TSC, LSC, WL reassure special ed staff as agreement signed to dissolve GLASS

The special education cooperative for the past 50 years between Lafayette, TSC and West Side will come to an end after the 2025-26 school year, after this week’s vote.

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TSC, LSC, WL REASSURE SPECIAL ED STAFF AS AGREEMENT SIGNED TO DISSOLVE GREATER LAFAYETTE AREA SPECIAL SERVICES

Superintendents of Greater Lafayette’s three school districts assured employees working with Greater Lafayette Area Special Services that jobs, though they might be a bit different, will be there for them when the special education cooperative dissolves after the 2025-26 school year.

The GLASS Governing Board on Tuesday signed a dissolution agreement, formally starting a year of sorting out details about how physical therapy, occupational therapy and other services will look like when the three districts take those on themselves.

The vote Tuesday followed a notice in fall 2024 from Tippecanoe School Corp, which announced to the GLASS board that it intended to end its participation in a partnership that extends nearly 50 years with Lafayette and West Lafayette school corporations. The agreement that formed the cooperative required an 18-month notice for any of the three school corporations to leave GLASS.

(Photo: Dave Bangert)

At the time, TSC Superintendent Scott Hanback said the district had grown to a point where it was in a position to run its own programs for approximately 2,200 TSC students who have Individualized Education Programs, or plans that lay out special education services and instruction at school, of some sort.

Superintendents have said that, while not all details are worked out, students and families likely would not see significant differences in the level of services provided by the combined, centralized GLASS programs.

Before the GLASS board’s vote, Nurit Harash-Kantor, an occupational therapist with GLASS for the past 22 years, told the superintendents about the stress GLASS employees had been feeling in recent months as they waited for details about their jobs.

“It has been very disillusioning,” Harash-Kantor told the board. “I know the importance of what I provide and what my skills are and what my profession does for the kids. I feel, personally and professionally, zero right now, with no respect to me and my feelings as a person that has been loyal and loving and always going above and beyond. Because we’re in the limbo, and it doesn't feel good.”

She also asked whether the dissolution and reorganization that will follow will mean GLASS employees will have preference for the jobs in the three districts. She asked whether GLASS staff would have to wait and wonder for the next year.

Shawn Greiner, West Lafayette superintendent, told her that he understood that the change was stressful. But he said the numbers of students who rely on GLASS services are not going down and that positions posted for current staffing needs stood without enough candidates to fill them.