In a report to the Board of Finance, school officials singled out parents and news outlets that sought information over the past year as having contributed to the cost overruns that now have the schools operating $807,000 in the red.
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School board officials approved a comprehensive reorganization of district management that includes cutting and creating various positions as part of a broader effort to improve accountability and streamline processes.
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Darien Schools’ special education record-keeping has been strewn with errors and inaccuracies for years, leading to additional auditing costs to sort through the mess as the district continues to determine and implement best accounting practices.
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A new twist to the ever-complicated special education saga has come to light after some parents claimed that no substantive action has taken place to fix the variety of problems in Darien.
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A Hartford public relations firm billed Darien taxpayers over $50,000 during the past year to help the school district manage public perception of the special education crisis.
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Billions of dollars are flowing to public school districts across the country through a federal grant program designed to improve poor schools, yet the methods used to determine eligibility include data that have high margins of error, which appears to have enabled wealthy districts to receive some of this money. Continue reading
Auditors tasked with scrutinizing Darien Schools’ excess cost reimbursements for special education services have found so many problems that they are saying it will take three or four times the amount of effort and time to determine how deep the problems go.
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Negotiations between school administrators and the Board of Education drew contentious debate at two arbitration hearings over the weekend, with lawyers on both sides using the special education debacle to try and sway the arbitration panel.
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More than 10% of children with disabilities are being taught in schools outside of Darien, and this has parents and district administrators concerned for a variety of reasons. Yet the exact number of children who are receiving special education services who live in Darien remains unreported.
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Negotiations between school administrators and the Board of Education began Friday, and lawyers on both sides used the special education debacle to try and sway the arbitration panel to deciding in their favor.
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David DesRoches 