Legislation for Special Education Funding
During this legislative season, I co-sponsored a bill pertaining to special education enrollment.
This legislation would ensure students can receive special education services when they need it.
Furthermore, the bill would relieve school districts from some of the financial weight of special education programs.
Current Massachusetts law limits how special education enrollment is calculated for purposes of local education funding. Presently, there is an artificial cap set for special education funding.??
This ignores the actual number of students receiving services, and instead relies on an assumed rate of enrollment.
These caps under estimate the number of students who require special education as well as the cost of services to them.
Meanwhile, the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has reported that the average enrollment of special education students in school districts across the Commonwealth usually hovers around 17% with small fluctuations each year.
This is significantly higher than the current laws artificial cap.
Furthermore, districts spend substantially more on special education than what is allocated to them from the budget. S.305 would remove the artificial cap on special education enrollment and replace it with the prior five year district average of special education students.
Using the prior five year average will provide a consistent number to estimate enrollment.
This bill encourages the Commonwealth to recognize the particular needs of each school district in order to provide sufficient state education funding.??