SPECIAL EDUCATION
Severely Disabled Special Ed Students Are A Big Responsibility For Our Schools
Under-enrollment of students with disabilities by BCS creates a significant financial disadvantage for the Los Altos School District and an advantage for BCS. Our most recent research into this persistent under-enrollment problem shows that almost all the SpEd students enrolled at BCS have mild disabilities. The financial consequences of BCS avoiding the costs of serving students with severe disabilities is a significant penalty for the rest of the LASD+BCS students.
To read our latest Special Education research report, please click here.
To read our latest report on BCS enrollment inequalities, please click here.
To see past researching findings on students with disabilities, please read below.
Ten Percent of our Students have the Extra Challenge of a Disability
Please see our two letters to the SCCOE Board on the under-enrollment of students with disabilities and students with severe disabilities at BCS.
This posting, as many others on this web site, is not about students, teachers or parents.
It is an effort to first, understand what data is telling about our current situation.
The reported data indicates that the combination of BCS under enrollment of disabled students (by 24), and disproportionately lower number (by 13) of higher-cost-to-serve categories of disabilities, costs the district and saves BCS some $1,000,000 each year.
Second, it is intended to help us focus on governance issues, ask questions and eventually help us embrace our core values. Board members and senior staff of LASD, BCS and SCCOE are collectively responsible for managing public funds to serve our students. The cumulative effect of prior well-intentioned decisions, plans and the execution of those plans, frequently have unintended consequences.
Once we collectively understand where we are, and get a sense of where we are heading, then we can thoughtfully consider where we want to go.
Stepping back from our local situation, it is a helpful to take a look from a broader perspective. The California Legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal and policy advisor is the Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO). The LAO has provided fiscal and policy advice to the Legislature for 75 years. It is known for its fiscal and programmatic expertise and nonpartisan analyses of the state budget. The office serves as the "eyes and ears" for the Legislature to ensure that the executive branch is implementing legislative policy in a cost efficient and effective manner.”
An introduction on the Legislative Analysts’ Office web site begins “Special education is the catch–all term that encompasses the specialized services that schools provide for disabled students. Policymakers might have several reasons for seeking a deeper understanding of the state’s approach to delivering special education. First, a notable share—roughly 10 percent—of California’s K–12 students receive special education services. As such, the effectiveness of these services relates directly to the academic outcomes of almost 700,000 of the state’s children. Second, special education is one of the most complicated and regulated areas of K–12 education, with multiple sets of federal and state laws governing how schools must provide services. Finally, special education is among the most significant areas of K–12 expenditures, supported by a combination of the single largest state categorical allocation, one of the biggest federal education grants, and a substantial portion of local school budgets.” (source)
The California Department of Education (CDE) collects data on the students it serves. Much of the following comes directly from the CDE data base.
There are three governance issues explored in this posting.
· Does LASD and BCS have proportional enrollment of disabled students?
· Does LASD and BCS have proportional enrollment of the thirteen types of disabilities recognized by CBE?
· What are the operating cost implications to each organization?
It is also an important to recognize, special needs students generally score lower on tests. The more students with disabilities that take academic tests, the higher the potential for aggregate tests scores to be lower. There are a variety of variables including which test is taken and which categories of disabilities are included.
Does LASD and BCS have proportional enrollment of the district’s disabled students?
The CDE data base includes the total number of students designated with a disability at each publicly funded school. The answer is straight forward. LASD served 418 students with a disability (out of 4,246) and BCS served 61 (out of 915). This was a disproportional enrollment of 24 more disabled students at LASD and 24 less at BCS. Table below indicates the reported enrollments. (*Note: Click on the charts and graphs below to enlarge them.)
Does LASD and BCS have proportional enrollment of the thirteen types of disabilities recognized by CBE?
The answer to this question is not straight forward for a number of reasons. One reason is that LASD is required to report the number of special education students in each of the thirteen disability categories, while no online, granular, BCS data is available on the CDE data base.
Another reason is the desire to maintain privacy for individual students. Although the CDE data is collected and accessible by age and ethnicity, if a particular cell (e.g. 5-year old with disability category 11) has “10 or Less” individuals in that cell, then the number is not reported. Instead, the notation “10 or Less” is in placed in the cell.
