Special education enrollment surges

LOWER POTTSGROVE >> The term “special education” can refer to something as simple as a speech therapist, or something as complex and costly as a student with a severe brain disorder who can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to educate.

No matter the cost, by law, Pennsylvania school districts must pay to educate all special education students.

The rules are complex and usually involve something called an IEP, individualized education program, which is the road map decided upon by parents, experts and school officials for educating that child.

That’s why most public school districts have entire departments devoted to special education.

Tuesday night, the Pottsgrove School Board heard from its special education expert, Kathryn Pacitto, the director of pupil services, who gave them some startling and potentially costly news.

Since July 1, the first day of the fiscal year, Pottsgrove has seen 45 new special education students enroll.

At least seven of those students have IEPs that require that seven new one-on-one aides need to be hired.

“We’re going to have to hire some people we had not planned on hiring,” said Superintendent William Shirk.

Pacitto said the number is not

unusual as much as the severity of the issues which need to be addressed among this particular group of special education students.

Although no cost to the special education budget was made available to the public Tuesday night, Nester said the influx of students and costs associated with their education will put the special education budget over budget.

But he said the excess can be absorbed by the budget’s fund balance.

Nester took advantage of the “teachable moment” to note that such unexpected expenditures “are why we have fund balances and surplus funds.”

Pointing to the recent mold problems that closed Upper Perkiomen High School for a week, Nester said “things like this happen all the time, and that’s why we need to have funds on hand to cover those costs.”

Nester said Wednesday that while an exact number has not yet been calculated for the aides, he can say the pay for one-on-one aides ranges from $13.09 to $16.26 per hour.

“Annual salary would range from $16,585 to $20,601 depending on length of service at Pottsgrove,” he wrote in an email response to a Digital First Media inquiry

That puts the budget impact of those seven students between $116,095 and $144,207 for just the aides and may not include other services outlined in their IEP.

Even at the high end, those jobs pay less than half the median income in Lower Pottsgrove Township in 2016 — $72,961 according to the U.S. Census.

Board member Ashley Custer questioned the training for the special education aides.

She said she once saw an aide “reading the newspaper in class while the class went crazy.”

Pacitto assured her the training is now much more extensive.

Custer said she works in Real Estate “and more than

once I’ve heard people say they want to move to Pottsgrove because their child has special needs.”

Shirk said he looked into the previous locations for the students and they are not coming from a single location. “They’re coming from all over southeastern Pennsylvania,” he said.

Although an exact cost for the new aides is not yet available, a taste of how much special education can cost was evident a few items later on Tuesday’s agenda.

It was a contract with a special education school known as Cottage Seven and a total of seven students are enrolled there. Two need “intensive emotional support,” at a cost to the district of $385 each per day.

The remaining five need a lower level of care listed simply as “emotional support.” That cost is $200 per day. The total cost to the district for these seven students — different from the seven new students who need aides — is $140,140.

That works out to $20,020 per student. Back in 2016,

Nester put Pottsgrove’s costper-student at $18,063.

This year’s preliminary budget forecast a $235,000 increase in the special education budget. Of that, $177,000 was due to expected increases in tuition at private or other alternative special education schools.

Pottsgrove pays to send students it cannot accommodate within its own buildings to such private and alternative schools.

Pacitto also outlined a recent special education oversight exercise, or audit, conducted by the state every seven years.

In response to a question from school board President Robert Lindgren, she said complying with the audit, which found no major problems, consumed 10 hours a week for her staff for several weeks, on top of their regular duties.

This led Lindgren to reply that such requirements are en example of an “unseen unfunded mandate” that drives need for more administrators.