Schools Fear for Funds After Special-Ed Ruling

A decade ago, teachers weren’t expected to help diabetic students monitor their blood sugar levels. An autistic child wouldn’t attend a regular classroom. An elementary school principal wasn’t trained how to put a body lock on an emotionally disturbed boy to keep him from harming himself or others.

Today, public schools are increasingly required to provide medical care for disabled children, and the number of California students with physical, emotional and learning disabilities has increased 35% in the past decade. Such care might mean anything from footing the bill for a new computer for a blind student to covering the costs of institutionalizing a mentally disturbed child.

Last week, the Supreme Court ruled that schools must pay for full-time nurses if that’s what a severely disabled student needs to attend.

The decision left many educators concerned that their financial burden could grow, perhaps exponentially. They fear that parents will ask for more services, and that the process for deciding how to meet the needs of children will grow more contentious. School districts already pay $1 billion of the $3.7 billion spent on special education in California.

“The Supreme Court ruling will be the straw that will break the proverbial back of public education,” said James A. Fleming, superintendent of Capistrano Unified, which in one extreme case spends $214,000 annually on a boy who suffered brain trauma.

Parent and disability-rights activists applauded the high court decision, calling it an affirmation of their cause: ensuring that schools place disabled children in a safe and conducive learning environment.

“The district makes you feel bad for asking for something your child desperately needs,” said Laguna Niguel resident Marta McCormack, whose 6-year-old son James is autistic. “It’s like you have a child with cancer and needs chemotherapy, and they say, ‘Oh no, it’s too expensive.’ ”

Some 640,000 California students are in special education. Slightly more than half have learning disabilities. Far fewer have severe emotional and physical handicaps, which are the most costly.

On average, educating a disabled student costs about $12,000 a year, double the amount for a regular pupil.

Such costs already have been rising at a rate far faster than inflation, about 7% annually according to the most recent data in California.

Orange County’s special education population has shot up by 17% over the past five years, yet funding sources have remained virtually flat.

School-versus-parent battles intensify as more and more “medically fragile” students are able to enter regular classrooms with the help of medical advancements and laws siding with the disabled.

Faced with these pressures, school officials say they are overloaded with delicate, and sometimes life-threatening, responsibilities. In a small system such as the 10,000-student Westminster School District, a 132% increase in the number of special education students in the last decade puts a major strain on resources.

“It’s been overwhelming,” said Aileen Manley, Westminster’s special education administrator. “It’s been near to impossible to find those qualified [special education] teachers.”

“Because of heroic lifesaving measures, we have a lot more very severely involved children in public schools that require intensive services,” said Carol Arnesen, the county Department of Education’s fiscal administrator for special education. “Years ago, many of those students would not have made it into the public school system. Now, some of the more severely involved children are in settings that are more hospital-like than educational-like.”

Capistrano’s expenditure of $214,000 a year on the boy with the traumatic brain injuries--an amount that would pay for five regular classroom teachers--covers the costs of placing the boy in an out-of-state facility and sending his family to visit him periodically.

Under a federal law enacted 20 years ago, all children with disabilities must be included in regular public school classrooms to the greatest extent possible. A 1997 revision also strengthened the rights of the disabled, enabling them to challenge school placement decisions.

When enacted, Congress agreed to pay 40% of the costs of those services. But historically the federal government has paid for only about 8% of the costs. That figure began to rise in 1995, when Republicans gained control of Congress. Just two weeks ago, Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) introduced a resolution calling on Congress to make up the full difference.

“We made a promise to the schools in 1975 and we haven’t made good on it so far,” said David Foy, McKeon’s spokesman.

Some districts have found a way to bill the federal Medicare program for such costs. Others have suggested that the state create a fund to pay for catastrophic cases.

But as long as the system remains as it is, it’s going to cause tension between parents and schools. A burgeoning network of disability-rights activists stands ready to make sure that schools fulfill their obligations. When there are disagreements, a state-appointed mediator steps in. Over the past decade, the number of special education mediations has jumped 210% to 1,700 last year, according to state data.

Mediations can wind up in court, and if the district loses, it covers costs of the special services and legal fees. Such battles can be long and bitter.

McCormack, the Laguna Niguel mother, and her husband, Jim, won their struggle for services three years ago. The Capistrano district agreed to provide one-on-one behavioral therapy for their son only after the McCormacks forced a special hearing, complete with testimony from the family’s physicians.

Before that, the district had shipped James off to a county special education class where the teacher’s lesson plan included topics like the solar system. James was lost. He had trouble comprehending the meaning of “dog” and “house,” his mother said.

The boy now attends Crown Valley Elementary School. The district sends a therapist to his house for two hours every school day for personal instruction and therapy. While his motor skills remain poor, today James is doing well in school and has no trouble expressing himself, his mother said.

The McCormacks are grateful. The therapy alone runs upward of $4,000 a month. Before the school district stepped in, the couple struggled to cover costs. Jim McCormack manages a roofing supply business, which provides a solid paycheck, but the couple still had to sell one of their cars and max out their credit cards with cash advances to pay for the therapy.

“There was no way we could have kept that up. Then what would we have done?” Marta McCormack said.

There are many stories like the McCormacks’, some less involved, others much more contentious.

The recent court ruling could slap another $2 million onto the Capistrano district’s tab if the parents of three severely disabled children choose to make the schools, instead of their medical insurance, pay for personal health care aides, said Doreen Lohnes, assistant superintendent of student services.

But Jim Keating, Huntington Beach Union’s special education director, believes that many districts, like his, which already provide individual care for the severely disabled, will not be hard-hit by this decision. Rather, the law dictates that schools be responsible for providing trained assistants to help severely disabled students with such medical procedures as changing catheters.

“It doesn’t mean every medical need you have, you are going to have a nurse do it,” said Keating, whose three health care aides help 137 severely disabled students with their medical procedures. “That would be like saying every time you need counseling you have to have a psychologist instead of a counselor.”

Irvine attorney Maureen Graves--mother of twin 7-year-old boys who are autistic--believes that the Supreme Court’s decision could create a heavy financial burden on school districts, but she says that’s a consequence of government and education leaders thus far avoiding responsibility for the disabled.

“As a society, we believe in keeping alive and educating people with disabilities. This issue is who is going to pay for that,” said Graves, who has made a career out of helping parents of disabled students battle school systems. “Somebody is going to pay. Is it the families with horrible luck to be in this situation?”

Times staff writer Richard Lee Colvin contributed to this report.