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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 one key school district. Steve summers is the executive director of business operations and Tiffany Logan is the director of special education. Thank you both for joining us. Thank you.
So Tiffany let's start with you. Give me the quick definition of high cost special education student and how many do you have in one key? When we look at high costs 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 last this last year that I met about 60 to 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 2425 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 starting this week.
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 is referencing or whether when we need to add an additional one on one pair educator for students who move in.
Will we tend to utilize the funds to increase the services for students with IEPs?
So Tiffany there are already skeptics saying that schools are going to 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 going to see in future years is an increase in the number 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 there?
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 in 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 state we are expecting more districts are going to 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 2526.
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 IEPs.
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 that what increasing wages definitely helps you to recruit people and be able to keep them.
I mean just example for our district along 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 needs students.
So Steve, most districts around the state have closed open enrollment to students with IEPs and 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?
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.
But we tend to allow students to join us through open enrollment if we have the capacity for them regardless of finances.
Alright, Steve Summer, Tiffany Loken from the Wannicki School District. Thank you for your time.
Thank you. Appreciate it.
That dig up fast.
It was actually like six. A little bit a little over.
Alright, that was fast.
We really appreciate it. Thanks for highlighting this story.
And yeah, if you do want to connect with Tiffany, I do think that we're going to be great because we have a small number.
Our new program has four students in it, so it would be easy to get parent permission.
Yeah, so what kind of program? I did a story a number of years ago about the autism focus school up in Menacua.
Yeah, 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.
That's similar to what you're looking at.
Yeah, it's a combination. You know, there's the students that with significantly high needs, what we did as 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.
So 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.
Great. All right. Well, we are good on the set here. Thank you so much. Before you run too far, you still have your mic so we can help.