What’s driving the Stamford school budget up
Special education, English-learning populations are spiking. Now costs are, too
STAMFORD — Stamford’s school budget is growing, in part because of increased enrollment in special education and English language learners classes.
And special education is a much bigger contributor to the district’s rising costs, the data shows.
“Special education costs are accelerating,” said Michael Fernandes, associate superintendent for student support, during a budget presentation to the Board of Education on Jan. 24.
The proposed special education budget for next school year is $62.7 million, an increase of roughly $3.5 million compared with the current budget.
A big driver of that increase is the amount the school system spends on tuition for students who need extra support at specialized out-of-district facilities. That expense is expected to rise by $843,340, to a total of $18.6 million.
The average cost to Stamford Public Schools per outof-district student is $104,270, Fernandes said, more than three times the average cost for an in-district special education student, which is $31,000, and five times the cost of a general education student, which is $20,500 on average.
The amount spent on outof-district tuition per student varies drastically, with the lowest total being $43,867, and the highest reaching $464,090.
“The high is probably shocking to some of you,” Fernandes said.
Fernandes said the district has managed to decrease the percentage of students placed in out-of-district programs from 12.7 in 2017 to 8.8 percent in 2021.
“We’ve done a lot of work to address providing opportunities for students to stay in Stamford,” he said.
However, the cost to send students to non-district programs is going up. The average tuition cost has risen more than $25,000 per student over the past two years, Fernandes said.
He said the district’s early childhood educational center Apples has seen “booming” enrollment overall as well as in special education students. This year, the number of students in the program increased by about 50 percent, for a total enrollment of more than 300 students.
As a result, an additional two teachers are proposed for Apples next year.
Over the past eight years, the number of students with disabilities in Stamford has increased by more than 700 students, including an increase of 200 students this school year compared with
the previous year.
“Enrollment is a real driver for special education costs,” Fernandes said.
Special education spending in Stamford has risen by 16.8 percent over the past five years.
The most recent surge in special education students likely stems from the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, Fernandes said. The loss of learning and social isolation students felt during that time has resulted in an increase in the intensity and quantity of student support, he said.
Another driver is the increase in staff to address enrollment growth. The proposed budget includes the addition of two speech pathologists, three social workers, one school psychologist and three contingency positions to address an even larger increase in enrollment.
The district also has seen a spike in English language learners, which is used to describe students who cannot communicate fluently in English.
As of Jan. 22, there were 3,024 English learner, or EL, students in Stamford, representing 18.2 percent of the total student population, nearly one out of every five students. Of the 1,197 new students screened for this year — which includes the entire kindergarten class and any newcomers in other grades — the rate of EL students is a whopping 64 percent.
Since Oct. 1, approximately 200 EL students have joined the district.
The growth of the EL population over the past decade has been massive. In October of 2012, the number of non-Englishspeakers was just over 2,000, representing 12.7 percent of the district. Today, the number of students in that demographic is 3,024, which represents 18 percent of the school system.
Over that time, the budget for the English Learner program has grown from $5.2 million to $8.9 million, which is the amount proposed in the school budget for the 2024-25 school year. That amount is an increase of $640,000 compared with the current budget.