or 541-521-7512, and follow her on Twit-
ter@TatianaSophiaPT.