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Good afternoon Chairman
Pickens and council members. I will be brief in the interest of time
constraints.
We appreciate the efforts
of this Council to restore the eligibility of children who had benefited
from the McKay Scholarship Program for Students with Disabilities, but were
declared ineligible following the enactment of Senate Bill 256 and a
subsequent State Board Rule that was adopted this past December.
The Catholic Conference
supported the scholarship accountability in Senate Bill 256 because of the
reporting and oversight provisions that included but were not limited to a
nationally norm referenced testing requirement for the Corporate Tax
Scholarship students, level 2 criminal background screening for teachers and
teacher assistants who are in direct contact with scholarship students,
random site visits on the campuses of participating private schools, a
toll-free hotline for parents and private schools about scholarship
programs, as well as other reporting and check and balances.
We did so in the interest
of the scholarship students and for the welfare of the overall scholarship
programs. However, in the waning weeks of the 2006 legislative session it
became apparent the legislation would in effect disenfranchise students who
can’t meet regular and direct contact through regular attendance within a
traditional classroom setting. I believe there may have been some confusion
over home education programs, hospital homebound by placement and homebound
by disability, who tend to be severely autistic, or may be severely
retarded, or have elopement issues.
The McKay Program was not
intended for home schoolers -- those children who are parentally placed in
home education programs and can meet the regular and direct contact
provision to attend school for 170 days annually. But there was a
distinction for children who are homebound by disability. This is why they
were eligible and actually benefited from the McKay Program.
The reality is the McKay
Program was a Godsend for many of these children and their families, but
they were extricated from it.
It is our position that no
child should be precluded from a disability program because of his or her
disability. The fact is students who are homebound by disability can’t meet
the regular and direct contact provision precisely because of their
disability.
We ask for your favorable
support of HB 7145 to restore the McKay eligibility for these children.
Thank you.
Larry Keough, Associate Director for
Education
April 2007 |
