Jennifer Schuh has been struggling to find a suitable education for her 8-year-old son with special needs, who has been unable to attend school for the past nine months. Despite efforts to find alternative solutions, Schuh feels powerless and is seeking help.
Jennifer Schuh holds her son B., 8, who is autistic, as he becomes overwhelmed at their home in Westmont, Feb. 23, 2024. B. has not been in school for 9 months now after Downers Grove District 58 said they would not accept him because they do not have any aides available and his IEP recommends a therapeutic school. For the past eight months, Jennifer Schuh has felt powerless as she watches her 8-year-old son with special needs sit at home, isolated from his peers and unable to attend school.
And as Schuh’s experience illuminates, solutions are not readily available for some of Illinois’ most high-need young students when public districts lacking resources can not guarantee school placements, even though they are federally mandated to provide a free and appropriate education for special education students.
Some schools that D58 recommended had bad reputations in the special education community – leading Schuh not to feel comfortable sending her son there. After months of back-and-forth, the Schuhs filed a complaint with the state board of education, saying the school district did not fulfill its duty to their son. An impartial hearing officer sided with the school district, leaving the Schuh family without a solution.
Pandemic conditions contributed to an uptick in special education students, according to Fox, the special education attorney. Placements for students with special needs range from general education classrooms with extra support from teachers or aides to what are called “self-contained” classrooms filled with only special education students to residential boarding schools, which are generally considered the most restrictive kind of special education.
In the fall of 2021 when B. started kindergarten, his mother, a former teacher with a background in special education, chose to homeschool her son, hoping he could meet standardized benchmarks while receiving an individualized education she could oversee. Changing his placement to a therapeutic day school meant a more restrictive environment and no time in a traditional public school – a transition that can be difficult to revert.
Throughout a week-long hearing in January, District 58 officials described difficulties they had supporting B’s behavior in the self-contained classroom with other students with disabilities during his short time in the self-contained special education classroom, according to public records. In a desperate attempt to help her son, Schuh asked the school to hire her as a short-term aide in his classroom. The school refused, explaining they worried a short-term aide would be a bandage for a longer-term issue.
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