By Megan Kelley

Review Writer

Lake Orion Community Schools consistently ranks high amongst other school districts in Oakland County when it comes to student instruction. This shows regularly through M-STEP and SAT results in Lake Orion’s general education population. But what about the special education department?

During the LOCS board of education meeting on Feb. 12, Director of Special Education Julie Gutman presented data on the department’s performance indicators.

LOCS has 927 special education students, which makes up 13 percent of Lake Orion’s student population, district documents say.

Statewide, special education students are identified by percentage in eligibility categories. These categories include: Autism Spectrum Disorder, cognitive impairment, deaf-blindness, early childhood developmental delay, emotional impairment, hearing impairment, physical impairment, severe multiple impairment, specific learning disability, speech language impairment, traumatic brain injury, visual impairment and other health impairment.

“When you look at how the percentage in Lake Orion compares to Oakland County and statewide, we are pretty much in line with (their percentages),” said Jamie Evans, district social worker. “We’re not over identifying in any particular area. And really, what that says is that our early intervention services and our pre-referral processes, that we have in place for looking and supporting our general education students, are working. It’s a good system, it’s a strong system so that we’re not labeling a student as having a disability or waiting for them to fall so far behind. We’re able to catch students early and provide them the supports that they need without having to put that special education label on them.”

Each year districts are monitored and rated by ISD (Intermediate School District i.e. Oakland Schools) based on 14 indicators, Gutman explained.

“ISDs are in charge of taking a look at all of our data. Taking a look at our procedures, our processes, and they provide us scores in each of these areas,” Gutman said. “The top score is a two and a majority of them we did receive a two. The ones that we received ones on we are very close. For instance, the first one (percentage of 4th grade children with disabilities participation in regular statewide assessments — reading) we’re at 89 percent and you needed 90 percent. So we are very close.”

LOCS received a score of 16 in Results-Driven Accountability (80 percent) and a score of 15 in Compliance Indicators (93 percent).

When comparing these results with the results of other districts in the county, Lake Orion ranked number one in both results and compliance.

This ranking in Oakland County shows in a number of ways.

Most notably, the Oakland County high school graduation rate of special education students is currently at about 74 percent while Lake Orion graduates about 77 percent of special education students, district documents showed.

When it comes to providing the least restrictive environment, the state target is currently at 64 percent. Oakland County overall received about 68 percent, while Lake Orion exceeded the state target with about 71 percent.

“We are offering all students are high quality education so this looks at our special education students being in the general education classroom 80 percent of the time,” explained Hillary Pulliam, psychologist at the Pine Tree Center. “Across the board Lake Orion is doing a fantastic job with our M-STEP results for our special education students. Just to highlight a couple of our top scores — we received the fourth highest scores in the county for ELA grades 3-7 and the ninth highest score in the county in grades 3-7.”

With these impressive scores, Gutman looks to the staff as the reason behind the districts success.

“It’s staff. That’s what makes the difference,” Gutman said. “The staff in Lake Orion — the general education staff, the special education staff, paraprofessionals, custodians, everyone — by far, everyone helps students achieve. Every student has somebody that is really pushing them forward and developing a relationship and that by far is what makes us stand out. I have nobody on staff that ever says to me, ‘I don’t have time for that. I can’t do that.’ It’s all about, ‘Okay lets brainstorm, lets do it.’ and that truly makes the difference.”

LOCS in particular strives to find ways that will improve instruction for all students, not just general education students and not just special education students.

“We continually look at our instruction and find ways to improve our instruction. Special education teachers and general education teachers work together focusing on all students,” Gutman said. “Typically, special education departments function on their own. They do their training; they work with their staff. But in Lake Orion, Heidi Mercer’s (assistant superintendent of teaching and learning) teaching and learning department and my special education department, we have collaborated together on a lot of professional development, on a lot of training, and Heidi and I’s mission is to make sure we’re addressing all learners. So we work together. We share resources. We share information. We plan together.”

Although things are going well for the department as of now, that doesn’t mean Gutman or Mercer are pumping the breaks when it comes to new initiatives in the district

Over this past summer, Gutman and Mercer participated in a book study and decided to create an initiative that involved specially designed instruction.

“We service students in our special education programs (and) provide them specially designed instruction, but we have to make sure that even when they’re in the general education classrooms that they are getting specially designed instruction,” Gutman said. “So we have done a professional development series all year with our administration who is then doing professional development with their staff. Just to come up with some tips on ‘what could we do?’ ‘what could we start now to further increase our student achievement for students with unique learning needs?’ We also make sure that we are very trained with everything up to date, all of the best training out there: START, CORE boards, math. We’re really focusing on our math and we have several staff members that have actually been working together with the math coaches and we are piloting a lot of different programs but we’re also better aligning what we’re addressing with our special education classrooms with the curriculum in the (general education) classroom. So a lot of great things happening.”

The initiatives Gutman listed in her presentation include: START, CORE boards, Math pilot and Up the Ladder Training each address different areas of instruction.

START is a state autism training. According to Gutman, LOCS continually sends teams to this training program.

CORE boards is a research based methodology for teaching language.

With Math Pilot, LOCS is currently reviewing data on math, however district math coaches and special education teachers are working together to provide better ways to teach math in the classroom for unique learners, Gutman explained.

And Up the Ladder Training is a reading and writing program with a focus on ways to further instruct students who struggle with those subjects. All middle school special education and ELA teachers in the district are receiving this instruction, Gutman said.

The Pine Tree Center is in their second year and because there are many students who receive their education at various other schools in the district, the core foundation of Lake Orion’s special education instruction can be felt throughout the district. Educators who go above and beyond in order for their student’s to succeed are what makes Lake Orion’s special education department triumph above the rest.

“The Lake Orion special education staff are the most dedicated people I’ve ever met in my life,” Gutman said. “I think this center is just one more thing that they’re putting their heart into and it’s working.