OPINION | SPS Must End Discrimination Against Students With Disabilities

by Laura Marie Rivera

As Seattle Public Schools (SPS) opens its identification process for the Advanced Learner (AL) program, families may not be aware of a major change that undercuts the district's commitment to improve equity, at the expense of students with learning disabilities.

According to research by the University of Michigan, dyslexia is one of the most common learning disabilities, affecting 1 out of 5 children. That makes it essential for SPS to accurately find students with dyslexia and provide them the services they need to thrive and to include them in the full range of the district's program and curriculum offerings.

The Advanced Learning department proclaims a commitment to honor each student's strengths and boasts of the greatest diversity among identified students. What they fail to mention is that they are now actively discriminating against students with learning disabilities.

Starting last year, SPS has added an ableist barrier for young students to qualify as highly capable. Students who do not meet a certain score on the DIBELS test are now considered ineligible.

The DIBELS test, developed by the University of Oregon, is a series of one-minute assessments designed to measure early literacy skills. In the years and iterations since its adoption, testing has revealed that it is also very effective at identifying students with reading disabilities.

In fact, Seattle Public Schools is so confident in the test's abilities to weed out dyslexic students that it has adopted DIBELS as the official screener to satisfy Washington's Early Screening of Dyslexia Law.And curiously, they then decided to use the same test to prevent students from accessing the Advanced Learner program.

"To ensure all students have access toadvancedlearningservices, SPS refers all 1-8 students to be evaluated. This process is called Universal Screening. This screening is used to determine eligibility for services using a student's existing educational data.

"Please note:screening student educational data involves review of a student's state and district assessments results are needed for this process. If you opt out of SBA (Smarter Balance Assessments), MAP, or DIBELS (Dynamic Indicators of Basic Early Literacy Skills) (grades 1-2) your child will not have enough data for this process."

—Excerpt from the Sept. 20 email sent out to families.

As a result of this change, SPS has shut the door of opportunity for approximately 20% of the first and second grade students without any consideration of what their actual capabilities may be. While some people may conflate learning disabilities and intelligence, the profile and existence of twice-exceptional students should not be news to the people in charge of our public education system. A child should be able to qualify for highly capable services while also having a learning disability.

But under this new identification process, a dyslexic student with a 99th percentile IQ score and 99th percentile MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) score does not qualify. This twice exceptional profile is the same as Albert Einstein and actor and producer Octavia Spencer. In what world would they not be considered highly capable?

It is time for Seattle Public Schools to end this discriminatory practice and start practicing the equity that they preach.

The South Seattle Emerald is committed to holding space for a variety of viewpoints within our community, with the understanding that differing perspectives do not negate mutual respect amongst community members.

The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

Laura Marie Rivera is the neurodivergent parent of four Seattle Public Schools students, an arts and education advocate, and currently working on her Doctor of Education degree at Seattle University.

📸 Featured Image: Photo via Veja/Shutterstock.com