Buzzing bees, heaping plates, two-year old’s who have assigned themselves housework, standing neck-deep in the swamp and other idioms and metaphors for frenzied busyness, etc. I’ve got a lot for you today so I don’t want to beat around the bush, except to say that I appreciate everything you do for the mission and that without all of your hard work, Tennessee would be a far worse place for people with disabilities. Thank you; now onward!
TDC Priority Bills
- ABLE Estate Recovery – this bill would prohibit the state from seeking estate recovery (clawback) of funds in an ABLE account following the death of a beneficiary, beyond what is required by federal law
- See those? Over there on the General Assembly website? Those are the House Insurance Subcommittee and Senate Health and Welfare Committee calendars for next week – and we’re on them
- That’s right, next Tuesday at noon CST and next Wednesday at 1 pm CST, the ABLE bill hits committee
- Feeling good – the Department of the Treasury and TennCare, the two state agencies with a stake in this bill, have both given the thumbs up
- No lawmaker that I talked to has given the thumbs down yet
- Feelin’ good
- That said, that’s no reason to sleep on this one
- If you wanted to get GRASSROOTS-Y about this one, it wouldn’t hurt in the slightest to reach out to the office of those sitting on these two committees
- Good vibes, my friends, good vibes please
- Next up:
- See those? Over there on the General Assembly website? Those are the House Insurance Subcommittee and Senate Health and Welfare Committee calendars for next week – and we’re on them
- Right to Repair pt. 1 (R2R1) – this bill would prohibit insurance companies from requiring a prior authorization for the repair of power wheelchairs and some durable medical equipment
- This one is still in the locker room, not quite to the starting block yet
- Next week, we’re working with the legal team down at Cordell Hull to make sure we’ve got the right language to make sure this bill does what it’s supposed to
- After that though…. off to the races?
- Next up:
- Corporal Punishment prohibition – this bill would put protections in place to screen students for a disability prior to eligibility for the use of corporal punishment in schools
- I think we’ve got the language down for this one, and I like it
- It puts up some roadblocks before somebody can spank a child that ensures that the school tried something before CP, and that the student doesn’t have a disability
- Not sure when this one hits the racetrack, but I promise it’s on the team
- Next up:
- 3rd Grade Retention – the Learning Loss Remediation and Student Acceleration Act of 2021 (LLRSAA21, if you like that sort of thing) requires that 3rd grade students score “proficient” in the state TCAP test or be retained a grade (with some exemptions and appeals options).
- HB68/SB249 – the admin’s take on how to fix this part of LLRSAA21, easily passed Senate Education
- It got an amendment that changed a date, but that’s it
- No discussion otherwise, straight unanimous vote for passage through the committee
- The bill also passed through the House K-12 Subcommittee on the other side
- There was at least a little discussion here, some about the success of the camps (which is up for debate because the DOE doesn’t publish much data on this)
- A little chatter about full funding and the use of TANF funds to “fill in some gaps” – still easy peasy for this one so far
- Reminder, this bill seems to tell me that the administration is still cool with the 3rd grade retention rule – it simply expands who is eligible for the learning loss camps and tutoring
- This theoretically provides greater access to the existing avenues for exemption from retention, but doesn’t do anything to the retention concept itself
- This bill is a good bill in my opinion (not a VGB, but it’s fine), but it can’t pass in isolation – we need to actually address the strict retention policy
- Next up: (going to try something new, for the sake of expediency)
- Here is a report on the status of all of our tracked 3rd grade retention bills
- HB68/SB249 – the admin’s take on how to fix this part of LLRSAA21, easily passed Senate Education
- 5th TDC Priority Bill
- I can’t deciiiiiidddeee – if you have a suggestion, I’m all ears
- Next up:
Other Legislation
- Mechanical Restraint for Students with Disabilities – this bill would allow school security officers (SSO’s) to use mechanical restraints such as handcuffs or zip ties on students with disabilities
- We met with some folks this past week on this one, talked to some others, received some intel about amendments and…
- This one is still a Very Bad Bill (VBB), no getting around it
- We know some folks did some committee work on behalf of this bill last week, and I see it was not calendared for the upcoming week
