Some Parents Push For Alternative to D.C.'s Special-Ed

Stephanie Reed knew that her son, Shawn, deserved better than what he endured day after day, year after year at C. Melvin Sharpe Health School in Northwest Washington.

Shawn, who has cerebral palsy and is mentally retarded, cannot walk or talk and is unable to feed himself. Sharpe's mission is to help children such as Shawn, special-education students who have severe disabilities. But after nearly a decade at the school, he was not progressing.

Doctors not affiliated with the D.C. public school system had found that he might improve with the right kind of attention. For years, however, the school system denied Shawn physical and speech therapy, despite his mother's complaints and worries.

It was only after a pair of public interest lawyers took on Shawn's case that he began to get the help he needed. A federal judge found that the District had denied Shawn the care he was entitled to get and ordered the D.C. school system last summer to pay for his placement in a private school.

Now 15, Shawn has shown progress since his transfer in September to St. Coletta of Greater Washington, a special-education school in Alexandria, his mother said. But like most other D.C. children who have ended up at St. Coletta in recent years, Shawn and his family had to fight hard to put him there.

For years, the D.C. school system has defended its special-education programs and gone to great lengths to keep Shawn and students like him, rather than send them off to outside schools, at the city's expense. On the other side, some parents and advocates have contended that the public schools were unable to handle some of the most demanding cases.

One front in the battle looks to be changing. In the summer of 2006, St. Coletta plans to move into a new building in Southeast and become a D.C. charter school.

Just more than 2,000 D.C. students are sent to private day schools in and around Washington, said MaryLee Phelps, the District's interim executive director of special education. Some are sent with the blessing of their old schools. But others -- like Shawn -- go only after their cases are heard in administrative hearings or federal courtrooms.

The number of St. Coletta students from the District has risen steadily the past several years, and D.C. children make up nearly 70 percent of St. Coletta's 168 students. Many are from Southeast, where the $31 million school is being built near the old D.C. General Hospital. The school's other students come from around the region, traveling from as far as Damascus and Leesburg.

With St. Coletta's shift to charter school status, parents will be able to apply directly to the school, as they would any other charter school. St. Coletta will evaluate the needs of prospective students and decide who is admitted.

The D.C. government funds charter schools directly, but the D.C. schools have reached an agreement to ensure that St. Coletta's costs, which typically exceed the set rates, are fully covered. In its new facility, St. Coletta will have enough room to take in an additional 100 students. Even so, a waiting list is possible if the school emerges as a popular alternative.

Shawn needed to be moved from Sharpe a long time ago, his family and advocates said.