'That's scary': Iowa mom worries about plan to overhaul special education system
An Iowa woman says help from the state's Area Education Agencies has been a lifeline for her daughters. She worries about the quality of resources her daughters will receive if lawmakers move forward with an overhaul of Iowa's special education system.
An Iowa woman says help from the state's Area Education Agencies has been a lifeline for her daughters. She worries about the quality of resources her daughters will receive if lawmakers move forward with an overhaul of Iowa's special education system.
An Iowa woman says help from the state's Area Education Agencies has been a lifeline for her daughters. She worries about the quality of resources her daughters will receive if lawmakers move forward with an overhaul of Iowa's special education system.
Kate Fairfax, who lives in Des Moines, calls her twin daughters "miracles."
Madeline and Audrey were born almost 10 weeks early. Audrey spent 99 days in the NICU.
"When she was three days old, she had brain bleeds on both sides of her brain and then kind of just a lot of different complications after that," Fairfax said. "Because of that, she has cerebral palsy and she's also deaf."
Fairfax said Audrey has always needed therapy services. She uses a lot of mobility equipment and has a feeding tube and cochlear implants. At home, Fairfax said her family uses American Sign language to communicate with Audrey.
Madeline and Audrey are now six years old and in kindergarten. Fairfax says her local Area Education Agency, or AEA, has been there every step of the way. They helped as soon as they got home from the hospital, they helped Audrey take her first steps and move around the house on her own.
Now at school, Audrey has a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a teacher of the deaf and hard of hearing, an audiologist and a special education consultant. They're all from the AEA and all work to help Audrey succeed.
So when Fairfax heard about Gov. Kim Reynolds' plan to overhaul the state's nine AEAs, she said she was worried.
"I know that it could greatly change what our school day looks like for Audrey [and] for all kids because there are so many services that the AEA provides that even I wasn't even aware of," Fairfax said. "So I think a lot of people don't know how much the AEA helps their kids every day."
Reynold's bill would give school districts full control over special education funding. Schools could continue using their AEAs for some or all services or they could pay private companies to provide those resources instead.
Fairfax started emailing every state lawmaker in Polk County to voice her concerns.
"If we're consulting different therapists to come in, that's going to look totally different. We might not have the therapists that already know [Audrey] or the teachers that know her and can provide all that training they've had," Fairfax said. "For kids in rural areas, who knows what that will look like? And that's scary."
Reynolds released an open letter to Iowans Friday morning explaining the goal of her bill.
"From early interventions for infants and toddlers to speech therapy for K-12 students, AEAs will continue to offer the guidance and reassurance families need and the support teachers rely on," Reynolds said.
Reynolds wrote that as the AEAs expanded their services over the past 50 years, the outcomes of students with disabilities declined.
"Over the last 20 years, Iowa’s fourth-grade students with disabilities have consistently performed below the national average when compared to students with disabilities in other states," Reynolds said. "In the last five years, fourth and eighth graders with disabilities have ranked 30th or lower on nine of 12 national reading and math assessments."
But Fairfax doesn't feel that assessment data merits an AEA overhaul.
"In regards to our students with disabilities testing lower, that is really hard to use as data because...it's like comparing apples and oranges," Fairfax said. "I can't give Maddie and Audrey, my girls even, the same exact tests and know that it's really showing what their true abilities are."
She said it's difficult to gauge Audrey's abilities with a standardized test.
"She needs an alternate assessment that can really show what she is capable of doing and looking at her IEP," Fairfax said. "Things like that are really going to show that better than those tests because she can't go and do a time test."
Instead, Fairfax said she wants more collaboration and support for the agencies that have provided a lifeline for her daughters.
"Are there changes that need to be made in the AEA? Possibly. I don't know, but I don't think that we can know that without working with the AEAs," Fairfax said. "I think the AEA is great and I don't want to see it get kind of torn apart. You know, I don't want to see it get dismantled."