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District highlights behavior‑supports program, credits Chancelight partnership for keeping students local
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Summary
Muscogee County School District presented an update on its behavior‑supports program and its partnership with Chancelight, reporting outcomes such as transitions to less‑restrictive settings, reduced suspensions, and cost avoidance compared with out‑of‑district residential placements.
District staff on June 23 gave a detailed update on the Muscogee County School District’s behavior‑supports program and its ongoing partnership with Chancelight, which provides specialized staff and therapeutic services at multiple district sites.
Victoria Robinson, the district’s behavior supports program manager, and Ryan Schleck, lead board‑certified behavior analyst, described a multi‑site model that serves K–12 students with intensive behavioral and mental‑health needs. Robinson said the program currently operates Chancelight‑supported classrooms and Muscogee County‑staffed classrooms across elementary, middle and high‑school campuses and at a therapeutic day program on the Marshall Success Center campus.
Robinson and Schleck told the board that last year the program reported a 100% course‑pass rate for participating students, a 100% graduation rate for seniors in the program, and a reduction from 481 out‑of‑school suspension days for the cohort to zero students with more than 10 OSS days. Robinson said about 14% of students served transitioned back to less‑restrictive environments during the year.
The presentation listed classroom counts by site, including five classrooms at Gentian (a mix of district and Chancelight staff), four at Mary Buckner Academy, two at Allen Elementary, two at Blackman Road Middle, two at Midland Middle, three at Double Churches Middle, and multiple high‑school placements at Shaw, Kendrick and Northside. Robinson said 47 students were served in the district’s therapeutic day program during the last reporting period.
Officials emphasized financial impacts: meeting federal/state special‑education indicators saved the district from losing an estimated 15% of a special‑education funding line (Robinson said that loss would have equaled roughly $1.3 million); keeping students in‑district rather than sending them to residential treatment avoids substantially larger costs, Robinson said, estimating roughly $200,000 per residential placement and citing a notional $9.4 million avoidance number when aggregated.
Board members asked for additional cost detail and for the administration to provide a full “all‑in” cost accounting for the Chancelight contract, including the district’s own staff costs that support the program. Several board members praised the program’s outcomes and encouraged trustees to visit classrooms to see the work firsthand.
The presentation was an informational update; no substantive contract change was approved at the June 23 meeting.
