The Savannah-Chatham County Public School System has restructured its Autism Services ahead of the 2025-2026 school year. According to Executive Director of Specialized Learning Selina Ruth-Gillans, the change will address a growing population and offer curriculum better aligned with students’ Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), which outline specific educational needs in compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA).
A noticeable update is the reorganization of the district’s Preparing students with Autism for Classroom Education (PACE) program, which serves 452 students in grades K-8.
PACE has been offered broadly for the past 20 years, but on Monday, July 21 the district held two closed parent-student meetings about how it narrowed grade bands to groupings of K-2, 3-5 and 6-8, which led to updated designations that have yet to be posted to the district’s Autism Services website. Further information should be forthcoming within the coming week according to Ruth-Gillans, who also noted that narrowing is meant to focus educational resources in more targeted ways.
One parent of a student with autism, who asked to remain anonymous, said they received the district’s letter notifying families of the July 21 meetings roughly a week before they occurred. Ruth-Gillans confirmed that the meeting letters were mailed on Friday, July 11.
The parent’s key issue was that a disruption such as having to move into a new school building or even a new classroom without adequate time for acclimation could cause impacted students and families undue stress.
District officials issued a statement on Wednesday, July 23 via email, which said, “We regret that some families felt that our schedule did not provide them adequate time to prepare their student for a move.” Chief Academic Officer Derrick Butler added, “We are working directly with each family to provide additional support during this transition.”
The parent argued that the changes affect students’ IEPs, and, under Georgia law, parents should have been part of the district’s restructuring plans before final decisions were made.
Why SCCPSS made autism classroom changes
The parent acknowledged that the district issued an initial notice of potential changes to the autism program on May 22, the day after the 2024-2025 school year ended. The parent said that notice was not an invitation to be part of discussions and lacked specific details with more information forthcoming later in the summer.
The district delivered the specific restructuring details at the July 21 meeting. Details provided to date have not specified exactly which grade levels fall into each grouping.
The parent said the timing on these changes felt unilateral and rushed.
At the school district’s Media Day last Friday, Ruth-Gillans said the discussion to restructure began when 2025-2026 projections related to incoming transfer students, newly eligible students, students advancing from preschool intervention, military compassionate assignments and Applied Behavior Analysis programs were factored alongside projected school locations’ capacities. The data, not fully available until late spring, showed an “exponential growth” of students with autism within the district. When asked what factors might have contributed to that growth, she said she did not know.
The parent who spoke with Savannah Morning News expressed concerns about an over-reliance on paraprofessionals and lack of qualified special education teachers to deliver required instructional minutes to students.
Ruth-Gillans stated that “paraprofessionals can provide supportive services to students if that is what is outlined in the IEP.” She added that with the restructuring of the services into six new classrooms comes the need to hire six additional teachers and 12 paraprofessionals (one teacher and two paraprofessionals per class).
As of Media Day on Friday, the school district’s Chief Human Resources Officer Ramon Ray said 22 of the 90 classroom teacher vacancies were for special education positions. The Savannah Morning News had reached out seeking clarity on how those vacancies might impact the six new autism classroom teacher and 12 paraprofessional positions.
What does IDEA and Georgia law say about IEPs?
Ruth-Gillans said the restructuring resulted in the need for “students being reassigned to a location closer to their home or to their area school.” Additionally, other students’ moves came about because programming they required as part of their IEPs was no longer available at their current school. Ruth-Gillans said that in such cases, reassignment to another site closest to their home was required.
The parent who spoke to Savannah Morning News said such impacts should have been discussed with parents under Georgia’s laws on Procedural Safeguards and Parent Rights.
Georgia law does mention parents’ rights to be involved in meetings related to changes of their child’s IEP and to receive notice before a school initiates or changes the “identification, evaluation, educational placement of the child, or the provision of FAPE (free and appropriate public education) to the child.” However, Ruth-Gillans, in both email communications and during comments made at the district’s Media Day last Friday, stated that “a change of location is not the same as a change of placement, per the IDEA and Georgia Regulations.”
Georgia law does not appear to clearly define “location” or “placement.” The Georgia Department of Education had not immediately responded to an inquiry prior to publication, but a Disability Rights Arizona advocacy sheet from 2024 cites legal cases concerning the IDEA that differentiate the terms. The sheet says that “educational placement” refers to programs and learning environment while location refers to “the actual physical brick-and-mortar location at which educational services are provided to a student.” The sheet cites one particular case that essentially confirms a change of location does not change a student’s placement, so long as the “new setting replicates the educational program contemplated by the student’s original assignment.”
The parent said the letters about location reassignments were form letters that interchanged students names and their new school location assignments, with some students receiving a letter despite no actual change to their school location. The parent argued therefore that the decision was not made with consideration to individual students’ unique situations, despite assertations from the district’s specialized learning officials that they were.
The parent also identified themselves as an advocate for military families of students with autism, which the parent argued, experience compounding challenges related to deployments and reassignments, so any changes to schools or classroom could have an outsized effect.
Ruth-Gillans noted in email communications and at the district’s Media Day that military compassionate assignments have been taken into consideration and will continue to be moving forward. The parent expressed a feeling that school districts and school boards simply placate military families and their advocates because they will soon move on due to almost-always-guaranteed reassignments to other installations.
Joseph Schwartzburt is the education and workforce development reporter for the Savannah Morning News. You can reach him at JSchwartzburt@gannett.com and JoeInTheKnow_SMN on Instagram.
This article originally appeared on Savannah Morning News: Savannah-Chatham schools autism program will look different this year