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**FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE**
June 22, 2008
Contact: Alex Shoor
(212) 669-4691; (202) 669-7059
Release #:24-2008
PA Gotbaum: Parents Calling 311 with Special Education Questions Need Consistent Help
Only 1 in 100 calls gets referred to the DOE’s Special Education Call Center
Read Report
MANHATTAN – The Public Advocate’s office latest survey finds that parents of special education students, calling the city’s 311 information hotline for answers about their children’s special education needs, are given inconsistent information from call operators. 311, run by the city’s Department of Information Technology and Telecommunications (DoITT), referred callers to 33 different entities in response to ten different special education questions. Only one time in a hundred did they refer the caller to the Department of Education (DOE)’s Special Education Call Center, designed specifically to address parents’ special education needs.
Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum said, “Parents of children with special education needs have a challenging enough time as it is. Rather than being forced to spend their time navigating the complex and ever-changing special education system that the DOE has patched together, these parents should be able to spend extra time caring for their children. Parents shouldn’t have to hope they receive the right answers from 311. Getting parents consistent and accurate information in a timely fashion should be a priority for the DOE and DoITT.”
Councilmember Gale Brewer said, “As the Chair of the Technology in Government Committee, I am both proud of the successes of 311, and all too aware of its many shortcomings. And, as the Council Member representing the Upper West Side, I receive numerous calls from constituents with questions or needs concerning special education for their children. These are some of the most important and most complex cases we handle. A straightforward and effective system at 311 for dealing with these questions would make the lives of parents and children who interact with the city’s many Special Education apparatuses far better.”
Jaclyn Okin Barney, counsel to Parents for Inclusive Education and attorney at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said, “The Public Advocate’s report is indicative of the complaints Parents for Inclusive Education highlighted for Ms. Gotbaum. We hope that with the release of the report, the Department of Education will institute changes to its system so that parents will have a place to go where they can receive more accurate and reliable information to assist them with their special education concerns.”
Maggie Mooroff, Special Education Policy Coordinator for Advocates for Children, said, “At Advocates for Children, we’re well aware that parents are overwhelmed. They have a multitude of questions about their children’s special education needs. The Department of Education has set up the Call Center to address parents and educators questions about special education services, and while that’s clearly worthwhile, it’s not sufficient to stop there, if parents cannot find their way to trained call center staff.”
In July 2007, in response to systemic changes in special education and growing concern that parents were not receiving accurate information, the DOE established a Special Education Call Center staffed by special education specialists. The Call Center is supposed to handle special education inquires, respond to difficult problems in a timely and appropriate manner and maintain written records of all requests and the answers provided. The DOE, however, does not publish the direct phone number of the Call Center and instead relies on 311 to transfer parents’ calls to it.
In the new report, Public Advocate staffers posing as parents of children with special needs asked ten different pre-determined special education questions to 311 operators ten times for a total of 100 calls. 311 operators gave inconsistent information about special education despite the DOE directing parents to 311 for this express purpose. Moreover, 311 operators only referred callers to the Special Education Call Center one time.
Other key findings from the report include:
* One question - How do I get assistive technology for a blind student - received 6 different answers from 311.
* Questions about special education services, such as occupational therapy, speech therapy, and physical therapy were particularly difficult for 311 to answer.
* The 3 different service questions - 30 calls total - resulted in 14 different answers from 311, an average of more than 4 different referrals per question.
To correct these problems, Public Advocate Gotbaum recommends that:
* DoITT train 311 operators on special education and implement a quality assurance program.
* The DOE make the Call Center more accessible by advertising and promoting the direct phone number and creating an email account to which parents can email their concerns.
* DoITT instruct operators to specifically ask parents calling with a special education question if they want to be transferred to the Call Center and give them the direct number so those parents can follow up on their inquiries.
* The DOE should ensure that when operators refer parents to their schools’ parent coordinators, parents receive a timely and helpful response.
Public Advocate Gotbaum was joined today by Councilwoman Gale Brewer, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI), Parents for Inclusive Education (PIE) and Advocates for Children of New York.
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