Westlake Picayune

By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

Parents of students with disabilities spoke out at a recent Eanes school board meeting, saying that a company that operated a summer program in district facilities last summer discriminated against district children with special needs.

Parents said KidVenture, a Texas-based company that offers summer camp programs in Austin and Houston, told parents it did not have to serve children with disabilities.

“Disabled children were excluded from camps operating on their own public campus,” local parent and former Eanes school board candidate Carl Shepherd told board members Sept. 24. “Morally and legally, we can no more allow a company operating a business on our campuses to refuse to serve the disabled than to refuse to serve minorities.”

Shepherd, whose son is a student with special needs and was accepted into the KidVenture program, said that, under pressure from individual parents, the company did accept some children with disabilities while others were refused. He said many of the students were accepted on the condition they came to camp accompanied by a full-time independent aid paid for by their parents. Shepard said that requirement made the program too expensive for families with disabled children.

Mike McDonnell, president of KidVenture, said the company did not refuse to accept special needs students into the local summer camp program. He said the application for camp did not ask parents to disclose whether or not their children had disabilities. 

“Our goal has always been to accept as many children into our programs as we can,” McDonnell said. 

Still, McDonnell said that children with disabilities that require one-on-one assistance would find the camp, which has a staff/student ration of one-to-eight for children ages 3 to 5 and one-to-10 for children ages 6 to 13, very difficult. 

“There is a contingency of parents out there that feels that, if we can’t provide services for every single child, then we shouldn’t be allowed to provide services to anyone,” he said.

According to McDonnell,  more than 30 children with special needs attended the KidVenture programs conducted at Barton Creek and Cedar Creek elementary schools last summer. 

McDonnell said his company has been operating summer programs in Texas for 15 years. Last summer was the first time the company operated in the Eanes school district. 

Bernadette Gonzales, coordinator of records and legal services for the district, said the district previously had summer programs operated by their own staff, but that the programs became difficult to administer and fund. She said district administrators decided that summer programs would be better run by an outside agency.

District superintendent Nola Wellman signed a contract with KidVenture dated May 28, which provided for the weekly facility rental of $35 per child enrolled in the program or $2,000 per week, whichever was greater. The contract included an indemnification clause that holds harmless the district in any claims by third parties. The contract also includes specific language that requires KidVenture to operate its program in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act at least to the same extent the district would be required to comply with the act.

“Both typical (children) and children with disabilities benefit tremendously from interaction and socialization with each other,” Shepherd said. “If EISD is vitally committed to all of our children, then we have a moral obligation offer the same opportunities to children with disabilities as we do for their non-disabled peers. This extends to summer programs operated on our campuses.”

He said the alleged exclusion of services to special needs children by KidVenture continues a disturbing trend in the district. In 2006, EISD began to restrict access to extended school services and district summer programs, charging up to double the normal summer fees for children with special needs to cover the cost of aides, said Shepherd.

Gonzales said the school district did investigate allegations made by parents during the last board meeting. 

“The district has followed up with the owner of KidVenture regarding this issues and verified that children with special needs were indeed served by the program last summer as required in the contract,” she said.