Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > Westchester County
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
 
Old 10-16-2017, 05:14 PM
 
49 posts, read 55,397 times
Reputation: 96

Advertisements

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.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-17-2017, 08:29 AM
 
Location: Harrison
866 posts, read 2,476,572 times
Reputation: 513
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.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-18-2017, 10:25 PM
 
49 posts, read 55,397 times
Reputation: 96
Quote:
Originally Posted by streetsmart View Post
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

This American Life podcast did an episode on the above disaster: https://www.thisamericanlife.org/rad...imple-majority

Last edited by entropywins; 10-18-2017 at 10:51 PM..
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-19-2017, 03:58 AM
 
263 posts, read 342,952 times
Reputation: 287
And what us your district, OP?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2017, 08:14 AM
 
1,594 posts, read 3,565,101 times
Reputation: 1585
Quote:
Originally Posted by entropywins View Post
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.
Try West Virginia.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2017, 02:25 PM
 
49 posts, read 55,397 times
Reputation: 96
Quote:
Originally Posted by newnewyorkers View Post
And what us your district, OP?
I'd rather not, but its a smaller relatively affluent WC district.

Quote:
Originally Posted by ponytrekker View Post
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.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:



Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > U.S. Forums > New York > Westchester County
View detailed profiles of:

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top