Mom of Three Special Needs Kids Navigates the LAUSD

In the Los Angeles Unified School District, the approach to special education is simple: Provide support and services and place disabled children with the rest of the students. In the second of our three-part series, KPCC's Patricia Nazario goes behind the scenes with a single mom bringing up her three sons. L.A. Unified covers the cost of their special education needs.

Dylan Harvey: Pam looked up. "Oh dad," she said. "Please tell me a story."

Patricia Nazario: Eleven-year-old Dylan Harvey reads a story aloud to his speech teacher, Sonja Dunson.

Sonja Dunson: Very good!

Nazario: The L.A. school pathologist works with small groups. Dylan meets with her weekly.

Dylan Harvey: Because I stutter.

Nazario: He also has the genetic disorder Noonan Syndrome and high-functioning autism.

Dakota Harvey: Groceries!

Nazario: Dylan's little brother Dakota takes speech lessons, too.

Dakota Harvey: Icicles.

Nazario: Dylan's The pint-sized nine-year-old also has Noonan Syndrome and autism, and Attention Deficit Disorder. Dakota Harvey: Groceries!

Nazario: Dakota has trouble pronouncing the "S" sound.

Dunson: Ah, but, c'mon. Let's get the teeth all the way down.

Dakota Harvey: Groceries.

Dunson: OK. I'll give you that one.

Brian Grenham: Good! (claps) Get, 'em, get 'em! Stay inside the lines.

Nazario: Special education P.E. teacher Brian Grenham gets the Harvey boys in his adaptive P.E. class. Dakota, the third grader, walks on his toes.

Grenham: Hey, Dylan, Dylan, Dylan...

Nazario: And Dylan has Asthma. He can't throw a ball very far. His endurance doesn't match that of his 5th grade classmates.

Grenham: Sometimes, when he goes two laps and then he just, I can see his face get red. And he says, "I need to rest."

Nazario: Grenham relays Dylan's challenges to the boy's mom. With her at the meeting is Dylan's older brother, Daniel. He has cerebral palsy and vocalizes. Also in the room is Dylan's homeroom teacher, Rebecca Smith.

Rebecca Smith: So now we go on to the goals.

Nazario: The adults who work with Dylan sit at a long table. They're reviewing his Independent Education Plan. Every special ed student in L.A. County has one. In mandatory annual meetings, teachers read a print out of the electronic document.

It identifies a student's present performance level and sets goals. It also outlines additional services with which the district commits to bridge the gaps between a student's difficulties and his or her education.

Donnalyn Anton: Speech and language, occupational therapy, physical therapy, adapted P.E. So it's at the district expense to go out, then, and contract, if that's what the student needs.

Nazario: That's Donnalyn Anton. She supervises special education for L.A. Unified. She says the district has to provide services that comply with the federal "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act."

Anton: But, we don't have a match funding.

Nazario: Not enough federal dollars to help meet special education's one-and-a-half billion dollar budget. So at L.A. Unified, school administrators subsidize that budget from the a $6 billion general fund. The difference amounts to about $600 million a year.

Lee Englander: We're fighting to get these services. The problem the district has is that they're trying to squeeze all of these things out of only a certain amount of money.

Nazario: Lee Englander knows Independent Education Plans and special education law inside and out. Parents pay her to accompany them to those annual review meetings.

Englander: For example, if a child has behavioral issues and we feel it's important for that child to be supported with an aid, the district cannot say, "Oh, but that's gonna cost us $25,000 a year." They cannot say, well, we can't provide it, because we don't have the money.

Nazario: Englander charges by the hour, because she can usually get those services and more for her clients.

Englander (at Dylan's Individual Education Plan meeting): There are a couple of things on the health report that I think need to be clarified.

Nazario: The advocate sits next to Dylan Harvey's mom, Cathy, during his review. Cathy Harvey started Englander four years ago to be there for Dylan, as well as her other two disabled sons, Dakota and Daniel.

Cathy Harvey: I used to get very emotional the night before an IEP. My stomach would hurt. I would have butterflies, because I just knew that what I wanted to fight for my child, that there was going to be a door slammed in front of me. I feel that if I did not have my advocate, we wouldn't be getting what he needs.

Nazario: District insiders say proposed budget cuts won't touch L.A. Unified 's special ed program . Educators say they'll continue evaluating special needs students case by case, and using Individual Education Plans to ensure that special ed kids spend as much time as they can in general ed classrooms.