Harvard’s costs on the low end
After 15 months of hard work digging for information and grappling with a number of thorny issues regarding special education in Harvard, the Special Education Task Force delivered its findings and recommendations to the School Committee at its meeting Monday night.
The task force, made up of members from the FinCom, selectmen, school board, school administration and the community at large, has come up with a 28-page report giving detailed comparisons of Harvard’s special education program with those of other towns. The bottom line: while spending for special education in Harvard has indeed been rising significantly faster than the overall school budget for years, it has done exactly the same thing in towns all over the state. In fact, the increases in such costs would have been even steeper in Harvard without recent efforts to beef up programs within the schools, allowing more special needs students to be educated locally, rather than going to expensive, out-of-district schools, according to the report.
There are pages and pages of charts and graphs, comparing Harvard with nearby districts, along with a select group of school districts with high MCAS scores, some with similar numbers of students, and some larger. The percentage of students in Harvard receiving special education services falls pretty much in the middle of the pack, and the cost of the special education services provided within the Harvard schools is on the low end, although Finance Director Lorraine Leonard warned that making direct comparisons between towns is difficult because not everyone categorizes expenses in the came way.
To help collect data, the task force sent out a brief survey to school superintendents in every district in the state, asking if special education costs have risen faster than the rest of their operating budgets; what part of special education was driving the increases; and what programs or procedures had helped the districts control costs while providing excellent services to students with special needs.
Six pages of the report consist of the responses to these questions from the 28 school districts that wrote back. The same litany of burgeoning special education expenses crops up repeatedly.
“The costs of tuitions and transportation have both driven the cost of special education to rise at a higher percentage than other parts of the school budget…we are finding an increase in significantly impaired students, thus requiring more specialized and expensive programs,” wrote an administrator in Franklin.
The response from Millbury was even more detailed. “Millbury’s total [school] budget has increased 22.2 percent over the past five years…our special education costs have increased 46.7 percent. Specifically, special ed transportation is up 67 percent, out-of-district tuitions increased 54 percent, special ed salaries 49.7 percent and contracted services (therapy, etc.) 57.5 percent.”
The other school districts also had many similar approaches in trying to keep special education costs contained, while providing excellent service. The task force report labeled the most common approaches “the three I’s: in-house programming, inclusion, and improvements in intervention and curriculum.”
Examples of successful new programs to keep students in-district that other towns have started include integrated preschools, which serve both regular and special education students; as well as programs for students with emotional difficulties, or students on the autism spectrum. Also, several towns have instituted new programs that focus on improving literacy skills, which help all students, the report noted.
One difficulty Harvard faces in trying to reduce its out-of-district tuition costs is that setting up an in-district program doesn’t make sense if there are only one or two children needing a particular type of special help. Bigger towns with many students make such programs more cost-effective.
“Small districts such as Harvard often lack the critical mass of students necessary to create additional in-district offerings or specialized programs in a cost-efficient manner,” the report said.
One answer to this problem is Harvard’s membership in the Concord Area Special Education Collaborative (CASE), which includes a number of small towns to the west of Boston. CASE provides programs for special needs students who live in the various member towns. Harvard hosts a CASE classroom at the elementary school.
The task force noted that CASE provides these programs at a lower cost than most private schools, allowing Harvard to save money. CASE also provides transportation services for Harvard students going to programs outside of town. This allows for economies of scale in transportation, according to the report, though it urged the school board to lobby the state to have these costs included in state aid for special education, which they are not at present.
According to the report, Harvard’s director of special education, Charles Horn, has worked to reduce Harvard’s out-of-district placements in the last few years. The number has dropped from 47 students in 2003, to 30 students in 2006. Most of the reduction came when Harvard started its own integrated preschool in 2004. However, the percentage of Harvard’s special education students that are educated out-of-district is currently 11.82 percent, which is a bit higher than in similar small districts, such as Littleton, at 7.62 percent, and Cohasset, at 6.43 percent, according to the report. But setting up new programs in-district to serve more students requires start-up funding for new staff, which is hard to come by, even though in the long run it would likely save the town money by cutting out-of-district placements.
Schools should meet the needs of all learners
As the members of the task force presented their findings to the school board, several members repeatedly touched on a key finding: that the schools need to work harder to be inclusive, and foster a culture that works to meet the needs of all students.
“It was felt, however, that such a philosophy and culture was only partially embraced within HPS [Harvard Public Schools]. It is important to note that special education services are provided within the context of the general education program. If the general education program is supportive and accepting of differences, then special education services can be provided in an efficient and effective manner,” the report noted.
The task force recommends the schools work to increase opportunities for special education students to be educated within the schools, not only to save money, but to increase the inclusion of such children. The report urged the schools to figure out ways to serve students’ needs in-district, suggesting “a combination of professional development, program development, and capital expenditures when necessary.”
School Committee member Will Verbits, who served on the task force, told his fellow board members that some parents of special education students feel under siege during budget season, because others resent the special education budget increases.
“We as a community need to embrace special education kids as our kids,” he said. “They have a place in our community. Our school system is a better place for having them here, rather than sending them out.”
School board Chairwoman Willie Wickman asked Superintendent Tom Jefferson how such a culture of inclusion could be fostered in the schools.
“It’s about how we hire staff, how we coach, about how special education program staff talk with the other staff,” Jefferson replied. “It’s about community dialogue. I hear from special education parents that they don’t feel welcome.”
Jefferson noted that the strategic plan the schools are developing discusses how the schools can work to meet the needs of all learners. He complained that some community members feel “a false dichotomy” that schools pushing to achieve high MCAS scores can’t also put their energy towards helping students with special needs. “It’s not special education versus non-special education,” he said.
The task force report also points this out, saying, “Both the survey data we collected and reports that we studied pointed to the importance of a strong seamless link between regular and special education as being essential for any system which attempts to meet the needs of all learners. Regular education initiatives that address the varying needs of all learners benefit all students, regardless of whether or not they require special education support.”
For its part, the school board praised all the hard work of the task force. Member Stu Sklar suggested the report be put on the schools’ website, and Wickman agreed. She also said the report’s findings and recommendations should be consulted when the board comes up with its goals for next year.
Task force member Keith Cheveralls asked the school board if the task force should put on a forum for the public, to bring its findings to the community at large. At that point, student representative Emma O’Rourke Friel suggested the task force members provide an educational forum about special education for the kids at Bromfield, as one way to improve the culture of inclusion of all students at that school.
“I’m in a psychology class, and the vast majority of the class couldn’t come up with a definition of autism,” she explained. “Kids make fun of things they don’t understand,” and disseminating the information in the task force report would be helpful to change some of the students’ stereotypes about special education, she said.
