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York County presented $2.5 million Title VI-B special-education plan; district to submit application by May 10
Summary
Director of Special Education Maine Hopkins presented the division’s 2025–26 Title VI-B annual plan, outlining proposed allocations of $2,500,426 (a decrease of about $81,000), preschool funds, required set-asides, staffing funded by the grant and the two-year award period.
Maine Hopkins, York County’s director of special education, presented the school division’s proposed 2025–26 annual plan for federal Title VI-B funds at the March 24 York County School Board meeting and said the board will be asked to consent to the application before it is submitted to the Virginia Department of Education by May 10.
Hopkins told the board the division is applying for $2,500,426 in Section 611 funds (the main Part B allocation), a reduction of about $81,000 from the prior year. She said Section 619 (preschool special-education funds) is proposed at $54,309, a $257 decrease from the previous year. The division’s proportionate set-aside for parentally placed (private or homeschooled) students is $3,083, Hopkins said, and historically those funds have been used to provide speech-language services to eligible parentally placed students.
Hopkins described how the grant request is primarily for salaries and benefits. The proposed 6-11 allocation would fund the equivalent of 19.4 special-education teachers and a complement of paraeducator positions, one registered behavior technician, one interpreter, two oral communication facilitators, one speech pathologist and one special-education coach; Hopkins noted the “funded” column in the grant application does not reflect the division’s total special-education staffing.
She explained restricted indirect costs are calculated at 2.5% of the award and amount to $60,986. Hopkins also presented the division’s two-year grant period, which would run from July 1, 2025, through Sept. 30, 2027.
Hopkins reviewed the division’s broader special-education expenditures, citing nearly $27 million spent on special-education programming in the prior year and noting the local share covered roughly $18,718,773 of that total, with state funds at $5,262,454 and federal funds at $2,710,344. She reiterated the division meets the federal maintenance-of-effort requirement (MOE).
Board members asked questions about the drop of roughly $81,000 in the award amount; Hopkins said she could not identify a single cause but noted the state determines award amounts and that factors such as enrollment and poverty counts influence allocations.
Board members also asked about a newly budgeted registered behavior technician position. Hopkins said registered behavior technicians are credentialed and supervised by a lead BCBA in the division; they receive specialized training in behavior assessment and management that goes beyond paraeducator training and currently serve elementary-school needs, such as check-in/check-out supports, individual behavior-regulation assistance, and program-level behavior supports.
Hopkins closed by saying the next steps are to obtain board consent as presented and submit the application to the Virginia Department of Education by May 10 as required by state timelines.
