RRPS special education program needs overhaul, report says

RIO RANCHO — Rio Rancho Public School’s special education program lacks vision, includes persistent employee burnout and may need to have certain roles reevaluated, according to a new report.

The 130-page report, issued by Texas-based Gibson Consulting Group, was posted on RRPS's website Nov. 25.

The document's release came following an eight-month period of research by the consulting group, which included an employee survey and interviews with numerous officials, including Superintendent Dr. Sue Cleveland.

Mike Baker, RRPS chief operations officer, said in an interview he thought the consulting group's report was "fair" and included good recommendations. He also cited the consulting group's observation of "high quality instruction" during classroom visits and "commendable practices" related to special education.

"The people that are doing the job are really doing a great job, but we need to change some processes and some systems in order to be more effective and efficient," Baker said. 

The review of special education was triggered, in part, by complaints from the Rio Rancho School Employees Union, which cited several staff members who said they had a high student caseload. The union filed a grievance, which the district settled and agreed to hire a consultant to conduct an outside review of the program.

Billie Helean, union president and Ernest Stapleton Elementary School teacher, said she reviewed the report and "quite frankly, there aren't really any surprises" in it.

In a prepared statement, she added, "the union is pleased with the findings in the Gibson Report and hopes that the district will be able to implement changes to improve working conditions for staff, but most importantly the learning conditions for students."

The report contains more than a dozen recommendations for ways the program could improve, ranging from creating a departmental organizational chart to finding new ways to support individualized education programs for students with disabilities. There are more than 16,000 special education students attending RRPS and that population is increasing, according to Baker.

One of the consultants' recommendations is for the district to find ways to support special education instructional leaders (SEILs) so they can perform their job as it was designed. The report criticized the program for its decentralization, causing individual schools to shoulder much of the responsibility for implementation. 

"We don't want different schools doing different things in terms of trying to reinvent the wheel, so to speak,"  Baker said.

This dynamic contributes to school staff "burnout," particularly with special education instructional leaders, the report said. One anonymous elementary school administrator was quoted in report stating that while each school has a SEIL, the role "does not ever have the time to be an Instructional Leader due to the workload placed on that individual."

Baker said these employee concerns are a "high priority" and the district needs to "take a careful look at rebalancing the workload across the board."

"Their focus should be to facilitate the instruction process concerning special education students," he said. "We need to get them to focus on instruction delivery rather than, for example, case management."

The consultants recommended a "multi-year improvement plan." The department, they wrote, does not have a "widely shared vision" with goals for improvement that can be followed daily. The survey found that SEILs, gifted education and special education teachers disagreed 42% or more that the department has a clear vision. Baker acknowledged the need for that vision in an interview.

Baker said the new visions needs to incorporate "a systematic approach that is districtwide; all schools will provide the same processes and systems in order to deliver instruction to the students."

Other recommendations that stand out to Baker include updating the special education process and procedure manuals, reforming the special education student referral process and increasing training for teachers on inclusion for students with disabilities.

Baker added that the district is still evaluating the report and determining how to implement any of the consulting group's recommendations. Ultimately, he said,  it will be up to the new school board, which will be seated in January, and the new superintendent when they start sometime next year.