Content warning: this story includes brief audio of a child in distress.
A child runs out of their class, crying. Jennifer Fanara-Dainty hears it from her office and springs into action to help. She knows the student well. She’s been meeting with their parents while evaluating their class placement. Fanara-Dainty is a social worker at Lathrop Elementary in Rockford.
“I want to be visually seeing the kids, " she said, "so that they know who I am, so when I do get called for a crisis, the kid is not totally unfamiliar with me."
Fanara-Dainty is at Lathrop full-time, which means she can drop by classrooms and check in on her students. But most RPS social workers can’t. Their schedules are overbooked, they’ve worked on the weekends often for weeks without pay, and many split time between multiple buildings to try to assist as many students as possible.
This fall, though, it hasn’t been enough. Over the first two and a half months of the school year, over 100 Rockford students did not receive their legally-mandated IEP social work minutes.
That’s mainly because the district has been losing social workers at an alarming rate -- and not hiring enough to make up for it. Two years ago, RPS had 50 full-time social workers. Now, they only have 34.
The social workers who left are burnt out. Several Rockford social workers spoke to WNIJ anonymously. They say the district isn’t listening to them and that it’s hurting their students. A few are strongly considering leaving the district.
“I cannot continue to work in a district that does not think of children first,” said one elementary school social worker.
Remember the student in crisis at Lathrop? Fanara-Dainty is helping evaluate their placement. Social workers -- especially at the early childhood level -- work on these assessments all the time.
Mari Kong is an early childhood social worker in Rockford. She says they meet with the teacher, principal, and the student’s parents to see if students need Individualized Education Plan (IEP) services like social work or to be in a smaller class.
“But then admin comes in," said Kong, "and looks briefly at a number or whatever and they're like, ‘Well, no, sorry, we're not going to do that. We're going to put them in a general education classroom of 20 children, and they're going to fail.’”
Another elementary social worker agrees.
“We started the year with five students that are clearly in the wrong placement," they said, "and the frustration that we are feeling as a building-level team about having our voices heard to get the help for these students who are suffering has been extremely frustrating."
It’s not the only way social workers say district officials ask them to go against their professional judgment. Since they have so many IEP students they’re legally-required to help and so few social workers, they don’t have time to meet with any students one-on-one.
One social worker works with a self-contained class of 13 students with cognitive disabilities. She says, in order to cover as many students as possible, district administrators told her to go in once a week and do a 30 minute presentation for the whole class and mark that as meeting their Individualized Education Plan minutes.
“Yes, it does cover the minutes, but it's not individualized,” they said. “Every student has a different goal to work on based on the evaluation that I completed.”
District officials say they are aware of these frustrations and admit there are challenges. Rockford Public Schools special education director Michael Ryia says a group of a dozen students might be okay for a self-contained classroom. He says, typically, groups of more than six are not as effective, but the district doesn’t make social workers work with groups.
“There is absolutely no reason," he said, "why you cannot provide social work minutes in a group setting, but that is totally up to the service provider."
The staffing challenges have also led to a shift in social worker responsibilities. Social workers now focus solely on special education students, so they meet their federally-mandated minutes -- and can’t assist general education students.
“There are plenty of kids who need the support that aren't IEP kids,” said one elementary-level social worker. “People have been brought to my attention, and I have to tell the teachers, ‘I'm sorry, I can't help.’ That feels really bad.”
Counselors can aid at the middle and high schools, but there are no elementary counselors. Ryia says parent liaisons or assistant principals can step in there.
The district hired BSWs -- people who have a bachelor’s in social work rather than a master’s degree -- to cover general education. But they can’t legally assist with special education. The district also relies on “behavior specialists” who, Fanara-Dainty says, often receive that title without any behavior training.
“Honestly, there's a lot of people in positions to help students who are not qualified to or are not trained," she said, "and that makes me really nervous."
Staffing has also changed where social workers spend their day. A few years ago, Rockford outlined a vision for a full-time social worker in every building. They reached that goal, and social workers say it was working. But now there are many buildings without a full-time social worker -- and they say that has consequences.
“They have a tendency to move social workers around like chess pieces," said one RPS social worker, "and don't really account for the fact that they've created relationships with those students at their old school."
Fanara-Dainty feels lucky to be full-time at her school. She knows her principal, how the building operates, and sees her students regularly. She can touch base at the end of a tough day or pop into a classroom and remind them of a coping mechanism they’ve worked on.
“It's also a re-teaching of the expectations," she said. "I call it a coaching session."
Others can’t do that. Some got moved around just days before the school year started, when they’d already moved into their office. Some are in buildings just once or twice a week. They’re often not around to meet with students or help them in a crisis.
A few have been asked to fill in at high schools like Jefferson and Auburn, which had the largest waitlist of students not receiving their legally-required IEP social work services. Those schools have nearly 2,000 students and one half-time social worker.
When a student isn’t receiving services, it’s supposed to be noted on their IEP and progress reports, but a social worker says, “We are told, when we do IEP meetings, we can't write in the IEP or in the progress report that they're not receiving services.”
Michael Ryia at the district says it is noted on their IEP when students aren’t getting services. Social workers say many parents didn’t know their kids weren't receiving the services they’re entitled to, because the district hadn’t sent home the letters yet. They say some parents were kept in the dark for nearly two months.
“Students were getting suspended at the high school level," said another social worker, "with social work in their IEPs that weren't getting their minutes, because downtown made that decision. Parents weren't even notified.”
But, most importantly, social workers say, if district administrators had listened to them, they could have avoided having so many students on wait lists in the first place.
“We had a plan that covered all of the students,” one RPS social worker said. “It was worked out, and the person in charge downtown, literally on day one of school, squashed it and said, ‘This is not needed.’”
Michael Ryia says they did have such a plan, but because of staffing uncertainty, they switched to a plan that underestimated how many social workers they’d need at the high schools.
“Maybe we should have just stuck with that same plan," said Ryla. "Then we, probably, may have alleviated the issue."
He says the district knew there would be some kids on wait lists, but didn’t know exactly how many. Ryia says now they’ve changed course, and moved to a model that looks a lot like that original plan.
As of now, he doesn’t expect any students will be forced to receive compensatory minutes in the summer.
He also says that means there are no more students on wait lists for social work or occupational therapy, and that they’ve significantly cut down their speech therapy waitlist. But social workers say there are still students owed minutes.
And what about parents who say, ‘That’s great, but why couldn’t you have figured that out this summer and avoided this mess in the first place?’ Ryia says they won’t make the mistake again.
“I do apologize," he said, "for, basically, missing September, October, and half of November for those two and a half high schools that were affected."
The district has lost 16 social workers in the past two years, and Ryia says he’s concerned that they’ll keep losing people. Several of the social workers that spoke to WNIJ said they’re either considering early retirement or taking a job somewhere else because of the working conditions.
They say that instead of investing in Bachelor’s-level social workers who legally can’t do everything they can -- the district should focus on hiring fully-licensed social workers.
Ryia says many districts are having issues hiring social workers. He says they’re doing everything they can to recruit and retain them. He says he’d love to get back up to 45 social workers, but some social workers aren’t convinced. They expect even fewer social workers next year -- and that everyone will have to cover multiple schools.
“The impact would be, basically, they get nothing,” said one of the elementary-level social workers. “All that would be served is the meetings. The day would just be paperwork. You wouldn't be able to meet with anyone in crisis.”
They say it’s a vicious cycle. Social workers feel mistreated and unheard, which leads to staff leaving, which further stresses the remaining staff and leads to more kids without services. They say the only way to break that cycle is for the district to invest in social workers and, in effect, the kids who need their support.