- This tells me that they have not secured the support they need to ensure it makes it out of the first round of subcommittee scrutiny
- That said, it’s no reason to be complacent about this one – the second it hits the subcommittee calendar in the House I’ll have a link for you to send a note to your elected official about this bill
- Quick note of somewhat relatedness: the Tennessee Code significantly limits the use of mechanical restraint in mental health facilities
- If trained professionals in highly restrictive settings such as these only use mechanical restraint in the most dire of circumstances, we certainly don’t want untrained school bouncers/mall cops making that call in our schools with our kids
- Once more, for those in the back: VBB
- Next up:
- The wrath of the GRASSROOTS doing its thang
- We met with some folks this past week on this one, talked to some others, received some intel about amendments and…
- ICF Bed Limit Changes – this bill would incentivize eligible Intermediate Care Facilities (ICF’s) to pursue grant funding that supports shifting residents to less restrictive settings and reducing ICF bed capacity
- This one has a scary summary on the GA website, but is really facilitating a reduction in ICF residency in pursuit of more less restrictive placements
- If that doesn’t make sense, it seems to me to be emphasizing home- and community-based services over institutional service-delivery
- And, ultimately, it is voluntary – ICF’s have to opt in, which would (maybe) have the effect of diversifying available housing and support options for Tennesseans with disabilities
- All that said, the bill got rolled 3 weeks in committee, after an amendment that rewrote the bill as the above describes
- I don’t think there is any problem here – it’s an admin bill that ostensibly achieves a number of shared goals – maybe this just time for the amendment to be digested
- This one has a scary summary on the GA website, but is really facilitating a reduction in ICF residency in pursuit of more less restrictive placements
- Next up:
- Other Stuff this Week:
Federal Update
- The Federal Director of the Office of Special Education Programs, Valerie Williams, published a blog post last weekend discussing the excessive prevalence of exclusionary discipline for students with disabilities
- According to the post, 1.6 million children with disabilities were suspended or expelled during the 2019-’20 school year
- That’s 22% of US students with disabilities, versus about 5.2% of the total US student body (about because the data is old)
- (Tennessee had a suspension rate of 6.7% for the same year)
- And this doesn’t account for informal removals, which I’ve talked about in this space in the past
- That’s 22% of US students with disabilities, versus about 5.2% of the total US student body (about because the data is old)
- I note this blog post because Tennessee has the bad habit of emphasizing punishment over prevention regarding unwanted school behaviors.
- Hello, Teacher’s Discipline Act (VBB)
- The punishment emphasis disproportionately impacts TN students with disabilities negatively, as evidenced by the above data
- We can do better school behavior policy, and we have to
- According to the post, 1.6 million children with disabilities were suspended or expelled during the 2019-’20 school year
GRASSROOTS Update
- I am loath to bring this up, because I’m optimistic (and horrified) that this might just be some blustery stunt to get some attention, but House Speaker Cameron Sexton floated the idea of refusing federal education dollars this past week. I’m going to (somewhat) briefly lay out why this is a horrible idea
- First, that money is meant to support the higher costs associated with the education of students with disabilities, students living in poverty and students learning English
- I know darn well that Speaker Sexton knows it costs more to educate these populations, it’s right there in the TISA bill he sheparded through last year
- If the state has $1.8B lying around for education, they are more than welcome to throw that into the pot – no need to make a political stunt out of it
- Second, that money comes with strings attached, which is ostensibly the reason Speaker Sexton is considering foregoing those funds
- However, those strings embody protections and resources for students with disabilities that ensure they have equal access to their education
- Here are the things that those ESSA funds tangibly do
- We also get some IDEA part B funds for K-12 SPED, and here is what they tangibly do
- But, what these links essentially say is that federal dollars for SPED can be used to address the needs of students with IEP’s in specific districts and at specific schools – they’re flexible to meet relevant needs related to SPED
