In April, the Fort Worth ISD Board of Managers voted unanimously to cut dozens of staff positions, including part-time and contracted speech-language pathologists. At the Tuesday, Aug.11, school board meeting, two of the board members who previously voted in favor of the cuts apologized to speech therapists.
Board of Managers members Tennessee Walker and Laurie George both apologized to the nearly dozen speech therapists in attendance at the meeting. Walker said that the board members were told that the district would be fully staffed.
“We failed on that front,” Walker said.
Superintendent Peter Licata said he had been gathering data surrounding speech-language pathologists and was going to release a report within the next two weeks. Licata cited a budget shortage and a national SLP staffing shortage as reasons for the staffing issues.
Licata said he was looking at changes to how SLPs are funded, because it is “very important” that Fort Worth ISD has them, and that he planned on including strategies to recruit and retain SLPs in his report.
“I’m still grieving the loss of those 21 experienced part-time assistant SLPs that were let go in April as they were fully called and committed as well,” Christina Sellers, a former SLP for the district, said.
During the meeting, multiple speech therapists and parents spoke on how the removal of the part-time and contracted SLPs affected students in the district.
When Max Pell, an SLP at Jo Kelly School, reported to work two weeks ago, he said he was told there were 77 SLPs who included part-time and contract employees. On the first day of school, Pell said, that number dropped to 69, and he was told the district would hire more contract and assistant SLPs — the same positions the board voted to cut in April.
“It didn’t have to be this way,” Pell said. “We stay because we care about this. We care about our schools. We care about our community, and most of all, we care about our students.”
According to its Student Support Redesign, the district plans to have 100 full-time SLPs, though some community members, like Sellers, are concerned that 100 is not enough.
As of Wednesday afternoon, a job posting for a pool of SLPs was posted on the district’s website. The posting says it will remain open until filled.
“Overloaded clinicians lead to snowballing turnover and impacted student services,” Sellers said.
After the board voted in April to eliminate the part-time and assistant SLP positions, Laura Obuchowski, an SLP and parent of a child in the district who receives speech services, said she was promised it was not a reduction in services, but instead a redesign to strengthen the quality of services.
Her daughter lost her SLP provider during the redesign and though Obuchowski said she is sure the new SLP will be wonderful, her previous providers knew her daughter’s communication needs and how to best support her.
“For her and hundreds of others, this is a discontinuity,” Obuchowski said. “Our children should not absorb the consequences of poorly made staffing decisions or lack thereof.”