After two months of face-to-face negotiation reaching almost 50 hours, school administrators, teachers, school board members and parents have reached consensus on "federalizing" Wisconsin's special education laws. The expressed intent is to simplify the special education placement process, streamline the individual education plan (IEP) system, and allow teachers more time to spend in providing direct services to students.

Assistant state superintendent Carolyn Stanford Taylor told a joint meeting of the Legislature's education committees that intense negotiation by representatives of affected parties, "Represents the very best efforts of the stakeholders to represent their constituencies. At the same time, each of them demonstrated again and again their commitment to working together and to preserving the positive environment for schools and parents, an environment we have worked so hard to establish and support in Wisconsin."

The compromise has the blessing of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the School Administrators Alliance, the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, Cooperative Education Service Agencies (CESAs), and parent advocacy groups, including the Wisconsin Coalition for Advocacy and the Quality Education Coalition.

When Congress reauthorized the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) in 2004, it put states on notice that differences between state and federal law had to be minimized and explained in all instances. Under the proposal (Senate Bill 529 and Assembly Bill 945 ), Wisconsin law will have nine nuances to federal law.

For example, federal law requires transition services for students with disabilities to commence at age 16; Wisconsin law will have services begin at age 14. Stephanie Petska, Department of Public Instruction special education director said, "The whole transition effort will be made more meaningful by starting in middle school."

Wisconsin law will also require that the special education teacher on the IEP committee will have to have expertise with the disability in question and changes can be made to the IEP without reconvening the full committee. Dawn Soto, a special education teacher for CESA 7 in northeastern Wisconsin, said the change will allow her to help one of her blind students read music in Braille at his music lesson instead of attending IEP meetings.

"I'm pleased I'm going to be able to spend more time with my students. I'm truly at my best when I'm spending direct time with them." Soto also said the changes will improve the cumbersome paperwork involved with IEPs. "The exorbitant amount of time spent on meetings and paperwork is taking me away from time with my students."

Middleton parent Dawn Wyans said parents have been relatively quiet during the negotiations because "(parents) really trusted the stakeholder process." She said she was pleased with the final product.

With such broad, overwhelming consensus, the changes to Chapter 115 (Wisconsin's special education laws) will most likely move quickly through both houses of the Legislature in the last regularly scheduled floor period before the fall elections. The period runs Tuesday, February 21 through Thursday, March 9.