One approach to understanding the distribution of students by disability is to examine the data that is available for LASD. LASD reported 418 students with one of thirteen disabilities. Analysis of the reported data indicates that 376 of the 418, or 90%, of the students are identified by category. In the following graph, these 376 identified are represented by the blue bar, labeled “LASD Reported”. The distribution of the remaining 42 students, or 10%, was estimated by noting the number of “10 or Less” cells which were encountered. The more “10 or Less” cells, then the more students in that particular category. In the following graph, these figures are represented by the orange bar, labeled “LASD Estimated”. As a benchmark, Santa Clara County (SCC) data is a sufficiently large data base (28,920 students with a disability) that this distribution has no “10 or Less” cells and is a superset of LASD. In the following graph, these figures are represented by the grey bar, labeled “SCC Ratios Applied to 418 Students.”
The most important observation is the differences between LASD and SCC are in the 4th category, Speech or Language Impairment (SLI) and the 9th category, Specific Learning Disability (SLD). These two classifications are similar and have a similar cost to serve. When combined, the SCC benchmark seems reasonable.
Combined, these two disabilities, SLI and SLD, represent 57% of the disabilities in the state, 59% in SCC and 61% in LASD.
The next step in trying to understand our current situation is based on the assumption that BCS is a subset of LASD and LASD is a subset of SCC, so estimating the expected number of BCS students, in each of the thirteen categories, using SCC and LASD ratios, will be reasonable.
Since the actual number of students with each of these disabilities is not available, only a BCS representative can fill in the “Actual” column, based on BCS specific, not public, information.
What are the implications to each organization’s operating costs?
There are 10 years of detailed LASD financial reports available online. The comments and data for the table below comes from the budgets for 2017-18 (pages 134 to 136), 2018-19 (pages 140 to 142) and 2019-20 (pages 144 to 146).
Los Altos School District Annual Budget
Federal law requires public schools to provide appropriate services for special education children as early as age three and up until age twenty-one.
State funding for special education flows through a Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA) consortium of the four districts Palo Alto Unified School District, Mountain View-Whisman School District, Mountain View-Los Altos High School District, and LASD. The districts work together to consolidate programs where appropriate in serving students from the entire SELPA in the most cost-efficient manner.
LASD special education programs are located at every school in the district.
Special Day Classes (SDC), which require a full-time teacher for every classroom, are located at six sites serving students from throughout the district. SDC classes are generally located at four elementary school sites for preschool and elementary age students and at Blach and Egan for junior high age students.
Specialized services are provided outside the district—at SELPA classes in other districts, at county classes, and at non-public schools and agencies.
Districts reimburse each other for serving students from other districts.
Caseloads of autism continue growing year after year. Typically, these students require specialized one-to-one services, costing an average of $50,000 or more per student per year.
Based on dated studies such as the 1999-2000 Special Education Expenditure Project (SEEP) which estimated the spending ratio of the special education student compared to the regular student, and the more recent 2019 study, State of Denial: California Charter Schools and Special Education Students, there are clear indications of the relative costs of serving students challenged by different categories of disability. ( www.air.org/sites/default/files/SEEP5-Total-Expenditures.pdf ; www.cta.org/en/Issues-and-Action/Charter-Schools/State-of-Denial.aspx)
For SCC, LASD and presumably BCS, the majority of the disabled students served fall into three groups of students:
· Speech or Language Impairment (SLI) and Specific Learning Disability (SLD),
· Other Health Impairment (OHI) and
· Autism (AUT)
Using the LASD average cost to serve 418 students and the SCC disability distribution, provides on estimate on the cost to serve 61 students from the area.
Serving students with SLI & SLD are the lowest average cost categories to serve, Other Health Impairment (OHI - frequently includes students with Attention Deficient Hyperactivity Disorder or ADHD), is higher cost to serve. Autism (AUT), one of the highest cost disabilities to serve. Exact costs and relationships to average cost are not public. There have been studies to approximate the relative cost differences. The table below, is a rough estimate of these relative costs applied to the SCC disability distribution applied to 61 students from our area.
BCS has not disclosed the distribution of disabilities of the students they serve. This is reasonable due the potential “10 or Less” privacy criteria used by CDE.
BCS has not disclosed the total costs incurred to serve those enrolled with disabilities. This makes data-based examination difficult and requires moving into the field of assumptions.
Throughout California, charter schools typically enroll fewer students with disabilities, especially those with more severe disabilities. Unfortunately, this forces the districts to absorb disproportionate costs, relative to funding received, and reduces the resources available for the students enrolled in district schools.
LASD receives from state and federal sources, approximately 32% of the extra funds needed to serve students with disabilities. The 68% shortfall reduces the per student funding for all the other LASD students.
