Seattle's Child

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special education funding formula

The author's daughter, Paloma, is transported to school. (Image: Alexandra Bradbury)

A Parent’s Perspective: Why Special Education funding matters

All kids, including those with disabilities, deserve a well-funded education

Every morning, the school bus pulls up in front of our house. My daughter Paloma grins into the wind as she rises on the wheelchair lift and sometimes says her only word: “Up!” On board, she enjoys one-on-one attention from the health monitor, who calls her “princess” and sings to her — but whose essential job is to guard her safety in case she has a seizure.

Paloma had a brain injury at her premature birth, resulting in epilepsy, vision impairment, and cerebral palsy; her brain has trouble controlling her muscles, including the ones used to speak. But she clearly understands a lot of what we say. She cackles at old Sesame Street skits and finds trumpet fanfares hilarious.

When she gets to school, she rolls into her Medically Fragile public school classroom, where her wonderful teacher and two wonderful paraeducators work with up to six students. The classroom has all kinds of cool equipment: adaptive tricycles, a big swing, and an apparatus to help a kid stand up. Specialists rotate through every week: a physical therapist, an occupational therapist, a speech pathologist, and a teacher of the visually impaired.

Together, they are helping Paloma work toward an ambitious goal that could crack her world open: learning to communicate through an electronic device. Eventually, she will use a button at her head to scan through menus by ear and a button at her hand to select words — a lot more challenging than the way I learned to talk! But Paloma is stubborn, cheerful, and curious. I think she will get there.

Paloma must be costing the Seattle Public Schools far more than the average kid — all that equipment and staff — but it’s not like she’s getting more than her fair share. Federal law guarantees her the support she needs for equal access to education. Generations of disabled people and parents fought for this, putting an end to the bad old days when districts would turn away kids like Paloma or warehouse them.

The money has to come from somewhere, though, and the federal government sends only a fraction. At the heart of the budget crisis that Seattle and many other school districts across Washington face is state underfunding, even though our constitution couldn’t be clearer that “amply” funding public schools is the state’s “paramount duty.”

A major factor is a cruel, arbitrary funding formula for special education. The state recognizes that special ed costs extra and increases per-student funding for students who have Individualized Education Plans — but not enough to cover the actual costs, and only up to a cap of 16 percent of students, an unscientific figure apparently pulled out of a hat. What happens to districts where more students have IEPs? Tough luck, that’s what.

While a specialized classroom is right for Paloma, many disabled students benefit from integration with the rest of the student body. This, too, is a legal right that activists fought for: the least restrictive environment in which each student can receive an appropriate education. But inclusion done right also costs money — it can’t just provide cover for a cash-strapped district to throw another kid into an already overcrowded classroom. Success requires smaller classes and more educators with the right skills in the room.

Special education funding bills introduced by Senators Pederson (SB 5263) and Wellman (SB 5307) and Representative Pollett (HB 1310) would fix the funding formula by increasing the dollars per disabled student, eliminating the arbitrary cap on the number of students, and reducing the threshold for additional “safety net” reimbursement. 

School districts are backing these sorely needed improvements for special ed, along with funding fixes for transportation and supplies, as the “Big 3.” Visionary grassroots activists are taking it one step further and calling for the “Big 5,” which adds two more points: equitable distribution of funds around the state and, crucially, generating the needed revenue by taxing the rich. We live in a wealthy state, after all. There’s no reason that Paloma and every student in Washington shouldn’t have the education they deserve.

Alexandra Bradbury is the parent of a second grader in the medically fragile program at Green Lake Elementary in Seattle.

Read more:

Pressure builds to boost WA school funding

Reykdal says Washington risks lawsuit if school funding isn’t hiked

Education Advocacy Day: Hundreds expected to rally in Olympia January 30

About the Author

Alexandra Bradbury