A proposed adjustment to special education classes for elementary school students in the Alpine School District has prompted a petition opposing the move.

The district is exploring options to better serve their life skills students in kindergarten through sixth grade. The proposal was presented during a board of education meeting in February.

The move comes as Alpine School District prepares to offer all-day kindergarten in the 2024-25 school year.

According to the recommendation overview on the district’s website, Alpine says its goal is to reduce the number of transitions between programs at the elementary level while ensuring students are placed at their neighborhood schools or as close as possible to their neighborhood schools.

District leaders say the realignment also would allow for more collaboration among program teachers.

“They wanted to come up with a way to improve the continuity that students have so they could stay in one building and develop relationships with the same teachers for longer and, you know, have opportunities to make friends in those schools for longer” ASD’s Director of Communications Rich Stowell told the Daily Herald.

Potential impacts

The district’s special education department produced a YouTube video that outlines the proposed restructuring.

The district’s six existing programs — incorporating basic special education instruction plus specialities for students with mild-to-moderate learning disabilities, autism and emotional/behavioral disabilities, or EBD — would be consolidated into three programs.

All of the new programs would be available to students from kindergarten through sixth grade, except for the EBD program, which would start in first grade, according to a visual presentation on the proposal.

“The shifts are towards a simplified model and more continuity. So if a kid would start at maybe Trailside and then have to shift to another school in the third grade, the new plan just takes away the shift,” Stowell explained. “So they will start in Trailside or Vineyard Elementary, or whatever the school affected is, and maintain those classes for K through sixth grade.”

What the community is saying

While the district says this recommendation is still in the proposal phase, some parents want to make sure it doesn’t become a reality.

“The problem I have with that is actually ripping my child from his community in claiming that they’re making it for him,” said Remi Forrest, a parent with a second grader in the life skills program at Trailside Elementary School.

Upon learning about the potential shift, she took to social media with her issues about the change.

One of her main concerns is her son having to move schools, which she says he’s already had to do.

“For my child, (if) you pick him up and move him, he has to relearn where the cafeteria is, how to navigate it, where his backpack goes, how to get into the school, through the office, to his room, up to his different specials class. Like, those are life skills they have to learn, and they have to relearn those again when you change schools,” Forrest said.

After attending a “special class proposal” community meeting last Thursday at Vineyard Elementary and taking a survey allowing parents to have a voice in the matter, Forrest told the Daily Herald she felt that the questions were “manipulative” to get parents to side with the school district.

So she organized a Change.org petition opposing the option.

Parents protested a similar decision impacting life skills students at Highland Elementary in 2021.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires schools to create an individualized education program for eligible students with disabilities.

In 2022, Alpine School District served 9,842 students with IEPs. In 2023, the number rose to 10,567 students.

While growth doesn’t appear to be catalyst for the proposed change, parents like Carly Bates, who has two children in the district, are aware of the increasing number of students in Alpine schools.

She supports special education classes being consolidated. In her view, having special needs educators centralized to support each other creates a stronger learning environment.

“The school district has recognized that an education program like this is stronger in a large group than scattered across the district in schools that may not have the same space or specialty educators, overcrowding,” Bates said.

In a statement provided to the Daily Herald, Alpine School District stressed the importance of hearing all sides on the matter:

“No formal decision has been made,” the statement said. “District staff will continue to consider all of the options available. We are currently gathering feedback on the proposed plan including meetings with parents and staff at some of our impacted schools. Our decision-making process allows for multiple opportunities for the public to weigh in.”

The next school board meeting is April 23.

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct a misspelling in the name of Alpine School District spokesperson Rich Stowell.

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