CEA-Advisor_February-March-2023-issue_no-ballot_web

REMEDYING

6 CEA ADVISOR FEBRUARY – MARCH 2023

‘IT HAS BEEN A NIGHTMARE’: SPECIAL EDUCATION TEACHERS EXPRESS NEED TO FIX CT-SEDS State rollout of fraught IEP system plagued by technical glitches, lack of training, massive demands on teachers’ time

Teachers are no strangers to novel instructional programs, new assessment and grading mechanisms, changing curricula, standardized test burdens, and other trends and mandates: a constant learn-and-churn that often cuts into meaningful time teaching and connecting with students. But the State Department of Education’s recent rollout of CT-SEDS, a data system with a new approach to writing students’ individualized education plans (IEPs), has left thousands of special education teachers and their students in the lurch—with nothing to show for it but hours of rework, frustration, and unmet student needs. “The only way teachers can find the extra time to navigate this burdensome system is to spend less time with their students or less time with their families, and neither is acceptable,” says CEA President Kate Dias. “CT-SEDS was supposed to improve the flow of information with a new statewide data management system and what the SDE called “‘intuitive, easy to-use displays,’” says CEA’s Robyn Kaplan-Cho, whose areas of expertise include special education. “In reality, it has been a nightmare.” A task force of special education teachers and related services providers convened by CEA has documented the problems with CT-SEDS and recommended • Compensation for additional hours worked • Remediation of technical glitches discovered throughout the rollout period • Ongoing training during the workday and in-person professional development for educators on using the system with fidelity • Online technical support for special cases • Release time to write IEPs and monitor progress. Among educators’ feedback: • “What used to take an hour is now taking as long as five or six—sometimes ten—because of glitches, input being erased and having to be re-entered, and other problems. There’s not enough time to complete our IEPs during the school day along with all the other case management tasks that need to be completed, and precious time is being taken away from students. I get home, make dinner, take care of my kids, get them to bed, and then spend another four hours with this system. It’s unsustainable.” • “Information on CT-SEDS is not always saving. It disappears even after pressing the ‘save’ button multiple times.” • “A major lack of training means we are flying blind.” • “To say that we are frustrated does not even scratch the surface of what is going on. After the two-plus years of COVID we have come off of, the hits just keep coming.” Taking their case to the state CEA Treasurer Stephanie Wanzer, a special education teacher with Cooperative Educational Services, told the State Board of Education in February about her own experience with the software, as did CEA members Danielle Fragoso and Georgann Stokes, special education teachers from Madison and Cromwell, respectively. With every upcoming planning and placement team (PPT) meeting, Wanzer, who has worked for 28 years at a regional education service center (RESC), said she now worries about whether she can complete all her work on time. Many of her colleagues report that they are required to maintain caseloads across two data systems—the previous IEP Direct and the new CT-SEDS— creating confusion and double work. “CT-SEDS is incredibly time-consuming, putting additional strain on special education

“The stress posed by spending evenings and weekends on paperwork that is critically important but takes hours outside the workday has led to unprecedented rates of teacher burnout,” Avon teacher Jon Moss told elected officials—most of whom had not heard of CT-SEDS—at CEA’s Breakfast with Legislators. (See story, pages 8–9.) “We have inundated our special education teachers and related service providers, including school counselors, psychologists, and speech-language pathologists. I want to point out I’m not a special education teacher, but the issues facing our special education teachers affect every single teacher in the district.” CEA has reached out to special education teachers and related service providers in various districts to weigh in on the myriad technical glitches, inadequate training, and inordinate amount of time it takes to complete an IEP using CT-SEDS. In addition to Wanzer, Fragoso, and Stokes, those educators include Jen Hayes (Bridgeport), Cara Brown (Waterbury), Kate Curcio (Darien), Melissa D’Orazio (Southington), Linda Poland (Manchester), Helena Richards (West Hartford), Lauren Rogers (Woodstock), Caryn Vita (New Canaan), and Matthew Zabroski (Glastonbury). Caseloads have steadily increased, and special education needs are outpacing the ability to provide services. If you and your colleagues have expectations that are impossible to meet, work with your local president and CEA UniServ representative to resolve the matter at the local level. CEA Training and Organizational Development Specialist Christopher Teifke offers the following tips: • Assess what you are actually able to accomplish within your working hours. Email your supervisor with your schedule and list of duties and ask which tasks should be prioritized. If your supervisor believes all tasks can be completed within work hours, request specific guidance. That may result in more realistic expectations. • If your supervisor tells you all tasks must be completed regardless of working hours, ask how you should properly log the extra hours outside your workday to be paid. The idea is to have supervisors acknowledge that you are expected to work beyond your normal working hours and, as such, are entitled to compensation for that time. “Because teachers doing this work all have such big hearts, they will often do it anyway, which leads me to my next point,” says Teifke. “The more you continue to do work without compensation beyond your normal working hours, the more the practice becomes normalized. Meet with your fellow union members. It’s essential that if you are seeking help, you are all on the same page, as a union. Many voices with the same message speak louder than single voices getting drowned out.” WHAT YOU CAN DO RIGHT NOW

teachers, who have always needed to work way beyond their contracted hours to write IEPs and evaluation reports,” she said. “My colleagues are leaving the profession because it’s impossible to meet all the demands put on us.” Stokes, who teaches at the kindergarten level, detailed many of the program’s glitches and told the State Board of Education, “Even before the pandemic, there was a shortage of special education teachers and paraeducator supports. CT SEDS, along with factors such as budget cuts and lack of resources, weighs heavily on special education teachers, who have to absorb the needs of our most vulnerable students. This is a disservice to our students and the families who rely on us to ensure their children get access to appropriate education in the least restrictive environment.” A special education teacher since 1995, Fragoso told the board, “The pressures being put on us as the years have progressed are untenable. More and more is being expected of us, and rolling out a new IEP management system on the heels of COVID was not the best timing. The system is not intuitive, and instructions provided by the state are so wordy and cumbersome, I don’t use them as a reference. When you have five plates in the air, you don’t have time.” She added, “As educators responsible for the neediest of children, we deserved a better rollout, and so did our students. A dedicated helpline would be a start. Compensating teachers for the extra time spent for their work would honor our time as professionals. Please consider taking the pulse of your teachers and help them be the best they can be. We can fix these issues together.” Special education teachers Georgann Stokes (above) and Danielle Fragoso (right) told the State Board of Education about the many problems special education teachers face when using CT-SEDS. FIX-IT FORUMS Members’ pleas were heard, and CEA is working with the State Department of Education to hold several Fix-It Forums where educators can share their CT-SEDS experiences with education officials, with the goal of finding immediate and long-term solutions. Watch your inbox for dates and locations. Time, training, technology Problems with CT SEDS fall into several broad categories with considerable overlap. Training in the new program was inadequate, forcing teachers to learn by trial and error while scrambling to meet the needs of their students and the legal requirements associated with IEPs. The program’s design is seen as less than ideal, and the technology behind it is often problematic. To make matters worse, during the initial phase of the rollout, questions directed to the help desk went unanswered for days or weeks. The combination of these factors has meant that time spent creating IEPs has grown exponentially.