A major compromise included in the
new state budget says the state will
provide 90% of the funding
for high-cost special education
students.
To detail how this will impact
schools, we are joined by two
members of the Winnakee School
District.
Steve Summers is the Executive
Director of Business Operations,
and Tiffany Loken is the Director of
Special Education.
Thank you both for joining us.
Thank you. Thanks for having us.
Tiffany, let's start with you.
Give me the quick definition of
high-cost special education student,
and how many do you have in
Winnokee?
When we look at high-cost, it's any
student that their services meet the
threshold of $30,000 or more
for that individual student.
So in our district, we have between
60 and 70 students that would meet
that threshold, at least for this
last year. They met about 60 or
70 students.
Okay.
Steve, what's the financial impact
of going to 90% from, you
know, low to low 30%?
Sure, the reimbursement level that
we received in 24-25
was about $300,000.
We expect that's going to increase
by about $400,000
this year and another $350,000
the following year.
So very significant investment from
the state into this program.
And so what is the plan for how
that money will be spent?
Where will it be redirected
in the budget?
We did decide, we took to
the school board a proposal to
begin a new program,
an alternative program for
elementary age students, that need
a little more intensive support than
what we can provide in a regular
education classroom.
And the board was really supportive
because of this additional funding,
because we could speak to using the
high cost funds to fund the program
and it's starting this week,
so.
Is there an obligation for districts
to keep that money in special
education? Because some districts
have had to pull from general ed to
fund special education.
Yeah, the increased funding does go
into our special education fund.
In some district case that may
reduce the transfer that
is needed from the general education
fund to the special ed fund.
In our district we will partner
together between the business office
and the special ed office to
improve or increase our investment
in students who have IEPs,
whether it's the program that
Tiffany's referencing or whether
when we need to add an additional
one-on-one pair educator for
students who move in.
But we tend to utilize the
funds to increase the services for
students with IEPs.
So Tiffany, there are already
skeptics saying that schools are
gonna push more kids into this
category to try and grab more
state dollars.
Should we expect to see an increase
in the number of kids that have this
definition apply to their IEP?
I don't think you'll see an increase
in the number of students.
I think what you're gonna see in
future years is an increase in the
numbers of districts that are
applying for high cost special
education aid.
Now that the percentage is
increasing, there's more of an
incentive for districts to apply for
that aid. So I don't think you're
going to see a student increase, but
definitely additional districts
applying for those funds.
So were there districts before that
weren't providing all the services
that potentially they could have to
some of these students because they
couldn't afford it?
Or what was the rationale?
So in the last fiscal
year, there are about 270
organizations or school districts
that applied for this funding, and
there's more than 400 school
districts in Wisconsin.
So for many of them,
they determined that the
reimbursement level that was coming
back wasn't significant enough
for the investment and the time
to go through and file the claim.
For others, they may not have
identified students that were
$30,000 or more and above.
Tiffany and I are partnering with
our professional organizations this
year to help provide professional
development across the state.
We do expect more schools
to learn about this
system, how it works.
And because of the increased
investment from the states.
We are expecting more districts are
gonna be willing to spend the time
necessary to really apply
for and manage these funds.
So the state budget also included a
jump in the reimbursement rate for
regular special education from
32% to 42%.
Is that a bigger number overall
for most schools than this high
cost?
Yes, it's a significantly bigger
number for most schools than the
high cost. In our case, as an
example, it's an over $800,000
increase in additional funding for
special ed students in 25, 26.
And it's the largest increase I've
seen in my career.
So it's significant.
And what it's going to allow most
schools to do is to
benefit all students.
I think it's important to note that
an increase in funding for special
education students benefits
the entire school system.
Students both with and without
IEPs, because when
a school special education
fund is not funded correctly,
the Fund 10 or the general fund has
to reimburse, which
removes opportunities for students
who don't have IEP.
So it truly benefits all kids
for special ed funding to
be at a more appropriate level.
And Tiffany, working with these kids
can be very rewarding, but it can
also be very challenging.
And there's a lot of turnover in
some of these paid staffing
positions.
Could you see an increase in
funding for wages to try and keep
more consistency there?
Yeah, I think that could be a
possibility.
I think increasing wages definitely
helps you to recruit people and be
able to keep them.
I mean, just example for our
district alone, we had 12 full-time
positions open this summer, and
we're very close to being
full-staffed, but it's definitely
difficult to keep people,
especially in our paraprofessional
positions, who are really working
with some of our highest-need
students.
So Steve, most districts around the
state have closed open enrollment to
students with IEPs, especially
high-cost students.
With the state increasing that
reimbursement, could you imagine
more districts reopening open
enrollment since it's not a
financial burden to take some of
these kids from out of district?
Sure.
In our case, we always evaluate
open enrollment capacity based
on the services and whether or not
we have staffing available.
So we have had openings for
special ed students prior to this
increased investment in funding.
So we tend to look at it from the
perspective of do we have
space available with the
staff that we currently have?
And if the answer is yes, then
Tiffany does recommend to our school
board that we accept students with
IEPs.
The fact that there will be
additional funding coming forward
does certainly provide
us with additional opportunities
to add staff
if students do join us.
We tend to allow students
to join us through open enrollment
if we have the capacity for
them, irregardless of finances.
All right, Steve Summer, Tiffany
Loken from the Winnakee School
District. Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
That did go bad.
That was actually like six.
We went a little over.
All right, that was fast.
Well, we really appreciate it.
Thanks for highlighting the story
and.
I do think that would be
great because we have a small
numbers our new program has
four students in it So it would be
easy to get parent permission.
Yeah
Yeah, so what kind of program,
I did a story a number of years ago
about the autism-focused
school up in Managua.
Not the choice school, sorry.
Yeah, and charter school, thank
you.
And one of the things that they had
was a lot of more hands-on,
in the field, those kind of things.
Is that similar to what you're
looking at or?
Yeah, it's a combination, you know,
there's the students that with
significantly high needs, what we
did is we sat down to look at, you
know, sometimes we'll contract
out, you know, go to a special
school, you know, contract with
another school. But we just felt
like we could provide a better
education for those students if we
kept them in our district.
And that way we can keep them
connected with their peers and keep
them connected with, you know,
social interaction as well.
It's a small program for kids with
very intense needs.
It's not specific to one particular
disability area, so we do have
students with autism, but we also
have students with emotional
behavioral disorders in that program
as well.
All right, well, we are good
on the set here. Thank you so much.
Before you run too far, you still
have your mics so we can help.