State Review: Improvement in Melrose Special Education Program, English Learners Program Strained

A review of implementation of state standards found significant progress in the district's special education program, but the need for a growing and straining English Language Learners (ELL) program to tighten procedures and provide more assistance to its students.

The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education conducts a Coordinated Program Review of the district every six years to ensure Melrose Schools are complying with state and federal education requirements in the realms of special education, civil rights and English learner education.

This most recent review began in October, with a final report delivered to school administrators last month (PDF attached) that requires the district to submit a plan of action to the state this month.

The state's team gives a rating for each compliance criterion: "Commendable," "Implemented," "Implementation in Progress," "Partially Implemented," or  "Not Implemented." A district can also be rated "Not Applicable" in appropriate categories.

Patricia White-Lambright, Assistant Superintendent of Pupil Personnel Services (the district's special education department), told the School Committee on Tuesday night that when the state last reviewed Melrose's special education program in 2004, they reviewed 56 standards and found 21 were implemented and 35 were partially implemented.

In this most recent review, the state reviewed 59 standards and found 50 implemented and nine partially implemented. White-Lambright also stressed that a particular standard could be rated "partially implemented" even if they find only one occurrence of a lapse in compliance out of many instances, because the standards represent legal requirements the district must follow.

"Clearly we’ve made good progress in the area of special education, but we do have some areas where we need to focus on," she said.

In the realm of Civil Rights, 26 standards were reviewed in this most recent process and the state found 19 implemented and 7 partially implemented. White-Lambright added that the standards weren't broken out the same way in 2004, so she couldn't provide the committee with a comparison as she did with special education.

Translated documents needed

An overarching need the state identified in both the special education and civil rights categories involves translation services, mainly for written documents but also in the case of having an in-person translator when necessary.

Among the documents the state wants translated copies available for are forms about special education student identification and placement; handbooks, codes of conducts and reports cards; and Guidance Department documents. The documents must be available in the five most common languages in Melrose Public Schools, which are English, Chinese, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.

Federally-mandated Individual Education Plans (IEP) for special education students must also be translated, something that "many districts are dealing with," White-Lambright said. Melrose currently uses a program called E-sped to write IEPs and White-Lambright said the program's developers have now come out with an option that provides translation of those plans.

The district will also lay out procedures for accessing a translator, if needed, for a team meeting between school officials and parents, she said.

ELL program needs tightening, increased instructional time

In its review of Melrose's ELL program, the state found that out of 18 standards, 8 were implemented and 10 were partially implemented. Pat Muxie, Melrose curriculum director, told the committee that of the partially implemented standards, "there were quite a few, actually, that were found to be connected and overlapping."

As in the special education and civil rights realms, the state cited a need to have translated documents such as handbooks, reports cards and code of conducts available, and to provide translation of initial identification and placement notices for ELL students.

Other state recommendations include tightening intake procedures at the high school to ensure receipt of the home language survey; develop grade-specific details in the ELL curriculum (a new direction for the DESE, according to Muxie); and more professional development for ELL teachers, particularly in the area of immersion strategies.

One of the state's recommendations was to increase the amount of ELL instructional time to match what's laid out in the state education department's guiding document regarding results of Massachusetts English Proficiency Assessment (MEPA) tests, which gauge students' progress in mastering the English language.

The need to increase the amount of instructional time for ELL students comes at a time when the number of those students continues to grow. Carla McCoy, Melrose ELL coordinator, said when she first came onboard three years ago, Melrose had approximately 40 ELL students, and before that the district typically had around 20. There are now approximately 70 ELL students in the district.

Those students are supported by five ELL teachers, who are a mix of full and part-time.

"It definitely plays into the finding in regard to the instructional number of minutes that students should be having," Muxie said. "With limited staff, it’s difficult to provide two-and-a-half hours a day of ELL instructional time for an beginner, and still have time to service students at various levels."