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:
------------------------------
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,
-------------------------------
Please
send your message to:
House budget negotiators
- Rep. Ormsby, Timm.Ormsby@leg.wa.gov
- Rep. Robinson, June.Robinson@leg.wa.gov
- Rep. Berquist, Steve.Berquist@leg.wa.gov
- Speaker Chopp, Frank.Chopp@leg.wa.gov
- Rep. Sullivan, Pat.Sullivan@leg.wa.gov
- Rep. Stokesbary, Drew.Stokesbary@leg.wa.gov
Senate budget negotiators
- Senator Brown, Sharon.Brown@leg.wa.gov
- Senator Rolfes, Christine.Rolfes@leg.wa.gov
- Senator Frockt, David.Frockt@leg.wa.gov
- Senator Braun, John.Braun@leg.wa.gov
- Senator Billig, Andy.Billig@leg.wa.gov
- Senator Schoesler, Mark.Schoesler@leg.wa.gov
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.
