By Valerie Strauss
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; Page B01

D.C. School Superintendent Arlene Ackerman has ordered a shake-up in the troubled special education department, changing the way students are assessed and taught and placing three officials on administrative leave -- including one who was escorted out of her office last week by security guards, schools officials said yesterday.

The 90-day action plan calls for assessing, by Friday, the needs of 184 special-ed students who have yet to be placed in programs even though Congress extended the deadline for doing so. It also changes the way some students will be taught and requires principals in the 146-school system to take over next fall from central administration the task of assessing students and evaluating service providers.

"We're saying special education is broken," said Frieda Lacey, Ackerman's special adviser on special education. "We're saying we have to take action quickly."

The changes coincide with a new report from school officials to the U.S. Department of Education that shows they have not yet met a single goal set out early last year in a three-year compliance agreement that was designed to force improvements.

What particularly angered Ackerman, Lacey said, was that the system had failed to assess 184 students for special-education services within a 120-day period set by Congress last October.

Congress approved that time frame as a gift to the system, which for years had only 50 days to initially assess and place special education students. The system routinely had failed to meet the 50-day deadline for thousands of students, prompting many to seek legal remedies.

When Ackerman discovered that officials in the assessment department, headed by longtime employee Joyce Armstrong, had not assessed all students even under the more liberal deadline, she became furious and ordered that the 184 cases be cleared up by Friday. Sources said questions also were raised among top school officials about how special-education money was being spent in the assessment department.

As a result, Armstrong was placed on administrative leave last week, along with two other officials, the sources said. Armstrong was escorted out of her office by security guards, according to school sources.

Armstrong was not available for comment.

The problems of special education students -- the emotionally, physically or mentally disabled children who make up more than 10 percent of the student body -- affect all D.C. students. Special education eats up nearly 30 percent of school funds, and this year it is expected to cost $170 million of the $575 million budget -- even as it fails to adequately serve thousands of students with disabilities.

Ackerman and other officials say the program has been broken for so long that it could take five years to fix. But special education advocates say that they have seen no improvements in the last year and that, in fact, some problems have gotten worse.

Chronic woes persist -- and sources said many are being investigated by the city's inspector general. Buses sometimes fail to pick up children for school or return them home hours late; children wait years for assessment and services; and data collection is so poor that officials don't even know how many students they have or what services they receive.

School officials say they have made some progress this year. Among improvements cited by Lacey are the creation of a mediation process to resolve special education conflicts before they hit the legal system; a new brochure advising parents of their rights regarding special education; sending monitors to private schools that educate D.C. special education students; and more opportunities to assess needy students, including the creation of teams working at night and on Saturdays.

Yet advocates say -- and Lacey acknowledged -- that the system remains broken.

The report to the U.S. Education Department, which was delivered a week late, tells the story. More than 1,250 students await their initial assessment. Almost 2,200 are overdue for an evaluation that is required once every three years. In 411 cases, the school system did not implement in time determinations made by hearing officers, and there were 770 cases of pending hearing requests in which a final decision was not issued within 45 days of the request.

Among the changes ordered by Ackerman is an end to a practice in which some special education students are taught. Some students currently spend part of the day with a regular teacher and then go to a special education class, where a special education teacher has students who remain there the entire day. Lacey said another teacher will be made available starting next fall for students who do not need full-time special education.

She also said principals would be trained this summer for their new roles in assessing students.

Parents and activists did not know details of the shake-up yesterday, but they urged Ackerman to remake the entire department.

"I'm glad they are cleaning house," said Janet Unonu, president of the D.C. Downs Syndrome Association, who has a child in D.C. special education. "They need to do much more."

Mary Levy, counsel for the education advocacy group Parents United, said the system has lived through numerous special education initiatives, with no progress. She questioned whether principals would get enough training and whether there are enough personnel for the undertaking.

"I question whether anything really changes," she said.