DECATUR, Ga. — For the past seven years, the City Schools of Decatur’s process for referring students to placement in the district’s special education program has disproportionately qualified Black students as eligible.
According to district officials, these determinations are made by a group of school-based personnel and parents in teams for schools, who “refer and place students in special education via a process of referral, evaluation, and eligibility determination.”
To address this disproportionality, the City Schools of Decatur’s special education program has been working to implement Comprehensive Coordinated Early Intervening Services, required by federal and state statute, to prevent and reduce this difference in referrals.
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The school district told Channel 2 Action News in a statement that for “almost a decade, there has been a disproportionate identification of CSD Black students in special education, especially in the category of Specific Learning Disabilities.”
The district said the Georgia Department of Education had “analyzed the City Schools of Decatur’s 2022-2023 FTE and Student Record data, citing concerns about a trend.”
After a review of the program by state officials, the GaDOE was providing support to the district to change how it manages the program, though school officials clarified that the district was not under investigation.
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The school district said student data showed a greater percentage of Black students were assigned to the special education program, compared to students of any other racial or ethnic backgrounds in the district.
Data presented at the meeting also showed significant differences between white and Black students when it comes to suspensions, with more than 75% of in-school and out-of-school suspensions occurring amongst Black students, compared to white students.
At a Dec. 10 board meeting, City Schools of Decatur Superintendent Dr. Gyimah Whitaker said that “from an equity standpoint, you should not have the overidentification of special education students, specifically Black students,” adding that when speaking about equitable student outcomes, the district needed people who are well-versed in Georgia’s multi-tiered systems of support process.
State officials conducted a site visit in October, working on a “comprehensive root cause analysis, interviews, surveys and classroom observations.”
In terms of what Georgia state officials are doing to help after performing that work, school officials said they are still waiting for a final report on the program. GaDOE will provide feedback on “targeted support the district will receive,” helping the school district plan its next steps, but CSD does not know yet when it will be provided to them.
Whitaker told board members that the Georgia Department of Education was under “state oversight” due to the trend of student proportionality by racial demographics in its special education program.
Channel 2 Action News has reached out to the Georgia Department of Education for more information and is waiting for their response.
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