DETAILS
- Lawsuit Ruling & WSSEC Recommendations
- Court's Opinion in Special Ed Lawsuit
- Amicus Declaration of Washington State Special Education Coalition
- WSSEC Public Policy Chair Comments on Special Ed Funding & Current Trial
- Letter on Sp. Ed. Funding Structure
- Response to Letter on Sp. Ed. Funding Structure
- Presentation for House Appropriations
- Fall 2004 Status Report
- Comments on Special Education Lawsuit
- August 2004 Letter
- Open Letter to Superintendents, Citizens and Legislators
- Response to Attacks on Special Ed.
Letter on Sp. Ed. Funding Structure
February 18, 2005
To: Representative Fromhold and Members of the House Subcommittee on Education Finance Structure
From: Christie Perkins, Public Policy Chair, WSSEC
We appreciate the hard work of the subcommittee and the opportunity to address the members. You have all been extremely diligent and obviously interested in our opinion as well as others, and have kept the needs of our students in mind as you reviewed issues and made recommendations.
- We agree that recommendation eliminating line 25 in the Safety Net application is a good idea, as we stated in our presentation.
- We believe we heard Rep. Fromhold say that the recommendation was for either b. or c. and we believe that funding to address students beyond the index would best be addressed by recommendation c., and additionally, that we should fund the difference between 12.7% and 13% with state dollars. It is also important to note, as we stated in our presentation, if LAP were funded appropriately, many students would not need to be served by special education. An appropriately funded LAP program could also be used as an exit program for students who no longer need specially designed instruction, but might still need a little help. As Rep. Sommers knows, we have long been concerned about the lack of focus on exit strategies for many students who should not need sp ed services for their entire school career.
Local districts receive local impact aid money from the feds, and when this issue came up a few weeks ago, it was the first we had heard about it. We do not have any current data to show that recommendation b. is needed. - We agree with removing the 3 and 4 year olds from the index calculation and this will have a positive financial impact for local districts both for their preschool programs as well as their K-12 programs.
- We believe we heard Rep. Fromhold say that the recommendation was for either b. or c. and we believe that funding to address students beyond the index would best be addressed by recommendation c., and additionally, that we should fund the difference between 12.7% and 13% with state dollars. It is also important to note, as we stated in our presentation, if LAP were funded appropriately, many students would not need to be served by special education. An appropriately funded LAP program could also be used as an exit program for students who no longer need specially designed instruction, but might still need a little help. As Rep. Sommers knows, we have long been concerned about the lack of focus on exit strategies for many students who should not need sp ed services for their entire school career.
- We do believe, as we previously stated, that a funding study is needed, but we think that an independent financial expert, with experience in a number of states, is needed. We are working on a list of recommendations now.
- We look forward to working with you and others in any Task Force.
- Finally, we are very excited about possible expanded use of technology. However, we do not want to act too fast. Technology might actually help account for services themselves more accurately, as well as be of assistance to IEP teams and to monitors. It is possible, in this age of technology, that PALM devices or cell phones with extra features could even be used. However, we believe that a Task Force or Study Group of some kind should be formed to make recommendations. There are many implications and costs involved that were not mentioned in the presentation a couple of weeks ago. There is also the possibility to make this even more useful with the help of the business community. Perhaps a company like Microsoft or Cisco systems would like to work with our state to develop a useful system that could benefit many. We would not want to miss this opportunity. At the very least, we should study at least two or three systems to be sure of what we are recommending and why.
Again, thank you for your hard work reviewing the many topics you decided to address. It was certainly a marathon endeavor. As always, the WSSEC stands ready to help in any way.