Board Approves Hiring of Additional Special Education Teachers

The School Board unanimously approved Monday night the hiring of additional special education teachers for the remainder of the school year.

The vote didn’t come easy, however, as board member Alison Swanson repeatedly asked Director of Student Services Christine Nelson for a plan for placing the teachers in the classrooms. Nelson, who started the job this school year, said staff at the schools where those teachers will be placed could provide a specific plan by the board’s Jan. 9 meeting.

Those new teachers would have to be approved on the district’s personnel report at that meeting to get them in classes for the start of the third quarter Jan. 15. The new teachers will cost the district about $207,000 over the course of the rest of the school year.

“For me, I would feel a lot better about voting for this if I heard a plan,” Swanson told the board.

Swanson had called for the board to table the vote until the Jan. 9 meeting. However, Board President Bill Walsh said the board could approve the hiring of the teachers and hear the plan at the next meeting before approving the hiring of the specific personnel.

Board member Mike Scaramuzzi said he agreed the board needs to see a plan for the additional teachers, calling the last-minute nature of the request “unacceptable.”

Nelson defended the quick nature of the request, saying she started the job this school year and only recently completed a comprehensive audit of the district’s special education program. That audit led Nelson to request the hiring of new teachers to handle an increasing special education student caseload.

Nelson presented her findings to the board Nov. 21, along with her recommendation to hire the total equivalent of 7.5 full-time teachers for five of the district’s schools, including both high schools.

The reason, according to Nelson, is that the number of students with individualized education programs—a specialized curriculum designed to meet the needs of a single student—exceeds the number that the staff in those schools can comfortably manage. The formula, Nelson said, calls for a maximum of 16 to 18 cases per educator, and the districtwide average is 16.5.

However, five of the district’s schools—,  and  junior high schools, and both high schools—are either over that number, or on the high end of the average. And when it comes to number of cases per educator, Oswego’s junior high and high schools are well above those of the district’s neighbors, including Yorkville, Plainfield and West Aurora.

 is at 20 students per educator,  at 22, Traughber Junior High at 17, Thompson Junior High at 17.5, and Plank Junior High at 19.4.

Nelson has requested the equivalent of two new full-time teachers at Oswego High School, three at Oswego East, 1.5 at Plank Junior High, and 0.5 each at Thompson Junior High and Traughber Junior High.