Nicole Wallace's son spent three weeks of school days in a barren room where, at one point, he urinated on himself.
When Wallace's son, Keagan, told her he spent his days at Smart Intermediate School in "the skills room," Wallace didn't know that meant an isolation room. She also had no idea why he was sent there.
One day, Keagan, who had an individualized education program, or IEP, to address special education needs, told her he had been “in skills” for three weeks.
She asked school officials what that was, and was taken to a room.
“When I walk into this room, there was pee in the corner,” she said. The room was barren, with a bump-out that served as a makeshift bench.
“One of the boys did that a week ago,” Wallace said a para-educator told her about the urine. “The janitor hasn’t cleaned it up.”
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School administrators told her he had the opportunity to use the bathroom.
Sometimes, he shared the room with the students who had bullied him, Wallace said. Another day, a girl grabbed his testicles and squeezed. Keagan filed a report about the assault, Wallace said, and she filed a state complaint last fall.
Keagan’s last day at Smart was Sept. 29. His mother is home-schooling him until he enters Central High School in the fall.
Now Wallace is one of three Davenport mothers of children with disabilities who want to correct flaws they see in district processes and ensure fair treatment for special education students. All are members of the District Wide Davenport PTO. They went public after a state audit of the district special-education program found "systemic non-compliance" with several parts of the federal law that governs education of students with disabilities. As a result, the district must work with a state-selected adviser to address the problems.
After the audit in late January, the Iowa Department of Education said the district must reconvene IEP meetings for hundreds of special education students and provide them compensatory education services, if they're owed them, at the district's cost. It must also work with a national expert to address a disproportionate number of students of color identified for special-education services, and the disproportionate number of minority special-education students subjected to disciplinary actions.
The district did not respond to questions about its special-education program.
Another parent, Gina Hale, wrote to three lawmakers Wednesday to seek help for her daughter, whom she describes as “medically fragile and non-verbal.”
Hale first contacted U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, U.S. Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, and U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, last summer, as her family moved from South Dakota to Iowa.
“Since that time, things have only deteriorated and no one seems positioned to help," she said.
Before Hale's family moved, her disabled daughter was placed in a residential school in South Dakota and Hale remained behind to coordinate her daughter's transfer to the Davenport district.
“Both districts used school tuition residency laws to refuse services to my disabled child while simultaneously continuing to provide services and initiate transfer for my non-disabled children,” Hale said in the letter. “Since then, she has been without educational services for all but about 30 days of school.”
Hale's daughter has not attended school since July, and has become incontinent and no longer can walk, she said.
In the letter, Hale expresses concerns about the district being found to be out of compliance.
“If the district can walk all over us, what are they doing to those that do not have the social, financial and education resources to fight for their children?” Hale asks in her letter. “The answer is clear in Davenport: isolation rooms, disproportionate representation, lack of prior written notice, predetermined placements — in short a hostile and intimidating environment.”
Hale wants to discuss her daughter’s situation with the senators and find “ideas to strengthen existing laws.”
“Our procedural safeguards in Iowa are compromised," Hale said in the interview. "They are broken."
“When I started talking to these moms, I was horrified,” said Kari Dugan, one of the PTO organizers who met Wallace at a school board meeting.
Dugan’s daughter was disqualified from special education her freshman year. “After that her grades declined because she was not receiving the supports she needed,” Dugan said. “She went from a 3.75 (grade point average) to 3.0 and eventually to a 1.5 GPA. As her grades fell her resolve to graduate faded.”
Dugan said her daughter is old enough to know the school district had services available. “They just did not want to help her,” Dugan said. “It hurts her that they do not care whether or not she is successful. So she stopped going to school.”
“We spend all our lives trying to help our kids," she added. "Parents are taught that we should trust the school."
Dugan completed home-school paperwork to protect her daughter from truancy. Then the girl enrolled at Scott Community College.
“It was like night and day,” Dugan said. “We are really grateful to Scott.” Her daughter needs support at home, Dugan said. “She is not your average college student, but she is willing to work hard and I am willing to work hard to support her.”
Similarly, Wallace says her son has a new beginning ahead of him. "He's got a fresh start" coming at Central, she said. He is academically behind, but "I do feel like he's going to get his opportunity at Central."
Linda Cook
Film critic/reporter since 1985 at Quad-City Times. Society of Professional Journalists, Broadcast Film Critics Association and Alliance of Women Film Journalists member. Member of St. Mark Lutheran Church.
