Districts: Special-Ed Costs Need to Be Shared

School superintendents from across Orange County banded together Friday to warn that the federal government’s refusal to pay its share of special-education costs is forcing them to rob millions of dollars from regular education budgets.

Twenty-five years ago the federal government ordered schools to provide complete educational services to children with disabilities and promised to pay 40% of the additional cost. That has never happened. Instead, local school districts--in Orange County and across the nation--have had to fill the gap.

Until recently, the federal government has paid only 8% of the costs of educating children with special needs. In November 1999, Congress increased funding for special education by $702 million, raising the federal government’s share to about 13% of costs. But that’s still not enough, according to the superintendents.

Orange County estimates it was shortchanged by $87 million this school year; the state’s shortfall is about $1.2 billion.

The superintendents emphasized that special education, itself, is not the problem.

“We want special-education students. We want them in the classes and in the schools,” Janice Billings, superintendent of Anaheim Union High School District, said at a news conference at the county Board of Education office in Costa Mesa.

The group pointed out that in Orange County, $87 million could build seven schools, buy 50,000 computers or add $1,700 annually to each teacher’s salary. The extra money could have gone to ease overcrowding in districts like Anaheim. It could have whittled high school class size in Capistrano Unified School District, where the population is booming. It could have eradicated the $4.6-million budget shortfall that polarized Irvine over a failed parcel-tax measure.

The situation forces school boards to make frustrating budget choices, school officials said, and to walk through a field of philosophical land mines: Which services do they withhold from students in regular education to pay for the ones guaranteed to those with special needs?

Three years ago, about $3 million of Capistrano’s budget was allocated for special education. Now the amount has more than quadrupled to $13 million.

Although special-education costs have been rising for decades, they have skyrocketed in recent years as the school-age population has grown. Also, special-education costs now frequently involve health-related and medical expenditures too.

While a school district’s obligation to an able-bodied child is to provide an education from kindergarten through senior year, it can extend from birth to age 22 for a disabled student.

“One of the unfortunate by-products of the problem is that it’s beginning to pit regular-education parents against special-education parents, and that’s something none of us wants to see happen,” said Supt. James A. Fleming of Capistrano Unified.

Why the newfound urgency to seek relief? The school chiefs say that for years they have been writing letters to Washington, meeting with representatives, courting senators and trying to push, pull and shame the government into giving schools the money.

Inspiring Friday’s news conference was an Orange County Grand Jury report issued two months ago stating that the government’s funding shortfall is hindering the mission of the county’s 27 school districts.

In its 10-page report, the grand jury recommended that the district develop a plan to educate the public about the funding crisis. In response to the recommendation, the superintendents said they plan to develop informational booklets for each community.