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MPS Lagging in State Special Education Funding

This is a picture of competence. 

Over the past few years, as the state has ratcheted up its support for schools struggling with the costs of high-need special education students, the amount collected by Milwaukee Public Schools has barely budged.

Of the $5.4 million pool distributed this year, MPS took in just $40,182, according to an announcement by the state Department of Public Instruction. That puts MPS in the same range as Brown Deer, Manitowoc, and Montello, and the Milwaukee district received less than a third of the $131,390 that went to Middleton.

[...]

“The question is less why does MPS get so little as why does Milwaukee not claim more,” said Stephanie Petska, the DPI’s director of special education. “I don’t know the answer to that question.”

MPS officials say the reason they do not benefit from the grant has to do with its requirements.

Because only students who cost a district more than $30,000 a year can be counted, the “economy of scale” works against the district, said Lynn Ruhl, special services budget analyst for MPS.

“We have more children who are severe,” she said. “As a result, you have more children on a single bus, so the cost per child goes down. We have more children in a single classroom, so the cost of those children goes down.”

[...]

MPS’ response puzzles Petska.

Often, the students who qualify for the funding are those with multiple and severe disabilities that might necessitate a school system to hire a one-on-one aide or who get individual medical care and special transportation. The cost of such intensive services can quickly mount, no matter how many such children a district might have, Petska said.

“These are the neediest children, whose student-teacher ratios are going to be low, whether it’s Milwaukee or Onalaska, Wisconsin,” she said. “And with salaries and so on generally being higher in Milwaukee than, for example, Onalaska, that ought to contribute to the numbers that would get them over that threshold.”

Sounds like the folks at MPS just didn’t have their act together to request the money.  Their excuse about being able to consolidate busing is pretty weak.  The busing costs are dwarfed by the staff costs for special education.

Posted by Owen at 0817 hrs
Politics + Politics - Wisconsin

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