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TUPELO, Miss. (AP) — Tupelo Public School District officials estimate that the graduation rate for special education students has quadrupled over the past two years. They estimate that about 58 percent of its seniors in special education programs graduated this year — up from 14.4 percent in the 2012-13 school year.
"We've made some major changes in how we work with our special education students, especially at the high school," Director of School Improvement Lea Johnson told the Daily Journal (http://bit.ly/1IhVGjo ).
Assistant Superintendent Diana Ezell said more students with "Individualized Education Program" are in regular classrooms, so fewer parents are taking them out of school.
Parents often remove their children from the special education program when they reach high school, but recently, this trend has changed as well, Johnson said.
The district also has added a transition coordinator to help students with special needs move from middle school to high school.
Mississippi students can earn a standard diploma, a 21-hour diploma or a completer certificate. Those who earn a completer certificate are not counted by the state as graduates.
Tupelo Schools superintendent Gearl Loden said many Mississippi students — not just those with individualized education plans — could be helped if Mississippi offered vocational diplomas.
The choice of creating a portfolio of work rather than taking an exit exam to graduate would help those who can do high-quality work but don't do well on tests, he said.
"We hurt our children in Mississippi, not just our special needs children, with the fact that other states offer a variety of diplomas," Loden said. "We're not offering that to our students. You're either going to a senior college or a community college, and majoring in a core academic-type program, and that hurts us."
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Information from: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, http://djournal.com
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