Place blind, deaf schools under education agency

[Miss-Delectable]

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051204/OPINION/51203017/1014


Rep. Barbara Staggs is correct.

The Oklahoma School for the Blind in Muskogee and School for the Deaf in Sulphur should be under the oversight of the State Department of Education.

Staggs and Rep. Wes Hilliard are in a row with the Department of Rehabilitation Services, the agency now overseeing the two special schools, over administrative costs the two schools must pay the oversight agency.

Both sides present defenses in columns on this page on the administrative costs the schools must pay DRS.

But those costs are secondary to getting the schools for the deaf and blind under an oversight agency whose primary role is educating children.

The schools don’t belong under DRS.

We don’t doubt Commission Chair John Orr, who states it costs money to oversee the schools and administration costs have to be covered. It would not be cost effective for the schools, as small as they are, do be independent agencies.

They need the help that the state can provide, and the state has to step in and provide those funds because we want the children born with handicaps to learn how to cope with those handicaps in a world that often isn’t very kind to people with handicaps.

However, the physically disabled children who attend these two schools shouldn’t start out life under the Department of Rehabilitation Services. Many of them may eventually need some of the services the DRS offers.

But the State Department of Education is a more natural fit for the two schools.

For years now, public schools have encouraged mainstreaming, including children with special needs, not just learning disabilities, but physical disabilities, in regular classrooms. The children at the schools for the blind and deaf also are learning the things children in other elementary and high schools across the state are learning.

That’s why they belong under the state Department of Education, which has many resources to assist the schools with teaching children.

The Muskogee and Sulphur schools, too, ought to benefit from the education lottery for public schools.

They have operated under DRS for years — we asked and no one seems to know why — but it’s time to move the schools and the children where they belong.

The schools unique services have benefited many, many children across the state for years and they have earned the respect of their communities. Their vital services should be supported fully so that the children they assist receive the best education possible.

 

[Miss-Delectable]

State’s handling of blind, deaf schools unfair

http://www.muskogeephoenix.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051204/OPINION/51203018/1014

I am pleased to respond to a situation which I feel is unfair — unfair to visually impaired children who attend the Oklahoma School for the Blind in Muskogee.

The same thing is also happening to hearing impaired children who attend the Oklahoma School for the Deaf in Sulphur.

Both schools are forced to pay administrative/indirect costs to the Department of Rehabilitation Services (DRS), which is the state agency that oversees them. The schools are state public schools. However, they are not funded or supervised like other public schools in Oklahoma.

The State Department of Education, which oversees all other public schools in conjunction with the locally elected boards of education, does not charge any administrative/indirect costs to public schools in Oklahoma, but DRS, which oversees only these two schools does charge administrative/indirect costs.

How do other states surrounding Oklahoma deal with their schools for the blind and deaf?

Arkansas and Texas schools are their own state agencies and they have their own boards of commissioners. Kansas and Louisiana are under the state boards of education and pay no administrative/indirect costs to an oversight agency. Colorado is under the Department of Education with its own board of trustees and pays a flat fee of $20,000 for administrative/indirect costs. Missouri’s is under the state Board of Education and pays 5-10 percent on federal funds the school receives and does not pay administrative/indirect costs on state-appropriated funds. And New Mexico is under Higher Education and does not pay administrative/indirect costs to its oversight agency.

I have a note written to Rep. Wes Hilliard of Sulphur by Gilbert Tran, policy analyst for the Office of Federal Financial Management in Washington, D.C. In his note, Tran states, “OBM Circular A-87 provides reimbursements charged against federal programs (money) and does not apply to state programs (money).”

Richard T. Mueller, director of the Indirect Cost Group, sent a letter to Linda Parker, executive director of DRS, that states, “The rates agreed upon should be used to compute indirect costs for grants, contracts and applications funded by this department and other federal agencies.”

The feds set the rate for allowable indirect costs for federal funds.

They have nothing to do with state funds that are the funds received by the schools. The schools do not usually receive any federal funds unless they apply for special federal grants.

The administrative/indirect costs are charged on the total budget of each school, which includes salaries, classroom materials, textbooks, bus transportation and assistive technology. The schools pay for services whether or not they use or need them.

When asked to provide an accounting of services provided, DRS can only provide a broad list of services and cannot give an estimate of the actual number of hours spent on the two schools.

In addition, the indirect costs to the schools have increased by more than $200,000 in just one year.

Yes, DRS does provide some services for each of the schools that they would need to provide for themselves if they were independent of DRS. That would be possible if they recouped the more than $800,000 that they will be charged for the 2005-06 school year.

From the beginning of the discussion on this issue, Parker and John Orr, one of the DRS commissioners, have maintained that they must charge what they charge because it has been established by a federal contract. That is not true.

Indirect costs deal only with federal monies. So now DRS calls the charge administrative costs — but they use the federal indirect cost rate as the excuse for making the charge. It is up to the state to determine what costs, if any, should be charged on state dollars.

This charge is not fair to the teachers, administrators or especially the children in these two schools.

What should we do? We can do what other states around us are doing. Oklahoma is the only state in this area that has a non-educational entity governing its schools for the deaf and the blind. What we are presently doing is clearly not a benefit for the schools, the teachers or the students.

I have not shared this letter with either Karen Kizzia or Larry Hawkins, the superintendents at the two schools. Both of these administrators are hired by DRS and the commissioners, and they have little protection from being fired.

Both schools have good teachers, principals, superintendents. They support, love and care for these children. They all share their concerns with Hilliard and with me, but they are concerned about their job security, and I do not want to get any of them in trouble. I cannot be silent, however, when money appropriated to educate our visually impaired and hearing impaired students in Oklahoma is being diverted to fund a state agency of 80 employees in the central office. This present practice is hurting our children.

Write Staggs at 2300 N. Lincoln Blvd., Room 545, Oklahoma City 73105 or call her at (405) 557-7310.