May 9—ASHTABULA — Parents came to the Ashtabula County District Library on Monday night to hear from Ohio State Board of Education member Charlotte McGuire.

“There’s a lot of parents in Ashtabula County who have had many issues with our Ashtabula city schools,” said Ashtabula NAACP President Liz Penna. “Children with special needs. Parents are complaining that they are not getting the services that those children are promised. I’m trying to help the parents reach out to the state or whoever to get the help that they need for their children.”

McGuire started the meeting discussing developmental delay.

That means a child is experiencing a delay as determined by an evaluation team, Individual Educational Plan team and other qualified individuals, according to the Ohio Department of Education.

“The key is that the IEP is a living, breathing, document for that unique child,” McGuire said. “A parent should be able to reach out to a professional in the district to have a conversation if there’s a question. We are concerned about student outcomes.”

One parent brought up a disagreement with the school on identifying that her child had autism.

McGuire said she could appeal to the state.

“I’m concerned about the number of children under the age of 10, that when they act up the school sends them to juvenile court,” Penna said. “Knowing that these children already have an IEP. I see here in Ashtabula a lot of kids are going to juvenile court. It’s not right.”

McGuire said that this is nothing new.

“There was a big initiative called ‘stop the school-to-prison pipeline,'” McGuire said. “This was in the 90s. We were seeing an increase of elementary children that had behavioral issues that were entering the juvenile system.”

Penna said that the parents in attendance have been fighting with school boards for years.

“We cannot approach our school board,” Penna said. “They don’t care. To them, when they have a child on an IEP, that’s extra money coming into the school district, but those kids aren’t getting what they’re supposed to get.”

Jennifer Jerman is a mother of three children in the AACS school district. She recently created a local group called the “Ashtabula Empowered Caregiver Coalition” to support parents going through the same issues within the school district.

“We went through the proper chain here,” Jerman said. “We show up at every board meeting. We’re not getting response from the district to support the children. The majority of the parents and the children and the issues that we’re seeing within our group, there’s a common thread to the children that are in there and they are children that are identified with having disabilities, IEPs, 504 plans and also children of different ethnicities.”

AACS Superintendent Lisa Newsome said the district is investigating.

“The district is specifically looking into particular complaints from a few parents,” Newsome said. “The administration is following board policy and behaviors and severe behaviors are being addressed with appropriate discipline. The education and safety of all students is top priority and administration follows through with making sure all safety guidelines and the school student code of conduct is followed.

“We set forth ROAR expectations — Respectful, Outstanding Academics, Always Safe and Responsible. We work through student misbehaviors and violations of the student code of conduct through our Positive Behavior Intervention Support System [PBIS]. We work very hard not to allow student behavior to disrupt the educational setting and the learning process for all students.”

Newsome also addressed the district’s approach to students with IEPs.

“We follow all compliance protocols with students that have Individual Education Plans,” she said. “All students are the top priority … we have the Dragon Empowerment Center which supplies clothes, toilets and essentials, we have a mobile dentist that can service all students. We will have a vision van that will service students and make it possible for them to get glasses if needed.

“We have community counselors in all buildings with ‘Parent University’ nights and many family engagement activities. We have partnered with After School Discovery and Boys and Girls Club to offer programs outside the school day. AACS supports our students and the administration and teachers work through behavior issues with families. Consequences for behaviors can be a valuable learning lesson along with the positive behavior support system that is in place district wide to support all students.”

McGuire said that she would like to get Penna together with Office for Exceptional Children Director Jo Hanna Ward to see how they can get the parents to the state level to make an appeal.

Penna is hoping to bring in District 9 Ohio State Board of Education member Joe Hagan for their next meeting.