School Districts that aren't overly Special Needs focused? (Ramapo, Rye: 2015, renters)
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Can anyone recommend any "good" WC school districts that are not Special Ed Clusters or don't have the reputation as being places to move specifically for Special Needs?
I have learned that parents move to the district we are renting in because it has a reputation as being Special Needs focused. We are renters with a preschooler, didnt know this was a thing, but it makes sense and I imagine once a place had that reputation it would get worse for the non Special Needs kids before it gets better.
Numbers check out, this isnt just heresay- our district's per pupil Special Ed programming spending is 400% as much as general ed programming ($39K vs $10K/student)- double the national avg, and double a neighboring village, according to our districts own material. 19% of the students have an educational special needs diagnosis, and this could increase as more parents move here for that reason. 33% of the educational programming budget is Special Needs spending, and reading the staff directory about half are listed as Special Ed teachers and aides. Crazy that the state doesn't kick in to help local districts cover these clustering disparities, but so be it.
I don't blame the parents, i'd do the same thing, but I'd rather buy somewhere closer to the national norm and that doesn't have the reputation as the place to move specifically for Special Needs.
Do you know for sure if the district services all the special needs kids, or do they send them out of district? Some districts quite honestly don't deal with much themselves, and send kids with anything more than mild needs out of district or to private schools. This can be a factor in that per pupil cost. Also, there just are a lot of special ed teachers now due to RTI and PBS requirements, in addition to the usual co-teaching classes and resource/pull-out/push-in teachers.
Do you know for sure if the district services all the special needs kids, or do they send them out of district? Some districts quite honestly don't deal with much themselves, and send kids with anything more than mild needs out of district or to private schools. This can be a factor in that per pupil cost. Also, there just are a lot of special ed teachers now due to RTI and PBS requirements, in addition to the usual co-teaching classes and resource/pull-out/push-in teachers.
I believe the tuitioned out kids do factor into that $39k/yr per Special Ed student spending. But whether they are educated in district or not, that cost still comes out of the local school tax budget pie, leaving less for the Gen Ed kids. There are tuitioned in Special Ed kids as well, so the % of each classroom that is special needs would be a wash.
In any case, I have to put my own child first, I'd rather live in a district where 80 cents on the tax dollar is going to General Ed spending, rather than just 65 cents- and a district that doesn't have the reputation of a good one to move into with high cost special needs kids. This could cause a feedback loop resulting in ever-increasing cuts to non-mandated features: APs, electives, low teacher-student ratio, etc.
Other districts have had this sort of problem (see East Ramapo), where special interests overwhelm everyone else and the result is massive cuts to regular education: https://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/03/o...izes-kids.html
Can anyone recommend any "good" WC school districts that are not Special Ed Clusters or don't have the reputation as being places to move specifically for Special Needs?
I have learned that parents move to the district we are renting in because it has a reputation as being Special Needs focused. We are renters with a preschooler, didnt know this was a thing, but it makes sense and I imagine once a place had that reputation it would get worse for the non Special Needs kids before it gets better.
Numbers check out, this isnt just heresay- our district's per pupil Special Ed programming spending is 400% as much as general ed programming ($39K vs $10K/student)- double the national avg, and double a neighboring village, according to our districts own material. 19% of the students have an educational special needs diagnosis, and this could increase as more parents move here for that reason. 33% of the educational programming budget is Special Needs spending, and reading the staff directory about half are listed as Special Ed teachers and aides. Crazy that the state doesn't kick in to help local districts cover these clustering disparities, but so be it.
I don't blame the parents, i'd do the same thing, but I'd rather buy somewhere closer to the national norm and that doesn't have the reputation as the place to move specifically for Special Needs.
I'd rather not, but its a smaller relatively affluent WC district.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ponytrekker
Try West Virginia.
Or Not.
Two Intra-WC comparisons:
Scarsdale spends 18.5% but my district spends 32.5% of instruction budget on Special Ed (code 2250 as % of codes 2210 + 2250).
Scarsdale spends 8% but my district spends 14% of its total school budget on Special Ed. (code 2250 as % of total)
Explanation: Scarsdale's Spec Ed Instruction budget is $12.5 million, with $55 million spent on Gen Ed Instruction, out of a total $153 million total budget. My District's Spec Ed Instruction budget is $8.3 million, with $17.2 million spent on Gen Ed Instruction, out of a total $58 million total budget. source, for scarsdale data
Another non-West Virginia comparison:
Rye Neck's code 2250 spend per disabled student is $20K, and their Special Ed student-teacher ratio is 12.3 to 1.
My district's 2250 spend is $40K per disabled student, and Special Ed student-teacher ratio is 6.7 to 1.
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