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The Westport Board of Education will wait until a study of the special education survey is completed before possibly moving forward with a compliance review of the special education program.
The board has been discussing hiring an outside firm to conduct a review of special education cases to ensure they comply with state and federal laws.
Board members, however, said tonight they want to wait until a committee reports on the results of a survey of special education parents survey before moving forward with a Request for Proposals. The committee is slated to give a progress report in December.
“I have a hard time determining what we need without the report from the committee looking at the survey,” said Marge Cion, a board member.
Mark Mathias, board vice-chairman, said the survey is a customer satisfaction tool, but a compliance review is different.
He doesn’t know if everything is being done and if there should be improvements to comply properly with the laws.
“I need to know,” he said. “Parents call me. They’d stood here and told us the system is broken. We hear it from more than one parent.”
Michael McGovern, a board member, said the discussion has been the same on the compliance review three or four previous times.
“I want to see what the committee survey says before we vote to do any more,” he said. “We need to wait. If there’s a problem, then (a compliance review) is the route to take.”
