Schools, Special Education, and Choice

A little piece of news hit yesterday about a family in the Hamilton Southeastern school district that is fighting to get the school system to put their child in both AM and PM sessions of Kindergarten. Many of the fact of the case are reported in the Indy Star today. As a bit of background, this is the world of special education which is a complex combination of Federal requirements, state requirements and local implementation.

This child, in this case, has been identified as a child in need of special services. he has speech, memory, and behavioral problems. The parents would like for him to go through both the AM and PM Kindergarten program. Just to be clear, this is not "full day" Kindergarten--he would receive the exact same instruction twice in the same day. Without knowing the specifics of the child's situation, this seems to be a very reasonable service plan to me for the Kindergarten year. The school system, while admitting that the child needs services, do not agree that this is the right approach.

Since I do not have all of the facts, I cannot say for certain that the school system is wrong (though I suspect I would side with the parents here). But what I do know is that the system is structured in a way that encourages the school system to fight the parents on this.

The Star reports that the school system could end up spending $100,000 on this case if they lose. Why would they do that rather than send a kid to school for a half day? As in most areas, let's trace the money. For each child going to a school, the school system receives aid from the state. For Hamilton Southeastern, that number appears to be about $3,155 per year, though a Kindergarten child would only bring in half of that amount. BUT this child qualifies as a special education student.

It sounds to me like this child would qualify as a severe special education. In calendar year 2009, a severe special education student with speech services will receive $8,888 for the year. Well, actually that isn't right. The school system receives that amount--and it does not have to be spent on special education services.

So think about it. This child will bring the school system over $10,000 and the services would only cost them, say, $5,000. So why risk $100,000 over that? Well, I think it is due to the precedent of the parents being able to call for services.

If Indiana had a program similar to that in Florida which parents of special education students could take those dollars to programs of their choice, this would not be issue at all. HSE would have immediately agreed to the services or the parents would have simply taken those dollars to a school that would meet their needs.

Cross posted at Hoosier Access