Vicki Vossler, special education director for the Holton school district-Photo KHI News
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A panel of school officials today urged members of the Governor’s Behavioral Health Services Planning Council to propose a major overhaul of the state’s approach to educating children with serious emotional and behavioral problems.
“So many of these children are not seen as young people with mental health needs,” said Vicki Vossler, special education director in Holton. “They’re seen as young people with behavior problems or conduct problems. And the solution to those problems, all too often, is punishment.
“But punishment isn’t going to solve the problem,” she said. “We need to recognize that, and we need to be coming up with strategies for dealing with those behaviors.”
Dee McGee, who runs the special education program in Marysville, said she has been frustrated with state and federal policies and “red tape” that limit students’ access to school nurses, counselors and social workers.
“We’ve got to think differently,” McGee said.
Policymakers, she said, should rethink the practice of tying the students’ high school graduation to completion of college-bound coursework, which often has the effect of setting them up to fail.
“Since 70 percent of the future jobs do not require a college degree, we probably shouldn’t be telling everybody they need to get a regents university degree and take (college level) algebra and a foreign language,” McKee said. “Some of our children cannot do that, and they’re not going to meet the Lake Wobegon average by the fact that we want them to.”
Steve Wolfe, school superintendent in Erie, said school officials need to recognize that some hard-to-handle “kids have baggage – unbelievable baggage – that you may not know about. Once you hear their stories, your life will change.”
Beryl New, principal at Highland Park High School in Topeka, said she often reminds her teachers that many of the district’s students have post-traumatic stress disorder and “have been in their home multiple times when police have come in at 3 o’clock in the morning and dragged away a parent or significant family member in handcuffs.”
These students, she said, often struggle to succeed.
“They have the potential to do well,” New said. “But because of all the stressful situations they’ve been through, their performance declines.”
About 50 people attended the six-hour meeting, which also featured presentations by Laura Howard, administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration regional office in Kansas City, and Alfonzo Dorsey, a director with the Kansas Housing Corporation.
“We’ll be incorporating what we heard today into our annual report to the governor,” said Wes Cole, chairman of the planning council. “This was really good information.”
Cole said the report should reach the Governor’s Office “sometime in June.”