She left a state with robust special-education funding and close ties within a relatively small professional community to tackle problems on a much larger scale in a state beset by budget cuts.
What was Peg Brown-Clark thinking?
“I did have someone ask me, why in the world would you come from a state that has all that money to a state that has none?” said Brown-Clark, who just started her job as assistant commissioner of exceptional student services at the Colorado Department of Education. “And I said, ‘You know, it’s not always about the money.’ And it’s really not.”
Brown-Clark, who grew up on a Wyoming cattle ranch with five sisters, hadn’t planned on leaving as Wyoming’s director of special education. But after making a couple of visits and learning about Colorado’s reform efforts, she decided to make the leap — and now faces a very different landscape when it comes to special education.
Part of that is sheer volume. Colorado’s special-ed population — 84,200 in the 2010 count — approximates Wyoming’s entire student enrollment. The close relationships Brown-Clark forged with directors in only 48 districts will be difficult to duplicate in a state with 178.
While Wyoming has come through the economic downturn relatively unscathed in terms of state education funding, Brown-Clark understands that’s not true in Colorado.
“I think given the way Colorado is funded, the work that I’ve seen go on is phenomenal,” she said.
But she remains concerned about a widening performance gap as students move into middle and high school — something she says is common across the country. In Wyoming, she focused on monitoring the districts with the poorest outcomes and searching for the “triggers” behind them.
“When you’re holding people’s feet to the fire, it tends to cause folks all the way through the system to pay more attention,” said Brown-Clark. “I think we’re poised to take on that kind of work — to focus on outcomes.”
Advocates for students with disabilities in Colorado add several other concerns to the list but welcome the arrival of Brown-Clark, the current president of the National Association of State Directors of Special Education.
Randy Chapman, legal director for The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People, Colorado’s designated protection and advocacy group for students with disabilities, notes that the newcomer assumes a tough job.
“You’re an advocate for kids,” he said, “but at times districts may not be doing the right thing. So you have to run a fine line between being supportive of districts and special-ed directors, but also supportive of families of kids with disabilities.”
Advocates tick off issues such as the recurring concern surrounding restraint, educating parents about school discipline protocols, effectively employing technology in the classroom and a keener awareness of kids with emotional disabilities — something of particular concern around military installations where parents face overseas deployments.
And there’s the more general worry about budget cuts that can cause some districts to streamline or concentrate services.
Shirley Swope, a parent adviser at the PEAK Parent Center in Colorado Springs, said specialized services consolidated in just a few locations can keep kids from attending their neighborhood school and concentrate students with disabilities in fewer locations.
“We’re going backward in terms of segregation,” she said.
Brown-Clark noted that such scenarios are unfolding across the country as districts grapple with what they can reasonably do amid declining revenues.
“They may not be able to replicate a program and provide staff for everything that children need,” she said.
Brown-Clark’s charge extends beyond special education — though that remains her foremost area of expertise — to addressing needs of gifted students as well. Those kids, she said, often feel “disenfranchised and disconnected” because they’re not being challenged.
On a larger scale, she anticipates an effort to reinvent special education, and sees the conversation beginning with a basic question: Is there a universal design that would allow students with disabilities to spend more quality time in the general education classroom?
“We build ramps in football stadiums because everybody can walk up a ramp,” she said. “It’s the same thing with education. Are we building an access for all learners?”
Kevin Simpson: 303-954-1739 or ksimpson@denverpost.com