The BCS Board and senior staff have under enrolled 24 students with disabilities. This has financial consequences for LASD and BCS are significant. The range of extra costs absorbed by LASD is between $450,000 (average incremental cost of $19,000) and $780,000 (fully loaded cost of $32,835).
The distribution of enrollment by disability is also potentially financially important to both BCS and LASD. Using a distribution of disabilities similar to SCC as a whole, or a distribution for LASD, the expected cost of serving 61 students is approximately $1,000,000 annually.
The September 10, 2019 letter from the LASD Board to SSCOE indicates that the information available to LASD suggests that BCS has enrolled 12%, or 7 students (12% of 61) with high cost to serve disabilities, while LASD has enrolled 25%, or 104 students (25% of 418) with high cost to serve disabilities. A simple estimate of proportional enrollments (see table on page 2) would be 90 (7+104=111*81%=90) at LASD and 20 (7+104=111*18%=20) at BCS.
LASD proportional enrollment was approximately 13 too many and BCS proportional enrollment was 13 (20-7=13) too few. The full cost to incremental cost to serve each of these students is probably $40,000 to $50,000 or between $520,000 and 650,000. The incremental cost above each student with out special needs is probably between $25,000 to $35,000, or $325,000 to $455,000.
In summary, the combination of under enrollment, and disproportionate enrollment by categories of disabilities, suggest LASD is over-absorbing greater than each year $1,000,000.
In addition, special needs students generally score lower on tests.The more students with disabilities that take academic tests, the higher the potential for aggregate tests scores to be lower.There are a variety of variables including which test is taken and which categories of disabilities are included.
Excerpts from the Letter
LASD Special Education Expenditures
Budget 2017–18 (pages 134 to 136), 2018–19 (pages 140 to 142) and 2019–20 (pages 144 to 146)
https://www.lasdschools.org/District/9821-Annual-Budget.html
How Is Special Education Funded in California?
Source: Overview of Special Education in California, 2013
Average Costs of Educating SWDs (Students with Disabilities) is More Than Double Those of Mainstream Students. Figure 6 illustrates the concept of excess costs. The figure shows that in 2010–11, LEAs spent an average of roughly $9,600 in total funds per nondisabled student and more than twice as much, about $22,300, per SWD. The additional $12,700 to provide special IEP–required services for SWDs was supported by an average of about $2,300 in federal funds, about $5,400 in state funds, and about $5,000 local funds. While $12,700 was the approximate statewide average excess cost for an SWD, it is important to note that most SWDs require less severe, less costly services, whereas some students require intensive interventions that cost notably more than $12,700 a year.
How Do Students with Disabilities (SWDs) Perform on State Assessments?
‘https://lao.ca.gov/reports/2013/edu/special-ed-primer/special-ed-primer-010313.aspx
Another topic to consider related to special education is the impact on aggregate test scores. The more students with disabilities that take academic tests, the higher the potential for aggregate tests scores to be lower. There are a variety of variables including which test is taken and which categories of disabilities are included.
There are three options for SWDs to participate in State’s Assessment System. Because academic outcomes understandably may vary depending upon the nature and severity of a student’s disability, both the federal and state accountability systems allow some SWDs to meet performance expectations using modified or alternate assessments. As shown in Figure 9, California has developed three different sets of STAR tests for SWDs to meet federal and state testing requirements—the California Standards Tests (CSTs), the California Modified Assessment (CMA), and the California Alternate Performance Assessment (CAPA). Which assessment an individual SWD takes depends on the severity of his or her disability and the decision of the IEP team. The selected assessment must be clearly defined in the student’s IEP.
Performance has improved, but the majority of SWDs score below the proficient level on State Assessments. Figure 10 displays the percentage of fourth–grade SWDs and nondisabled students that met federally required proficiency targets in English Language Arts over the past several years. (The figure excludes results from the CAPA, as they are not based on grade–level specific standards and therefore are not comparable.) As shown, both groups have displayed improvements in recent years. Improvements for SWDs in recent years may be partially due to increasing proportions of students taking the CMA in lieu of the CSTs. A majority of SWDs, however, still fail to meet federal performance standards with either test. In 2011–12, only 49 percent of SWDs who took the CSTs scored at the proficient or advanced levels. This compares to 68 percent of nondisabled students. Moreover, only 39 percent of the students who took the CMA—which is specially tailored for SWDs—met proficiency targets.
