High costs of special needs
Rayann Huston is deaf, but she can do everything her hearing peers can do, with a little assistance.
The Linwood Elementary School third-grader depends on an interpreter each day to explain math lessons, learn the words to music and communicate with her teacher.
The individualized attention Huston receives is part of Spokane Public Schools’ commitment to special education and the federal law that requires it.
“We do everything we can to get (special education) kids into the regular classroom,” said Superintendent Brian Benzel, whereas 40 or 50 years ago, many students with special needs would have been placed in an institutional setting, away from the mainstream. “Some students have significant barriers to learning, but we’ve learned how to teach them skills and knowledge that many thought they could never learn.”
Rayann has lots of company. Five years ago, special-education students amounted to about 11 percent of Spokane Public School students. Today, more than 14 percent of Spokane students qualify for special education services – while overall district enrollment continues to decline. Similar increases are seen across the state and across the nation.
Educating those students comes at high cost, and 12 Washington school districts say the state isn’t living up to its financial obligation. In Eastern Washington, the participating districts include Spokane and the Riverside School District in northern Spokane County.
The group, which calls itself the School Districts’ Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education, wants the state’s way of funding special education deemed unconstitutional.The case, expected to go before a Thurston County Superior Court judge beginning Monday, will include testimony from Benzel and other school administrators who say they’ve had to pay for services provided to special education students out of their districts’ levies because the state does not provide enough dollars to cover the costs.
This year that gap for Spokane will total just under $9 million, which takes away from other school enrichment programs. Statewide, the unfunded costs for special education were more than $100 million for the 2002-2003 school year.
“We want to be clear that we are not suing families or objecting to serving children,” Benzel said. “We want the state to fund the law they have on the books.”
While funding amounts can only be determined by the state Legislature, the school districts are hoping the judge will rule in their favor and force the issue.
“When the state has an obligation to financially support the needs of the children, they should do it,” said Galen Hansen, Riverside superintendent.
Spokane and Riverside schools are following a national trend of having more special education students than funding models support. In Washington, the state caps funding for special education at 12.7 percent of a school district’s population – slightly higher than the statewide average of 12.4 percent. Spokane Public Schools had a special education population of 14.4 percent in 2005.
Since the inception of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act in 1975, the percent of young Americans receiving special education services in public schools has swelled nationwide. Under the reauthorization of the law in 2004 – in the wake of President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education initiative – even more children are being found eligible for special education, national statistics show.
According to the National Center for Education Statistics, in 1976-77 there were 3.7 million special education students in the nation. In 2003-2004, there were 6.6 million, accounting for 14 percent of the total public school enrollment.
“Word has gotten out to parents that the special education process brings more resources into play for students,” said Jack Trammell, a sociology professor at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Va., and the director of disability support services at the college. “School systems are under tremendous pressure, within and without, to find struggling children eligible for special education.”
Spokane schools officials say the district draws more special education students from outlying areas because of the number of hospitals and services available here. And there’s a greater awareness and ability to diagnose children with disabilities.
“A child that needs $20,000 worth of services may not be able to get it in a small town,” Benzel said.
While the majority of special needs students locally do not require that level of care, Central Valley School District officials say they have noticed a marked increase in the number of severely disabled students.
“What we’re really seeing is more severe needs kids with a high cost, and the funding does not meet that intensity of service that we need to provide,” said Melanie Rose, district spokeswoman.
Central Valley is using $1.9 million of its levy dollars to make up the difference between what it receives from the state and what’s needed to serve special education students. Although it’s not involved in the lawsuit, Central Valley is one of 70 school districts that joined a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Tacoma School District in support of the districts involved in the funding suit.
In Washington, the state provides for some of the shortfalls – particularly those associated with serving children with severe disabilities – with a safety net.
Districts receive about $8,000 for a full-time equivalent special-education student – $3,500 more than they receive for each basic-education student.
The state looks at the special education enrollment for a district – which includes students ages 3 to 21, and students attending private schools who benefit from programs at the public school – and divides it by total district enrollment. Special education students above the 12.7 percent cap get funding for basic education, but not the additional $3,500.
The safety net can provide additional funding for a student with severe needs, but only after a district spends a certain amount of its levy dollars. There is also no guarantee that a district will get the safety net funds they ask for.
“The state has a one-size-fits-all system, and that doesn’t work for places like Spokane,” where more than the average number of students qualify for special education, Benzel said.
Some educators and officials nationwide worry that children are qualifying for special education when they may not need that level of service.
There’s no documentation of that happening in Washington, but a 2002 study found that Rhode Island public schools were diagnosing children as “learning disabled” at a disproportionately high rate. Three-quarters of the state’s special education students were classified as having learning disabilities or speech language impairments, conditions vaguely defined under that state’s laws.
“We have a pretty exhaustive checklist of things to go through” before a student can qualify, said Mike Ainsworth, executive director of student support services for Spokane.
That list can include performance on a standardized test, although Ainsworth said that does not necessarily include the high-stakes Washington Assessment of Student Learning exam, now a graduation requirement.
“Certainly the WASL would be one of the things you want to look at, but just because a student fails the WASL would not qualify them for special education,” Ainsworth said.
In fact, students qualifying for special education are still required to take the WASL. The Legislature recently made it easier, adding developmentally appropriate exams, so a 10th-grade special education student reading at a fourth-grade level could take a fourth-grade WASL. But districts are still limited as to the numbers of special education students who can take an alternative test – up to 1 percent of a district’s total special education population.
“The passing of the WASL doesn’t change because you have a handicap whether it’s mental, physical or whatever,” said Hansen, superintendent of the Riverside district. “Certainly that’s been a challenge for everyone.”
Staff writer Kandis Carper contributed to this report.