There has been much discussion about special education and its related costs during the recent 2015-2016 school budget deliberations. It is important that the community understand our legal obligations, cost implications, and moral commitment to educate some of our neediest students.
By Dr. Frank Alvarez, Superintendent of Rye City Schools
There has been much discussion about special education and its related costs during the recent 2015-2016 school budget deliberations. It is important that the community understand our legal obligations, cost implications, and moral commitment to educate some of our neediest students.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures, by law, that children with disabilities are provided a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). It is the District’s legal, and I would argue moral, responsibility to educate all students in accordance with our Mission Statement – by providing them with “an engaging, challenging, personalized program that supports each individual’s talents and potential.”
Rye City School District educates and provides related services for students with mild to severe disabilities including autism, deafness, deaf-blindness, visual or hearing impairment, emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, learning disability, orthopedic impairment, speech and language impairment, traumatic brain injury, and multiple disabilities.
We currently provide special education services to 318 students, which represents approximately 9% of the total student population – lower than the national average of 16%. In comparison, in 2008, we had 235 students receiving services, representing 8% of the population. As our overall student enrollment has grown, so has our number of special education students. The District has seen a 35% growth in the number of children receiving special education services since 2008. This trend mirrors what educators are seeing in communities nationwide.
When a student is identified as needing special education services, the Committee on Preschool Special Education (CPSE) and Committee on Special Education (CSE) work with the students’ parents and teachers to develop an Individualized Education Program, or IEP. An IEP is tailored to address each student’s individual needs and recommends appropriate special education programs and related services, which the District then funds. Each child has a program built specifically for him or her. No other aspect of the school district program – or budget – works in this manner. The special education line item of the school budget is built IEP by IEP.
The District educates students in a variety of settings and provides an array of services based upon individual student needs. Students may receive special education services in a general education classroom, where there is both a general education teacher and a special education teacher, within a resource room, or within a self-contained special education classroom.
When student needs cannot be met within an existing Rye City School District classroom, the CSE may recommend an out-of-district day program, a residential program, or a home-based/hospital program.
Individual students may require teacher aides, teaching assistants, special transportation, and/or nursing services to access general and special education programs. The CSE may recommend a 12- month school year program based on a student’s educational needs. Related services may include speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, counseling, vision services, teacher of the hearing-impaired, and nursing services.
Class sizes and makeup of students are strictly proscribed by the State Education Department. For example, the law requires that students in a classroom must be within 36 months of age, so even though students may be developmentally similar, they may not legally be allowed to be in the same class. As a result, sometimes we do not have enough students to populate a class under the state requirements. Those students might then be enrolled in a class in another District.
By law, the District must also provide transportation for our special education students. Transportation costs increased in this year’s budget because we used to procure transportation through Southern BOCES. This was an opportunity to obtain better pricing, however BOCES has since stopped providing transportation. The District now must pay for transportation through private companies, which is much more expensive. One positive note is that this type of major structural change can be thought of as a one-time additional expense due to the nature of private versus consortium bidding.
Per pupil expenditures are driven by the identified needs of the students. Students who are more impacted by their disabilities often require more services. Our costs for special education are higher than the state average, but are comparable to our peer districts in Westchester County. Despite our growth in enrollment, Rye is a relatively small school district and does not have class settings appropriate for every special education student. Therefore, we, like many of our peer districts, must place our students in classrooms in other towns, at higher cost.
The special education programs and opportunities for students with disabilities reflect the belief held and embraced by the Rye City School District that individual differences and diversity broaden learning in life, as is evident in our commitment to providing effective special education programs to meet the needs of our students.
