welcome back here everyone programs that help special needs students at a local school district could fall victim to budget cuts yeah it's happening in the sakuro school district and many are worried right now about how those cuts and what they could mean longterm for their students K Fox 14 News at 5's Harrison Parker has more on those budget cuts and also what happens next Harrison that's right I spoke with parents in one Union Leader about vital services for special education at the B Indepen
dent School District not being delivered fast enough one parent I spoke with told me his 5-year-old son is falling through the cracks I I I feel like it puts him in a position where to where he's bullied um to where he's being made fun of um because he can't communicate his his emotions and what he needs and what he wants that's Mack Hernandez dad of 5-year-old Aaron Hernandez his son attends Miss Ridge Elementary and needs speech therapy he en rolled in August but his dad tells me he's only rec
eived part of his therapy in February he says the school got rid of vital special education clerks overburdening the experts who could help and leaving his son without full-time care all paperwork should be able to be handled through um through a clerk and there should be um a diagnostician to be able to diagnose him to accept mental programs that the speech therapist herself isn't overwhelmed by doing all three jobs at one time this alleged breakdown is no surprise to One Union Leader they did
is they reassigned a big majority of those special a clerks to other positions in the district Rosie Perez is the president of the West Texas alliance she works with transferred clerks and teachers who say they are overwhelmed because the school district has cut services to save money there was no systems in place prior to removing the clerks they did no U research they did not talk to these individuals that are all affected by it to see what needed to be put in place prior to removing them Rosi
e Perez said clerk reassignment and other issues drove out existing special education teachers she also told me that led to a shortfall in experts that's higher than other comparable school districts I believe there's nine positions um that are open for speech language pathologist and I want to say there's six that are open as diagnosticians and I think that because of that move of removing the special ed clerks that's why we're not getting people to apply for those positions M Hernandez told me
he wants the problem fixed because his son is being affected every day son come home crank from school um because people are uh kids are bullying him sisd has not not responded to our questions with any answers so far but we'll certainly keep you updated as the story continues to develop reporter from The News Room Harrison Parker K Fox 14 News at 5
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