Mandated services for special education students – and the future of federal funding and grants to pay for them as well as other programs offered by the school district – have become a source of concern for educators during the current budget season.
Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak on Wednesday, Feb. 12 outlined the budget pressures and concerns facing school districts during a period of uncertainty at the federal level.
“We’re presenting a budget here and I want people out there to know, we get money from the Department of Education in Washington, and it’s $1.4 million,” he said.
The school district receives $1.8 million in grants from both state and federal funding, not included in the budget. One of the revenue sources for the overall budget that concerns Szymaniak is federal grants. The IDEA 240 special education grant [a little over $1 million] and A 262 preschool grant carries $41,000.
“I’m just reading what I hear and what comes down from the state,” Szymaniak said. “We received something from our attorney that there’s no cause to be alarmed, but just be mindful.”
Vice Chair Hillary Kniffen also noted that the district is legally responsible for providing the services to students, and the state doesn’t give enough support.
“What we do here – we do a lot, and I can’t say enough about our teaching staff our support staff, our paraprofessionals – working really hard for our students during difficult times,” Szymaniak said. “People are uneasy about a lot of different things.”
A federal Title 1 Grant [$375,000], among the Title 1 through Title 4 non-competitive entitlement grants the district receives from the Department of Education, is passed to districts through Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE).
“One of the things that is concerning, a little bit, is the federal grants. … There has been some talk that they’re going to eliminate the funding source from the fed,” he said. “It concerns me. Right now, it’s in the budget – it’s $1.4 million in our budget (the Title 1 and IDEA 240 grant funding). If it goes away, I don’t know where we’re coming up with those funds for our students That’s something we’ve had for forever.”
Grant 147/644 is a high school internship grant. Other grants promote safe and healthy learning, vacation acceleration academies, 21st Century grants, an innovation-career pathways grant and a 710 grant which reinforces education and student health.
Szymniak said that, if the district relies on grants, “And I think it’s pretty clear here, that we do,” either they end up moving staff around, cutting staff or not providing those programs.
“We pay teachers out of that,” he said. “Some of the 21st Century grants are those special programs after school for some of our students at-risk, so it’s not only the course of the school day.”
Member Rosemary Connolly asked if all federal funding is iffy.
Last week, a televised video of a White-House governor’s conference with the president, showed him threatening Maine Gov. Janet Mills with elimination of federal funding for her state if she refuses to comply with his executive order banning transgender women from competing in women’s sports.
“See you in court,” Mills replied.
Atop the W-H fiscal concerns are district-wide special education programs and services, he said.
“We start servicing our students at 3 years old,” Szymaniak said. “If a student qualifies in our preschool for special education or has qualified for special intervention services, prior to age 3, we have to support that student and those student need.”
That can mean everything from speech, some students are autistic, some are medically fragile, there’s a wide variety of special education needs begin at 3 years old, he noted.
There are autism support rooms, integrated classrooms where students receiving some special education services are in classrooms with students tuitioned in, like peers at the preschool level. A therapeutic learning center for emotional impairment is among elementary school services along with TLC program at both Conley and Duval, ASD programs, PACES (a program for developmental and intellectual disabilities) and a language-based program for students not necessarily fully integrated and in need of support.
At the middle school level, TLC (a program that helps students who have had prolonged absence due to illness or injury, return to the school routine), ASD, PACES and the language-based program.
“You can see, trickling up from age 3, if you need services, we are there to provide those services,” Szymaniak said.
PACES continues at the high school, allowing students to graduate out of the program and, if need be, attend the post-graduate program – servicing students from age 18 to 22.
There are also dual-certified teacher in special education-science as well as in history, English and math, in an academic learning center (ALC), for students who may need some support, but not necessarily a fully integrated program during their high school years.
The district also employs nine speech pathologists and two assistants. Three occupational therapists, one certified therapist assisting and four board-certified behavior analysts (down from five last year), who help students with behavioral issues in the classrooms. A contract service provider is available for students who need physical therapy.
An average of 19 students attending collaborative programs at area agencies such as North River Collaborative, costing $82,310 per student, which are not negotiable prices. The total cost of the collaboratives is $1.9 million.
There are 250 English learners are also enrolled this school year.
“The law says, and our district does, try to create an environment of least-restrictive classroom setting for our students,” Szymaniak said. What’s written in a student’s IEP (individual education plan) determines where a student will be placed. Being a member of the collaboratives saves the district about 15 percent on tuition.
The district also has a residential placement at a cost of nearly $430,000 per year. Circuit-breaker covers up to 75 percent of the coverage over that.
Another 18 students are enrolled in private, out-of-district placements.
“Private placement tuitions have gone up extensively post-COVID and we don’t really have control over that,” Szymaniak said. That total is about $2.8 million, about $160,000 per student, he said, noting the figure is lower than some other districts. An additional $2.3 million has been estimated to be the cost of transportation to those programs.
“That’s more expensive than Harvard,” member Glen DiGravio said. “That’s the greatest education in the world.”
“We actually have lower-than-average special ed costs,” Connolly said. “But it’s still expensive. One of the stressors that we want to look at, is what is the appropriate price tag to educate a child, and are the towns actually paying that appropriate price tag? … Sometimes we get into, ‘How do we get it cheaper?’ as opposed to what is the most effective education we could provide.”
The district plans to add an ASD program at the high school in either FY 2027 or 28, in an effort to provide services to middle schoolers aging out.
“We want to keep our kids home,” Szymaniak said. “We don’t want to send them somewhere – a residential placement or a residential or private school – one, because of cost; but, two, we want to keep them with like peers here in district,” he said.
The state is budgeting $1.3 million for those costs to W-H,” School Committee member Dawn Byers said.
Szymaniak said the district is not alone in the budgeting gap for special education, adding that schools are struggling to afford it.
“Our goal is to provide every student an opportunity to be successful in our district,” Superintendent of Schools Jeff Szymaniak. “The goal of this budget is to keep as-is – not to add more, because based on the data that we have … we’re doing a decent job.”
He said that, in his opinion, students get a pretty good education in a budget that, comparable to other districts, is lower.
Aside from illness, flu, RSV, noralvirus and COVID are all circulating again; changes in the media and other volatile components of society, Szymaniak assured the community that W-H students are “well taken care of both academically and socially.