The Coalition of Special Act School Districts is a support group for special act school districts operating in New York State. Its chief purpose is to facilitate the views of a branch of New York State public schools that adhere to the guidelines established by legislative special acts that created them to meet the unique needs of students falling under Title I D (neglected and delinquent minors) of NCLB and offer a full or partial residential placement while providing the educational needs of this struggling population. Many of the residents from these communities are assigned to these districts through the court system, committees on special education referrals and social service placements from nearby orphanages and group homes.
These districts are not considered charter schools but instead, completely state-funded public school districts. In addition, they are not the same as Private or State-Run schools. Each of the Special Act School Districts has its own Board of Education which convenes to regulate district policy and procedures.
There were originally 20 districts in all. Recent changes in state funding and budgetary reform have resulted in only nine special act school districts left to handle the needs of all special act student populations within New York State. They are as follows.
Former districts:
More than a few of the New York State Special Act Schools have closed since the 1980s. The Wiltwyk School(closed) was attended by Claude Brown, author of the 1965 best seller 'Manchild in the Promised land' which chronicled his time at the school. He credits The Wiltwyk school, overseen by the psychologist Ernst Papanek for his turnaround from juvenile delinquent to serious student and eventual work as mentor to young people in Newark.
The Special Act school districts generally have a small student to teacher ratio and counseling available to students. Many of these districts are closing and funding for the districts is limited.
Valhalla is a hamlet and census-designated place (CDP) within the town of Mount Pleasant, in Westchester County, New York, United States, in the New York City metropolitan area. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census. The name was inspired by a fan of the composer Richard Wagner, and the hamlet is known both as the home of the primary hospital campus of Westchester Medical Center and New York Medical College and as the burial place of numerous noted people. Valhalla is the realm of the gods in Norse mythology.
Special education is the practice of educating students in a way that accommodates their individual differences, disabilities, and special needs. This involves the individually planned and systematically monitored arrangement of teaching procedures, adapted equipment and materials, and accessible settings. These interventions are designed to help individuals with special needs achieve a higher level of personal self-sufficiency and success in school and in their community, which may not be available if the student were only given access to a typical classroom education.
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Westchester Community College (WCC) is a public community college in Valhalla, New York, in Westchester County. It is part of the State University of New York (SUNY) system.
Pleasant Plains is a neighborhood located on Staten Island, New York City, New York. It is bordered by Woodrow to the north, the Lower New York Bay to the south, Richmond Valley to the west, and Prince's Bay to the east. The neighborhood is represented in the New York City Council by Joe Borelli.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a piece of American legislation that ensures students with a disability are provided with a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that is tailored to their individual needs. IDEA was previously known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) from 1975 to 1990. In 1990, the United States Congress reauthorized EHA and changed the title to IDEA. Overall, the goal of IDEA is to provide children with disabilities the same opportunity for education as those students who do not have a disability.
An Individualized Education Program (IEP) is a legal document under United States law that is developed for each public school child in the U.S. who needs special education. It is created through a team of the child's parent(s), the student and district personnel who are knowledgeable about the child's needs. IEPs must be reviewed every year to keep track of the child's educational progress.
In criminal justice systems, a youth detention center, known as a juvenile detention center (JDC), juvenile detention, juvenile jail, juvenile hall, or more colloquially as juvie/juvy or the Juvey Joint, also sometimes referred to as observation home or remand home is a prison for people under the age of majority, to which they have been sentenced and committed for a period of time, or detained on a short-term basis while awaiting trial or placement in a long-term care program. Juveniles go through a separate court system, the juvenile court, which sentences or commits juveniles to a certain program or facility.
Abbott districts are school districts in New Jersey that are provided remedies to ensure that their students receive public education in accordance with the state constitution. They were created in 1985 as a result of the first ruling of Abbott v. Burke, a case filed by the Education Law Center. The ruling asserted that public primary and secondary education in poor communities throughout the state was unconstitutionally substandard. The Abbott II ruling in 1990 had the most far-reaching effects, ordering the state to fund the (then) 28 Abbott districts at the average level of the state's wealthiest districts. The Abbott District system was replaced in 2007 by the New Jersey Schools Development Authority.
Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) was a measurement defined by the United States federal No Child Left Behind Act that allowed the U.S. Department of Education to determine how every public school and school district in the country was performing academically according to results on standardized tests. As defined by National Council on Measurement in Education (NCME), AYP was "the amount of annual achievement growth to be expected by students in a particular school, district, or state in the U.S. federal accountability system, No Child Left Behind (NCLB)." AYP has been identified as one of the sources of controversy surrounding George W. Bush administration's Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Private schools were not required to make AYP.
The Providence Public School Department is the administrative force behind the primary public school district of Providence, Rhode Island. As of July 2022, it serves about 21,700 students in pre-K through 12th grade. It has 21 elementary schools, seven middle schools and nine high schools, along with two public charter schools.
Special education in the United States enables students with exceptional learning needs to access resources through special education programs. These programs did not always exist. "The idea of excluding students with any disability from public school education can be traced back to 1893, when the Massachusetts Supreme Court expelled a student merely due to poor academic ability". This exclusion would be the basis of education for all individuals with special needs for years to come. In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education sparked the belief that the right to a public education applies to all individuals regardless of race, gender, or disability. Finally, special education programs in the United States were made mandatory in 1975 when the United States Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EAHCA) "(sometimes referred to using the acronyms EAHCA or EHA, or Public Law 94-142) was enacted by the United States Congress in 1975, in response to discriminatory treatment by public educational agencies against students with disabilities." The EAHCA was later modified to strengthen protections to students with disabilities and renamed the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). IDEA requires states to provide special education and related services consistent with federal standards as a condition of receiving federal funds.
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The Mount Pleasant Indian Industrial Boarding School in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan, was established by an act of the United States Congress in 1891. This provided funding for creation of an education system of off-reservation boarding schools and vocational training centers to educate Native American children. It was extending a model developed and practiced first at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, which opened in 1879 and was directed by Richard Henry Pratt, an Army officer.
Greenburgh Central School District (GCSD) is a school district headquartered in Hartsdale, New York.
K-12 education in the United States includes primary education starting in kindergarten, and secondary education ending in grade 12. Government-funded free schools are generally provided for these grades, but private schools and homeschooling are also possible. Most children begin elementary education with kindergarten and finish secondary education with twelfth grade. In some cases, pupils may be promoted beyond the next regular grade. Parents may also choose to educate their own children at home; 1.7% of children are educated in this manner.
Randolph Academy Union Free School District is a school district which covers campuses of a residential and day institution with locations in Randolph and Hamburg in New York State. It is a "special act" school district that only includes specific institutions which provide services to children. The Randolph location includes both day and boarding students, while the Hamburg location only has day students.
Hopevale Union Free School District was a school district covering a single educational institution in Hamburg, New York. Hopevale Inc., a social services agency, maintained a residential and day institution for students in grades 7-12 who had difficulty in mainstream educational environments.
Greenburgh-Graham Union Free School District (GGUFSD) is a special act school district in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. It teaches disabled and at risk students, with some of them living in a boarding facility. In 2017, its enrollment was 300.