Juan, 7, sang his favorite song, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider,” quietly to himself.
The first grader has a developmental delay that impacts his ability to use speech to communicate. That’s why at school he’s learning to use assistive technology that can speak for him.
It’s on an iPad in a lime-green carrying case — with a handle, so he can take it anywhere.
“Let me show you,” said Meher Banajee, Juan’s in-school speech pathologist at Morris Jeff Community School, as she searched the pictures in the system’s catalog.
When she clicked a picture of a spider, the device said “spider” out loud. Juan — at first agitated, his singing interrupted — copied her. His device echoed hers.
“If we have a kid who may not be able to communicate verbally, their potential is not realized,” said Banajee.
Assistive technology like Juan’s — with dozens of preprogrammed words and phrases Banajee can customize — shows kids, “'I do have the potential. I can do this,’” she said.
About one in five students at Morris Jeff has some sort of disability compared to around 15% districtwide.
Banajee says the goal isn’t just to teach kids to ask for things or answer questions, but to help them interact with classmates and regulate their emotions.
“Letting them express themselves, saying they want a break, this is too noisy,” she said.
That way, they can participate as fully as possible in school, which they have a right to under federal law. But Banajee said there are barriers to matching every child with the right technology.
“All of our assessments, if they’re done correctly, you need to try out at least three systems,” she said. “And none of us can afford to have three different systems.”
Banajee tries to borrow technology to test it out. After decades of doing this work, she’s well-connected, but not every school has someone like her.
Now, some charter schools, including Morris Jeff, are pooling resources for the first time to improve services for students with special needs.
Partnership long in the making
Many public schools — charter or not — struggle with the costs of educating students with complex needs.
The federal government sends schools only a fraction of the money they’re supposed to. In Louisiana and New Orleans, there are special funds schools can tap into, but they aren’t always enough.
After years of planning, New Orleans’ school district is bringing its independent charter schools together to share funds and centralize some services. About a dozen are participating this school year.
Charters can join the district’s educational service agency for an annual fee — $14,500 this year — to coordinate services, streamline planning and reduce costs.
Membership includes access to a technology library at the district’s West Bank office, where schools can borrow equipment, including communication devices like the one Juan uses, as well as other high- and low-tech tools.
The partnership also includes joint contracts with outside therapists, access to the district's special education staff and professional development.
“We try to troubleshoot and make sure that supports are readily available for our schools that are part of the educational service agency,” said Superintendent Fateama Fulmore.
A database is also in the works to track support services — so if a student moves, their new school can pick up where the last one left off.
Eight charter operators are participating this year at 11 schools.
Participating schools include: Audubon’s two schools, Benjamin Franklin Elementary, Bricolage Academy, Elan Academy, Hynes’ three schools, Morris Jeff Community School, Young Audiences at Crocker, and the Willow School. Together, they enroll nearly a quarter of the district’s more than 43,000 students.
Operators with a large number of schools, like KIPP New Orleans, have less incentive to participate because they can already share resources across their campuses.
Jennifer Coco, the head of the Center for Learner Equity, floated the idea of an agency a few years ago and brought the district and schools to the table.
The district agreed to a pilot after the center — a national nonprofit advocating for students with disabilities — published a 2024 report showing most school leaders believed the arrangement would help kids.
“The problem we are trying to solve goes to the heart of our system's design,” said Coco. “If every school is responsible for being everything to every kid with a disability, that's gonna become really challenging, really quickly.”
But charter leaders had concerns.
“We had to definitely create a firewall and build that trust,” said Jeremye Brooks, the CEO of Benjamin Franklin Elementary, one of the participating schools.
Increasing ‘meaningful choice’
Special education is centralized in most school systems across the country, meaning district leaders decide how to share resources among schools.
In New Orleans’ decentralized system, families decide where to send their kids — even those with complex needs — and it’s up to schools to meet them.
That’s led to criticism of some schools’ services or lack thereof.
In 2010, families filed a lawsuit alleging special education violations at some charter schools, including that students were denied accommodations to which they were legally entitled, denied admission to schools and, in some cases, pushed out of their schools completely.
A 2015 settlement led to regular reports from an independent monitor. Since then, that monitor has continued to flag possible violations of federal disability laws in New Orleans schools.
New Orleans schools have been in “substantial compliance” for almost a decade now, and the district and state asked a federal judge to release them from the order last year.
However, plaintiffs and other parents who oppose the request argue that system-wide issues remain and that additional oversight is still needed. The judge has yet to issue a decision.
Because schools are legally obligated to provide all the services students with disabilities need, leaders say it’s hard to openly acknowledge gaps.
“That's something that we're being vulnerable about,” Brooks said. “Saying like, ‘Hey, we know that we are not perfect, but we also can't be penalized if we're saying we're reaching out for help.’”
Coco said that, as a non-district employee, she was able to bring charter leaders together and assure them they would be treated fairly.
After that, Brooks said, joining was a no-brainer.
“Cost savings is one, but then more so it is the shortage of people,” he said.
Together, the schools can secure better contracts with outside providers, Brooks said, ensuring more reliable care for students. Leaders from participating charters, including Brooks, serve on the agency’s steering committee and decide on its offerings, selecting providers and setting rates.
“Now we're being able to come together to make decisions that impact the broader good and solve a system-wide problem,” Brooks said.
Banajee, the speech pathologist at Morris Jeff, provided feedback on the district’s technology library. She hopes schools will use the agency to train teachers, explore new technology and collaborate on shared problems — all of which, she said, will benefit students.
Banajee said the idea of a library makes sense not just to maximize resources, but because students’ needs change.
“Kids grow, they grow out of the technology,” she said. “ I've given them devices, they've used the devices, and then slowly, slowly we are seeing more and more speech come out of it.”
Now, if they no longer need the device, it can be returned to the library for another child.
Coco, with the Center for Learner Equity, hopes that as word spreads of the benefits, more schools will opt in each year, growing the resources they have.
“Too often, kids with disabilities haven't really enjoyed meaningful choice,” said Coco. “I hope what we're building is gonna finally deliver on that promise.”