- However, those strings embody protections and resources for students with disabilities that ensure they have equal access to their education
- Third, Speaker Sexton is asking the Tennessee disability community to trust the state to guarantee those protections and resources without federal accountability
- Tennessee has a long and sordid history of neglecting, abusing and marginalizing the disability community in the state
- They closed the last institutions for those with IDD less than a decade ago
- And only after decades of lawsuits over the inhumane treatment of its residents; suits that the state of Tennessee fought against tooth and nail
- Even after the lawsuits and federal mandates, the state continues to skimp on its obligations to provide care and services to these folks
- There are also currently 22 open Office of Civil Rights complaints against TN districts regarding denial of SPED services and FAPE for students with disabilities
- And, bluster or not, this uses children with disabilities as political pawns once again – as Speaker, that falls at his feet
- They closed the last institutions for those with IDD less than a decade ago
- The state is also pretty non-transparent about what it does
- The state Department of Ed just this fall caught the eye of the Feds for fudging student testing results in order to look better
- Governor Lee’s administration is also infamous for denying open records requests to avoid public transparency and accountability
- It seems unwise to simply trust that the state will institute equal to or better protections for kids with disabilities, especially given the above
- Tennessee has a long and sordid history of neglecting, abusing and marginalizing the disability community in the state
- Finally, it’s a logistical nightmare with an all-but-guaranteed messy rollout (should the bluster move into policy territory)
- Districts will have to account for dollar-to-dollar changes in how they fund literally everything
- They will also have to adapt to whatever strings the Speaker and General Assembly attach on their own
- It seems unlikely that the GA wouldn’t use the power of the new purse to institute their educational priorities
- It creates confusion – what federal laws are still in effect, what are not and how do we interpret the ambiguities between them?
- First, that money is meant to support the higher costs associated with the education of students with disabilities, students living in poverty and students learning English
- All in all, this isn’t a call to arms just yet – like I mentioned, I think this may all be bluster and politicking, but it is nonetheless a threat to the education of Tennessee kids with disabilities
- We’ll be watching this closely – if anything comes of it, this changes everything about our approach to the session
- Keep your eyes peeled
Media Highlights
- NY Times (via Yahoo) – The New York Times did a long piece on informal removals of kids with disabilities, including in the article some heartbreaking (and morally enraging) stories of the impact of the practice on kids. Tennessee can and should lead the way in eradicating this practice from public schools.
- WVLT 8 – one of our friendly TDC bill sponsors, Senator Becky Massey, is in charge of the Governor’s Transportation Modernization Act, which, among many things, considers the possibility of commuter trains across Tennessee. If you’ll recall our TN Disability Scorecard from this past fall, we gave the state a (generous) C- in transportation; this would up that grade.
- Nashville Scene – earlier this month, Nashville Mayor John Cooper announced he would not run to be reelected as Mayor. That leaves a wide-open field for anybody up for the job AND can win a plurality. That’s because legislation in the GA would eliminate the use of runoff voting, which has determined most of the recent mayoral elections in the state’s Capitol city.
These keep getting longer and longer, don’t they dear reader? And, I apologize, because a lot of what’s making these (not-so-little) dispatches so long is not so fun. BUT – that is why we are here. It takes muscle to bend the arc of justice in the right way, and if the last 30 years of the fight for disability rights in Tennessee tells me anything, it’s that our collective muscle is a lot stronger than any of the above yuckiness. So hold on, dear reader, it’s not as bad as it looks. And it’s early – we’ve got plenty of time to flex that muscle down at the Cordell Hull and keep that arc nice and bent. And hey! Why not get started today by making sure you’re registered for Disability Day on the Hill on March 8th – you’ve got until next Wednesday (2/15), but why not pump that iron today? Thank you, TDC family, for everything you do for the mission.
