Lend us a hand

Gov urged to boost special ed preschool funding

ALBANY — Finding a spot for her autistic son in a preschool classroom became a full-time job for Jocelyn David-Burch.

The Bronx mom was heartbroken after city officials told her they wouldn’t be able to place her little boy in a classroom capable of handling his needs for at least 10 months.

So she quit her job at a day care center in the Bronx and began making spreadsheets, phone calls and visiting schools.

“You can’t get a classroom and then you can’t get the services, which means you can’t work because you can’t get just any baby-sitter to watch your child, so it’s a God awful catch-22,” David-Burch told the Daily News. “No one should have to sacrifice everything for something they’re entitled to in the first place.”

David-Burch’s son was receiving early intervention services, run by the city Department of Health for infants and toddlers with developmental delays and disabilities. When he turned 3 in November, he was supposed to age into a special needs preschool, but a lack of state funds has led to a shortage of providers across the five boroughs and beyond, she said.

The 41year-old left her job at a day care facility to devote her time to finding a program with an open seat, watching her son slowly regress during his time without a professional.

Advocates and providers are hoping Gov. Cuomo will keep moms like David-Burch in mind and rethink a requested increase made by the state Education Department that would increase funds to the desperately needed programs.

“We are concerned about the growing number of preschoolers with disabilities who have a legal right to a preschool special education program, but who are going without the class they need because inadequate reimbursement rates have created a shortage of these vital programs,” a group of more than 70 signees wrote in a letter to the governor on Monday.

Preschool special education programs approved by the Department of Education receive reimbursement based on a tuition rate determined annually by the agency’s commissioner and approved by the governor’s director of the Division of the Budget.

Advocates want Cuomo to increase the reimbursement rates by at least 5%, but over the past decade the increase has been stalled at either zero or 2%.

A state official said that the administration is again authorizing only a 2% increase in rates for preschool special education providers, noting that the number of special education preschool students has dropped from 38,000 to 31,000 over the course of the past six school years.

In the letter, the groups argue that more than 60 preschool special education programs around the state have closed in recent years, including more than 30 in the city.

“Many of these programs have pointed to the state’s insufficient reimbursement rate, making it hard for them to recruit and retain special education teachers and run high-quality programs,” they wrote.

The push comes just weeks after Senate Democrats sent the governor a letter of their own asking him to sign off on the Education Department’s request for tuition rate setting methodology and funding increases for special education programs and schools.