Socorro school board vote to investigate special education

The Socorro School Board unanimously voted 5-0 to conduct two third-party investigations: one into their special education operations and another into their school finance operations.

Before the votes, two community members spoke up during open forum about their concerns.

JC Trujillo, executive director of Positive Outcomes, identified several challenges in the school district’s special education department regarding service delivery and funding.

He noted that during Individualized Education Program (IEP) meetings, ancillary staff often lack the time to provide recommended services. Families are told that special education services are only available if their children attend Parkview. He was also concerned that diagnoses may not accurately reflect their needs and could be misused to label behavior problems.

“I really stand here in support of the district looking into this and really applaud the board for putting this forward and in putting an investigation forward so students can be receiving services,” Trujillo said.

Lawrence Burkett described himself and his wife as educated and proactive parents. He stated that they have a child with an IEP and they have encountered several issues with the school.

He said he was surprised in November when Child Protective Services showed up at his house to investigate.

“We suspect the reason why, was maybe some kind of windfall from my spouse making a report. So she filed a complaint with the superintendent, and it was in regards to the principal, which we’ve had extensive problems with some of the people at Parkview,” Burkett said.

He was concerned that the school had falsified information about his child as potential retaliation.

During the board reports and discussion Board President Dave Hicks said he felt an investigation was an opportunity to not only identify issues but to give all the new department heads a chance to start with a clean slate.

“We go through all the special ed. We can identify what’s working, what’s not working, what some of our problems are and then at the end of the investigation, we can sit down and identify those problems, come up with solutions,” Hicks said.

Board member Kathleen Ocampo said it was an opportunity for growth and to address past issues.

“I would just like to point out as well that we have several different leaders in that position as well. And so things you know, students can fall through the cracks. Special Education moves so quickly,” Ocampo said.

Before the vote, Tara Jaramillo, board member and owner of Positive Outcomes, asked lawyer Roxie De Santiago if there were any legal implications with her voting on the investigation.

Santiago said she didn’t think it would be a violation.

“What the district is proposing to do is not specific to your company, not specific to any provider, and in fact, not specific to providers in general, but more generally, to provide an overall assessment of whether or not the district is doing what it needs to do as it relates to special education services in general,” De Santiago said, “You heard the public comment earlier today, which I was not surprised to hear, and so you would be looking at all of those kinds of issues system-wide for the district.”

When it came to the vote on the finance investigation, Jaramillo said a third-party investigation would go beyond what an audit does and would help give insight into the operations of the special education department.

“So we are looking to see, have we applied for all grants and funding that we should have. Also, there was some problems with dispensation of property. Have we dispensed all of our property? Do we have the correct MOUs in place and those things that a financial audit wouldn’t look at? So that is something that we were interested in looking at. As President Hicks said, the bigger picture of how it all fits together,” Jaramillo said.