Efforts to address the disproportionate number of special education students in minority populations are being made by the Suttons Bay school district.

Representatives of the Board of Education, administration, teaching staff and the Traverse Bay Area Intermediate School District are scheduled to travel to Lansing Monday to discuss with Department of Education staff members the state’s “disproportionality report” that examines school populations based on several factors, including ethnicity and special education students.

In 2004-05, the achievement gap between Native American and non-Native students attending Suttons Bay increased by 6.7 percent. The number of Native students achieving proficiency in math and reading was more than 40 percent lower than non-whites.

“If we don’t talk about it, it’s never going to change,” Superintendent Mike Murray said after Monday night’s Board of Education meeting.

In 2005, 44.33 percent of Suttons Bay’s Native students were also receiving special education services. That year, the state average for the Native population was 15.8 percent.

Last year, Suttons Bay’s number of Native special education students fell slightly to 41.08 percent. The state average for the minority group was 3.1 percent.

Likewise, the number of Hispanic students who also receive special education services at Suttons Bay was higher than the state average for 2005, but not for 2006. Two years ago, 22.37 percent of Suttons Bay’s Hispanic students had a special education designation. The state average in 2005 was 12.6 percent.

Last year, 8.11 percent of the school’s Hispanic students received special education. In 2006, the statewide average for the population was 12.3 percent.

“The Hispanic numbers fluctuate because many are also migrants,” Murray said.

The group is expected to discuss methods to address the achievement gap and improve test scores.

“We want to address it head-on with the Department of Education,” he said. “We have to look for solutions … ways we can deal with these issues.”

To that end, the school board hired Kathy Garza to serve as a school/home liaison for the Title VII Native American education program. Her qualifications include an intimate knowledge of cultural values of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians and the Suttons Bay community, home-visiting experience, and awareness of available tribal and countywide resources for helping families.

The part-time position is supported by the Title VII Indian Education funds.

Elsewhere, Murray said that the Northville school district in suburban Detroit has established an “intervention team” to determine whether a student’s learning problems could be related to something environmental, such as not enough sleep or coming to school hungry.

“Those are things that can be addressed before the student is designated as special education. Because, once that happens, it’s difficult to lose that label,” Murray explained.