‘Our schools are not medical centers’: Lawmakers debate over special education bill
For school districts, educating students with disabilities who need services like a nurse or an ASL interpreter can be costly. Complex services can run a bill in the tens of thousands of dollars and be especially difficult for rural districts to afford.
Last week, lawmakers advanced a bill to address the significant gap in Idaho’s special education funding. At the same time, they questioned whether school districts should be responsible for providing certain services for students with disabilities in the first place.
The bill would create a $5 million fund to help provide money for those services, which advocates say are essential to giving students with disabilities the public education they’re entitled to.
Although the committee ultimately voted Friday to send the bill to the House floor, where it faces its final hurdle before it can go to the governor’s desk, lawmakers focused their debate on whether these costs should be absorbed by the health entities.
“I think most people are terrified to say anything, because you don’t want to seem uncompassionate, you know, but some of this seems like it should be in health and welfare and not in education,” said Rep. Dale Hawkins, R-Fernwood, the chairman of the House Education Committee.
He later added: “I don’t see a future in turning our classrooms into hospital rooms being bright.”
Federal education law requires that all students with disabilities have access to a free and appropriate public education. Idaho has long struggled to adequately fund special education, and it faces a growing budget gap between what the state provides to educate students with disabilities and what schools spend. Officials most recently estimated the deficit to be more than $100 million.
When the federal government passed what is now known as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA, about 50 years ago, the government said it would provide up to 40% of the excess costs to educate students with disabilities. That money has never materialized, leaving states to shoulder much of the cost.
This year, Idaho lawmakers passed a joint memorial calling on the federal government to better fund special education. The memorial said the shortfall in federal funding for special education has “placed a growing financial burden” on taxpayers, schools and families and limits resources available for students with disabilities. But states must provide education programs to all students.
Before Congress passed IDEA, nearly 2 million children with disabilities were excluded from public schools, according to the federal Department of Education. Many were forced to live in state institutions in poor conditions where they didn’t receive adequate services or an education, according to the department. Since then, millions of students have benefited from a public education.
State Superintendent Debbie Critchfield said she recognizes this is a “difficult and emotional” conversation and that lawmakers are feeling the strain when the federal government doesn’t pull its weight. Critchfield has long advocated for special education funding.
But all students have a constitutional right to an education, she said, and those services are “not optional or outside the scope of education.”
“With that comes both a legal and a moral obligation to ensure schools have the resources to serve them,” she said in a statement to the Idaho Statesman. “The spectrum of need in special education is wide, and our responsibility is to meet students where they are – not to draw lines around who is worth the investment.”
‘Our schools are not medical centers’
Lawmakers heard testimony Friday from several people with children with disabilities and those who work with students in special education. People who testified in support of the measure said this bill wouldn’t solve Idaho’s special education funding problem, but it would represent a step that could help school districts.
Under the bill, districts could be reimbursed for costs for individual students that exceed $30,000, if they have exhausted other options, including federal funds like school-based Medicaid. The bill taps into one-time, existing state funding.
One parent shared that the behavioral supports provided to her son in school at a young age allowed him to thrive in high school and will mean he can go on to find meaningful employment as an adult. Others testified about students with traumatic brain injuries or other disabilities who require several therapies per week, which can be costly.
Paula Mason, the interim administrator of Idaho Educational Services for the Deaf and the Blind, talked about an Idaho student who is blind and learning on grade level, but needs specific resources for his learning. Those include braille technology, an embosser to convert his lessons into braille, and a full-time paraprofessional – all of which cost thousands of dollars.
But testifiers emphasized that it is the job of school districts to educate all students and to provide the services they need to learn.
During debate, some legislators pointed to the challenge of adhering to federal mandates without enough money.
Rep. Clint Hostetler, R-Twin Falls, said the federal government has “hog-tied” the state in many ways and encouraged a larger conversation about the system as a whole.
“What scares me is the precedent we continue to set with this,” he said.
He asked when these types of services turn from “traditional education duties” into health care at school. Hostetler called the stories “heart-wrenching scenarios” but warned that “everyone is going to lose if we continue down this path.”
Lawmakers acknowledged schools have an obligation to educate, but Hawkins said it seems like “health and welfare and those types of issues have now been pushed into the school.” The responsibilities represent an “overwhelming burden” to schools, he said.
“Our schools are not medical centers. Our teachers are not nurses, doctors, counselors or any of those other things they are being asked to be more and more of,” Hawkins said. “We seem to be losing our grip on what schools were intended to be.”
He added that having students with behavioral needs in classrooms can affect other students’ educations.
“We obviously should help whoever we can with whatever means we have to throw at it, but at what cost to other young people’s educations?” Hawkins said. “Because that’s going to be a cost on society in the future as well.”
Other lawmakers emphasized the importance of educating all students – regardless of what their education looks like.
Rep. Ron Mendive, R-Coeur d’Alene, one of the sponsors of the bill, said this fund “simply helps schools meet their obligations without harming other students.”
‘This is about access to education’
This isn’t the first time lawmakers have raised these types of questions. Earlier in the 2026 session, Rep. Steve Miller, R-Fairfield, questioned if schools should serve students with higher needs and suggested they could be served in health care facilities, Idaho Education News reported at the time.
“We are educators,” Miller said. “We are not designed for medical health or mental health care for students who do not have the future of being self-sustaining.”
These are complex systems that most people don’t fully understand, said Melissa Vian, the education project director at Idaho Parents Unlimited, which helps families navigate special education.
“At IPUL, we always say that students receiving special education services are, first and foremost, general education students,” she said in an email to the Statesman. “Special education is not a place. It’s a set of supports and services that allow students to access the same education as their peers.”
Those supports may look more intensive for students with greater needs, but they allow students to participate and learn in school.
“Education for these students can look very different than algebra homework or term papers; it can include therapies, technology, behavior supports or other services that allow the student to engage with their learning meaningfully,” she said.
These services and supports allow students to make progress in the general curriculum and benefit from public school. Part of the solution, she said, may be providing better education to lawmakers about these topics and the “interplay between health and education systems.”
“The reality is that schools are already serving these students,” she said. “I wish it weren’t a question of whether they should, but rather whether they are adequately resourced to do so.”
The bill helps to prevent schools from having to make “impossible trade-offs” while serving all students, Vian said.
“When a student cannot safely attend school or meaningfully participate without additional support, that becomes an education issue,” she said. “Supporting those students is not outside the scope of education; we feel it is central to it.”
Critchfield said providing these resources is a part of making sure students have access to a free and appropriate public education.
“Idaho has consistently supported and defended the idea that families should have choices when it comes to their children’s education,” she said. “That principle should not change simply because a student has special needs or because those needs are more complex or costly to meet. Parent choice doesn’t stop when a child is deemed ‘too expensive’ to educate.”
She added that she remains committed to finding solutions to support students, families and schools across the state.