Wake County school board members grilled district staff about a proposed $18 million funding cut to special education Tuesday, then directed the superintendent to find other options outside of special education to balance the district's budget proposal for next school year.
A school district spokesperson confirmed that the board directed this action late Tuesday night after coming out of a closed session that was preceded by a nearly 5-hour public discussion in a special board meeting.
The school board's chair Tyler Swanson called the board meeting after the district's Assistant Superintendent of Special Education Services Lisa Allred announced last week in an email to staff the possibility of cutting 130 special education classroom teaching positions next school year. That email was sent ahead of the school board's initial preview of the superintendent's budget proposal.
Swanson opened the meeting by saying the board had received "hundreds, if not thousands" of emails from concerned educators and community members about the issue.
"Much of that concern stems from a poorly communicated message that has created fear and confusion across the district," Swanson said.
"There has to be restoring of trust. We can't rely on emails to send things out that's going to impact the livelihoods of our staff. It's inhumane," Swanson said.
Superintendent Robert Taylor clarified that the proposed cuts would have likely been made by not hiring to fill vacancies rather than by firing existing teachers. Taylor said only teachers with term limited contracts would have been affected, of which there are 174 in the special education department, and that many of those teachers would have had to be rehired to fill vacancies.
However, the loss of any positions would have driven up the number of students each special education teacher serves.
Proposed changes to student-teacher ratios
Taylor said the proposed student-to-teacher ratios would still fall within the state's requirements.
Board members were unsatisfied with the proposed ratios, arguing that special education teachers are already overburdened.
Board member Jennifer Job said that the American Federation of Teachers recommends 12 to 16 students as a case load.
"If it were up to me, we would stop talking about state guidance, because a caseload of 50 students is just unreasonable," Job said.
Stacy Huffman, a senior director in the special education services department, said the higher student ratios would create additional paperwork for special education teachers, because they are legally required to document progress on their students' individual education plans.
"Reducing [special education] to only an increase in paperwork … I think that does not only a disservice to special education educators, but also to the parents," said board member Christina Gordon.
"I've spoken to at least three families within the past two weeks, where I've had to have difficult conversations with mothers that cried on the phone because they feel like they're just meeting a lot of challenges with their special education students," Gordon added.
Source of $18 million shortfall
Allred's email and a separate message to parents references the need to reduce the special education services budget by $18 million.
District finance staff explained that this number was determined because the district had been spending down the carryover from a one-time surplus of federal grant funds to pay recurring costs for special education teacher positions. Taylor said if this continued, the district would have a deficit in that department by the end of next school year, necessitating these cuts in the upcoming budget.
District staff said the special education department has already removed 9 unfilled coordinating teaching positions and a director of policy position and cut its team budgets by $200,000 to begin to reduce expenses.
Board members questioned how long district officials have known about this issue, and the district's finance staff said they first discussed it internally this past fall, adding that budget situations fluctuate and depend on many uncertainties.
The absence of a state budget has forced schools to pay for required annual step increases to teacher pay without additional state funding, which Wake County Schools' CFO Trisha Posey referred to as an "unfunded mandate."
School board members pushed back on cuts, criticized communication
School board members expressed frustration at the district staff's communication.
Swanson said he's "not in favor of balancing budgets on the backs of [the district's] most vulnerable students."
"If you speak to these teachers, if you even add one or two, or God forbid, three more children onto their caseload, they're already beyond capacity of what they could handle," said board member Cheryl Caulfield.
"I'm just having a really hard time seeing how we would pick this category of funds to decrease where we need to take from some other places that we have and put them here," Caulfield added.
"I can't tell you how sad and hopeless I feel about this situation," said board member Chris Heagerty. "There have been multiple failures at several levels."
Proposal to eliminate CCK Classrooms
School board members also raised specific concerns around new proposed program changes to special education cross categorical kindergarten (CCK) classrooms.
These are separate kindergarten classes that exclusively serve students with disabilities, so that schools can decide how to later place the students in classrooms with either a special education or general education curriculum.
Assistant Superintendent for Human Resources AJ Muttillo said teachers in these classrooms should be dual certified in special education and general education, but "most are not." He said this was also the case for Literacy Essentials and Math Essentials classes for middle school special education students, and that for this reason, staff recommend phasing out these programs.
"I have other emotions around how we got into a situation where we would have the majority of CCK staff hired and employed without proper certification," Heagerty said.
The school board must pass a balanced budget this spring. The board will receive a full budget presentation on April 7, followed by community input sessions and a public hearing scheduled throughout April.
