Parents to Board: Don't Cut Our Physical Therapists

About a half-dozen flustered parents of students attended Wednesday night's Educational Services Commission of Morris County meeting to protest cutting the hours for the physical therapists at the school.

This Morris Township special education school currently has two physical therapists working with the 44 students, but ESC board officials have decided to reduce the therapists from full-time to part-time without benefits, which would be effective this September.

Cindy Fine, a mother of a 16-year-old girl named Rachel who attends the school, referred to her daughter's physical therapist of four years, Karen Carbone, as a "superstar" for how she works with the kids. Fine said Carbone has worked at the school for 16 years and losing her would be a big loss.

"To watch Karen work is to witness a combination of love, intellect and creativity coalesce into hands and a voice that reaches students hardest to reach, even those bodies who are hardest to heal," Fine pleaded to about 20 board members on Wednesday night. "She is a shining star, and the last person a school board should ever risk losing."

Fine said when she spoke with the superintendent of the ESC, Angelo A. Vilardi, he said the decrease in enrollment in Regional Day School had been a cost-cutting measure.

Fine's daughter travels more than 50 miles to attend the school, and she said reducing the hours of the physical therapists will be a drastic change in the school program.

"We, the parents of kids at Regional Day School, are here to tell you that your decision about physical therapists at our children's school represents a significant change, a significant decrease in quality of the program we have selected for our children," Fine said.

Fine to attend the ESC meeting, and had seven of them join her to argue against the Board of Directors' decision.

Serica Seifried, a parent who brought her 14-year-old disabled son to the meeting with her, said cutting back the hours would be detrimental to the students because the physical therapists spend so much time working with each kid, and their time would be rushed and less effective.

"I'm not sure if the board understands that physical therapists provide more than just a service for the child, as far as hands on," Seifried said. "We look for the therapists for guidance and positioning."

"If something breaks [on their wheel chair] they're our first point of contact to get it fixed, they write letters of medical necessities for school districts to buy supplies," she continued. "So there's a lot more hours involved than just trying to get my kid to walk 50 feet something like that."

Kirsten Garcia has a 15-year-old daughter, Abigail, who attends the school. Garcia said Abigail has had both physical therapists, Carbone and Yvonne Diedwardo, and they have made a big impact on her life.

"I have a concern that if we lose the therapists that really care about our kids, then it won't be the same place, because the place is the people," Garcia said.

After the public comment was completed, Superintendent Vilardi said the board will discuss the possibility of retracting the decision at a later date. He said because Wednesday's meeting was a reorganization meeting, they had other concerns to address.

"I don't know that we'll take it up today, but certainly once we reorganize I would imagine the new president will appoint a group of board members, they'll look into it, and they can look at the information again that I presented the last time," Vilardi said.

Vilardi said that while he's not sure if the board will have an answer by the next meeting in July, he will definitely have a response about the physical therapists by Aug. 1, just a month before the next school year starts and the physical therapists' part-time status would take effect.