Winchester special education director outlines 2025–26 annual plan; SEAC voices support

Dr. Mullins presented the Winchester Public Schools 2025–26 Special Education Annual Plan at the board’s April 7 work session, describing enrollment trends, funding sources, federal compliance tests and proposed program allocations for the coming school year.

The plan, which the board must approve at its next regular meeting, covers students age 2 through 21 and lays out five components required for the federal use-of-funds agreement, including maintenance of effort, proportionate set-aside, preschool allocations, school-age allocations and program descriptions. Dr. Mullins said the division projects to meet federal maintenance-of-effort tests and that projections show planned expenditures at equal or greater levels than the prior year.

The presentation noted that Winchester’s overall special education identification rate has remained just under the commonly cited 14% threshold over the past several years. Dr. Mullins said the division brought its early child-find work in-house last year, which increased identification of young children (developmental delay category) because families previously were routed to an outside provider. She said the district expects to catch more children earlier as…