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Special education report: district sees higher classification rate since COVID; district adds staff and a school-based mental health clinic
Summary
Wappingers Central School District’s special education presenter summarized a rising classification rate driven by COVID-era learning loss and mental-health impacts, described program expansions, and said the district added staff via a recovery grant and partnered with Open Doors Family Services to open a school-based clinic.
Richard Zip presented the 2024–25 annual special education report to the Wappingers Central School District Board of Education on June 2, saying the district is seeing an increase in classification rates since the COVID pandemic and describing program and staffing changes intended to respond to student needs.
Zip (special education presenter) told the board the district’s official classification rate for 2023–24 was 17.6 percent and that preliminary 2024–25 estimates place the rate around 18.3 percent once state data are finalized. He said the most significant drivers are “the impact of COVID, learning loss and the mental health issues” and identified increases in speech-and-language impairments and other health‑impaired (OHI) classifications as the largest contributors.
Zip described program growth across the district: most elementary…
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