Optimize presenters outline statewide plan to attract, prepare and retain Michigan special-education staff

LANSING — Consultants for Optimize, a state-funded special-education capacity project, briefed the House Appropriations Subcommittee on School Aid and the Department of Education on progress Tuesday, saying the initiative aims to overhaul how Michigan attracts, prepares and retains special-education personnel.

Optimize project consultant Laurie Vander Ploeg told the committee the effort, funded through the School Aid Act (authorized under a 94d appropriation), began in 2021 and started work in 2022. “Optimize is a project that’s intended to build statewide capacity. This is not a project that’s intended to just build pockets of excellence across the state,” Vander Ploeg said.

The presentation outlined a mix of policy recommendations, marketing and program work designed to increase the supply of qualified special-education staff statewide and to reduce attrition. Kathy Fortino, project manager for Optimize, described the project as a partnership-driven effort that has convened roughly 500 partners and produced multiple action teams focused on barriers to staffing, credentialing, paperwork reduction, behavior supports and compensation.

Committee members were shown Optimize’s public-facing website and a job portal that the presenters said lists about 3,000 posted positions;…