Connecticut State Summit on Overidentification and Disproportion in Special Education

For a number of years, Connecticut has struggled to address overidentification and disproportion in special education. While the state's overall prevalence rates for identification of students in need of special education have declined each year since 1995-96, there are differences among Connecticut school-district reference groups (a categorization based on social-economic status/need). Significantly, statewide, black and hispanic students are more than twice as likely to be identified with intellectual and emotional disabilities than their white peers.

In the spring of 2002, SERC assisted the Connecticut State Department of Education (CSDE) with the preparation of a proposal to the federal Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) and the IDEA Partnerships Coordinating Committee to conduct a state level summit to examine the issues of overidentification and disproportion in special education in Connecticut. The CSDE was awarded that grant and SERC was contracted to coordinate and implement its various components.

The purpose of the Summit was to provide an opportunity for policymakers, administrators, families, students, advocates, teachers, service providers, higher education faculty, and community representatives to jointly explore issues and perspectives, dialogue about approaches and strategies, and identify next steps in collaboratively addressing overidentification and disproportion in special education as a part of Connecticut's relentless efforts to close achievement gaps.

The first step in organizing the grant involved the convening of a representative, broad-based planning group. The CSDE and SERC requested that several key stakeholders groups identify members interested and willing to provide a representative voice through active participation on the planning group. Individual nominations were also solicited for additional members in order to ensure various perspectives across the stakeholders planning group.

The Summit Stakeholders Planning Group met monthly to identify outcomes for the two-day Summit. Significantly, the group quickly identified the issues of overidentification and disproportion as symptoms of a larger issue facing Connecticut education: the challenge of' closing Connecticut's achievement gaps.

The closing of Connecticuts achievement gaps has been identified as the greatest challenge this decade. Now more than ever, Connecticut must take action and demonstrate that student achievement gaps are unacceptable and will not be tolerated. Actions must be taken using data to inform decisions, involving teachers and families, and focusing resources in new ways to identify and close gaps in student achievement. The Summit, scheduled for March 20 and 21, 2003, was entitled, Closing the Achievement Gaps: Connecticut Summit on Overidentification and Disproportion in Special Education. It was specifically designed to address this challenge.

Twenty-nine (29) districts were invited to participate based on overidentification of Black and Hispanic youth. One (1) district was invited for overidentification of American Indian youth. Additionally, another four (4) districts were invited to participate because of overidentification in the area of Intellectual Disabilities. All thirty-four (34) districts participated in the Summit. Each district team, comprised of general and special education personnel, families, and comunity leaders, developed an action plan in collaboration with a facilitator from the CSDE or SERC. The action plan was based on the district's academic and disproportionate data disaggregated by race and ethnicity.

A follow-up to the two-day Summit was held on May 30, 2003 in order to provide participating district teams with tools, information, and resources to facilitate implementation of district action plans for closing the achievement gaps and addressing issues of disproportion and overidentification. As a result of their participation in the Summit, the thirty-four (34) districts also became eligible to apply for a planning grant regarding the development of the district-wide action plans initiated during participation in the Summit.

The CSDE and SERC are planning to convene the 2nd Summit in March, 2004. A newly constituted Summit Stakeholders Planning Group will continue to assist in the development and implementation of Summit 2004.