I appreciate the school board asking for metrics on special education data. In that spirit, I think it would be really helpful to describe the cost of special education students in a range. The average special education student might cost the district $17,000/year, but the majority of special education students cost a lot less–or to use the median. The average is skewed by a small group of students with severe disabilities who cost a lot. Most students with IEPs have fairly mild disabilities (often speech or reading disabilities) and only need a small amount of assistance/accommodations.

Further, it’s not true that charter schools “don’t have to take” special education students. They are supposedly required to do so. [Read more here, starting at question 54: (link to .pdf file)] The fact is that they do often discourage their special education students from continuing, and they should be held accountable.

On the topic of Community High’s potential switch from block scheduling, would it really save money? This will be a fine topic to discuss at one of the community forums that are scheduled with board members in the coming month. The first one is Thursday evening March 28th, 7-9 p.m., at Clague Middle School.

Per the Michigan Department of Education web site, special education student FTE are the sum of all the time each individual special education student was receiving Special Education services on the most recent Student Count day. Since the large majority of Special Education students spend almost all their time in general education classrooms and receive accommodations but no services. Those students generate only 0.16 FTE if they attend an Academic Support or Resource Room for one class period each day, and only 0.014 FTE if they participate in twice-monthly therapy or skill-building groups. The correct base for calculating both the average expenditure per Special Education student and the amount those students generate in Foundation Allowance is the number of students with IEPs. In Ann Arbor, that number is much closer to 2,000 than 390. And so, in Trustee Nelson’s example, the district needs to use $10.3 million of the approximately $18.9 million generated by the foundation allowance for special education students to cover the costs of the special education services they receive. This is a difference of over $11 million to the good vs. having to spend almost $7 million of general fund dollars beyond the general fund revenue generated by enrolling special education students.

Also, in spite of Dr. Elaine Brown’s assertion in the SISS report that appropriate support of students with disabilities is less expensive when delivered in a “more inclusive environment”, redistributing the students now served primarily in one self-contained classroom into as many as 10 different neighborhood schools will require up to 10 teaching assistants to appropriately support that group of students versus the 2 now in place. The general and special education teachers in 10 different schools will be required to learn how to adapt and modify lessons for each specific new special needs student in their building, instead of leveraging the expertise that has already been developed in the schools hosting each particular leveled classroom or targeted resource room. Parents are rightly concerned that their students will NOT be appropriately or effectively supported when attending neighborhood schools where the staff is inexperienced at educating students with those particular disabilities. Nor is there a plan to develop the needed skills and knowledge by the teaching staff or hire and train the parapros needed in all affected schools in time for the start of the 2013-14 school year.