“Arrogant.” That’s what Ohlone Elementary School Special Education parent Lars Smith called the Palo Alto Unified School District Special Education Department’s recent decision to consolidate its elementary Special Education program.
The department announced in February that it would be closing the moderate/severe Special Education programs at Ohlone and Escondido Elementary School. As a result, 17 special education students currently at those schools will be relocated to Nixon and Barron Park elementary schools starting in the fall.
According to Palo Alto School Board President Jennifer DiBrienza, the idea behind the change was to strengthen the special education programs at Nixon and Barron Park by splitting the program into two classes per school rather than one.
Currently at Escondido, Nixon, Barron Park and Ohlone elementary schools, there is only one moderate/severe special education class that includes students of all grades. By consolidating the program, Nixon and Barron Park will have two separate special education classes, one for second grade and below, and another for third through fifth graders.

“The change from having lots of your classrooms going from K-5 all in the same room to having classrooms that are K-2 and [grades] 3-5 [has] been long requested by our staff and sort of considered a best practice,” DiBrienza said. “We had had staff saying that … it was too challenging to work with K-5 in the same room.”Nonetheless, the decision was met with backlash from many who are impacted, particularly parents of children currently in the closing special education programs. Smith, whose son is a fourth grader in the special education program at Ohlone, said that he agrees with the intention behind the decision, but disagrees with the way that the district went about the decision-making process.

“I think most people would agree that being able to differentiate the age groups with different needs in different classrooms would be a pretty positive thing,” Smith said. “I feel that the way that they went about it, and the site choices were really short sighted, and frankly I think that they chose a way to do it that’s going to be the most damaging to the most kids and the most families and special ed, I think there’s not really anybody happy with it.”
According to Smith, the first notice of pending changes to the special education program came on Jan. 20, when the weekly superintendent’s update email mentioned that the district would be exploring ways to streamline and consolidate special education services for the students benefit.
Shortly after, on Feb. 6, the district announced the plan to consolidate the program.
Families of students in special education programs were told that they had until March 3 to select a new school for their kids to attend.
“I wish the district and the department had made any effort at all to engage both parents and teachers in the restructuring,” Smith said. “These unilateral decisions I don’t think work very well in public education and public systems in general.”

However, DiBrienza said that to her, asking parents for input on a decision whose most likely outcome has already been determined could feel insincere.
“One of the things that I have found in my six years on the board is that if you already know that you are likely making a certain decision for various reasons … don’t make it feel like parents would have a say in that,” DiBrienza said. “It’s disingenuous and people sense that and see through it.”
Smith said he found the timing of the announcement extremely difficult, given that parents had so little time to figure out where their kids could be moved to for this coming fall.

“We were supposed to figure out where our special needs kids were going to go in less than a month?” Smith said. “No information, no lead-up and no conversation.”
DiBrienza said that while she understands that the change is extremely difficult for families now, it is ultimately the best decision in the long run.
“I know that it’s upsetting,” DiBrienza said. “I would never minimize that. It’s disruptive, it’s scary, change is hard for all kids, but especially for this population … but this [reminds me of] why it took us 10 years to do this thing that everyone agreed was the best thing for kids. Because the change part is hard.”