Saturday, April 20, 2019

Alert! Special education support on the line

Do you care about special education services and best practices for students with disabilities?

Action is needed

Negotiators from the House and Senate are meeting to reconcile their budget proposals. The Senate’s version includes more money for IEP services, as well as a funding approach to more equitably use federal special education dollars.

Please contact lead budget negotiators (their email addresses are below) and share the following message:
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Dear budget negotiating team,
As someone who cares deeply about the moral and legal duty of the state to fully fund special education and ensure access of all students to general education, I am asking you to support the higher level of special education funding in the Senate budget proposal. This includes:
  • Increasing the special education multiplier from 0.9609 to 1.0
  • Swapping out federal funds from the Safety Net and replacing them with state funds, as recommended by the Safety Net work group.
  • Funding policies outlined in SB 5532 to support inclusive education with technical assistance and training
The Safety Net swap makes it easier for school districts to access those funds and allows OSPI to distribute federal funds more equitably to schools so they can use them to support students with disabilities. It also allows the state to dedicate federal funds to create a statewide system of technical assistance to better support districts, educators and support staff in learning and implementing inclusive practices.

The state needs to fully fund special education and implement policies that support our state’s students with disabilities. We all benefit when students reach their potential.

Finally, the 13.5 percent cap has been linked to denial of services. At the minimum this cap should be removed for small local education agencies to that they receive the resources to to serve ALL students with disabilities in their schools, not just 13.5 percent of them.



Sincerely,
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Please send your message to:

House budget negotiators 

Senate budget negotiators

You can also comment directly on the operating budget bill, HB 1109. These comments will go to your legislators, but not budget negotiators.


BACKGROUND


Legally, the state must pay for special education; it is part of Washington’s program of basic education. This means the state must pay for the specialized instruction and related services agreed upon by a student’s IEP team. Some funds come from the federal government; there are restrictions on how federal funds are spent, but the state has some leeway in how to distribute them.

School districts and the state’s Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI) report shortages of about $300 million a year in special education funding, and school districts have said local levies are required to backfill for special education, even though local levies legally can only to be used for enrichment.

No legislative leaders have contested whether special education is underfunded.

The Senate unanimously passed a policy bill to intended to improve special education, and a fiscal bill to address how funding was distributed. Neither passed out of the House.

So far, special education discussion this session has centered on three areas:
  • Adjusting the multiplier that determines special education funding rates
  • Swapping federal for state dollars in the Safety Net, and
  • Implementing policies to improve learning and outcomes for students with disabilities

Amendments have been introduced in the House to eliminate the funding cap for special education but they have failed.

THE MULTIPLIER: Increasing the multiplier to 1.0 generates less than an earlier proposal by OSPI but will still pick up more of the required costs associated with Individual Education Programs (IEPs), including costs for related services. Other proposals have pushed to increase the multiplier to 1.07. The multiplier is used to determine the level of funding for special education.

How this works: The state multiplies a school district’s per student general allocation by the multiplier by the allowable number of students to determine a special education funding pool for that school district. The allowable number of students are the actual number who qualify for special education, or 13.5 of full-time average enrollment, whichever is lower.

THE SAFETY NET SWAP: The Safety Net is reserved for extraordinary costs, but not very many school districts can access it. The application process is onerous and expensive, and some say punitive if errors are found. A work group met over the summer and fall and recommended that federal funds be swapped out and replaced with state funds. This makes it easier for local education agencies to access funds when they have extraordinary costs. It also frees up close to $30 million over the biennium that OSPI can redirect to local education agencies* (LEAs). These federal funds can be used for:
  • Support and direct services
  • Technical assistance and personnel preparation
  • Assisting LEAs in providing positive behavioral interventions and supports
  • Improving the use of technology in the classroom

A small portion can also be used for state-level assistance to local education agencies.

POLICY BILL TO IMPROVE SERVICE: The Senate passed SB 5532 to improve special education. It included various elements. Those elements changed as it moved through the process, sometimes in response to cost, other times in response to questions about implementation. The House Education Committee amended it to specifically support inclusion but the bill died in House Appropriations. If you are interested in the different proposals, you can read the analyses on the bill page.


FISCAL BILL: Originally, SB 5091 focused on the federal-state dollar swap recommended by the Safety Net work group. Other elements were added as it progressed and House Appropriations ended up stripping out the swap.


OUR WORK

At The Arc of King County we protect and promote the rights of people with developmental disabilities - including their right to a free and appropriate education in the least restricted environment. We also believe every student with disabilities should feel they belong and are supported in their local public schools. Our high segregation and dropout rates of students with disabilities are clear indicators that they do not.

In addition to launching our IEP Parent Partner Program, we have joined with others to form a coalition to improve education for students with disabilities. Inclusion is at the heart of this work. Human potential is our state’s most important asset. When we design schools and learning to be accessible and inclusive, we reach the greatest number of learners – and ultimately benefit from what they later contribute to our communities.

You can learn more about this coalition at the Investing in Student Potential website, https://studentpotential.org/


 * In Washington, local education agencies include tribal compact schools, school districts, and charter schools.
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