Camp Long program for troubled students will be cut
By ROB NOVIT Senior writer
For several years the Aiken County School District's Department of Special Programs sought a specialized program for middle school boys with behavior issues.
Director Pat Silva and staffers Donna Aycock and Jan Dudley were delighted when they got the go-ahead to start the program in January 2007 at Camp Long. But the program will end this spring, a casualty of the budget crunch that has enveloped the Aiken district and others throughout the state.
The Aiken County Board of Education is also phasing out 40 special education aide positions or moving other aides into those positions where they may be needed.
Currently, the program at Camp Long serves 12 boys - some of them special education students - who were recommended for expulsion or had issues that could have led to expulsion.
All the boys will return to regular public schools in the fall. Silva emphasized that most of them were already scheduled to do so, and the others would have returned later in the school year.
If the program had continued, a new group would have come in. Students often rotated in and out of the program, some staying for just nine weeks before going back to traditional schools.
"The program is very good but expensive," said Silva. "Some of the kids out there have been successful, because it's a non-traditional setting with lots of hands-on. I'm sorry the program is going, but you have to sacrifice some things in these kinds of times."
None of the current students have been permanently expelled from any school. Silva admitted some trepidation about the students going back to regular classrooms.
"You hope they make it," she said. "You hope they have learned how to cope in a traditional setting."
Dudley, the teacher at Camp Long, did an outstanding job and will be reassigned, said Silva.
The district has more than 200 special education aides. Already, some are retiring or have chosen to resign. As others leave, they will not be replaced, although aides currently in other positions may be moved to the vacated slots.
Staffing requirements based on legal issues and students' Individual Education Plans (IEPs) will be covered but with a smaller number of aides, said Silva.
"Any cut is going to affect some things," she said. "These are hard times and we're trying to balance federal and state regulations and the needs of students with a budget that is not getting any bigger."
Contact Rob Novit at rnovit@aikenstandard.com.
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