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Student services budget seeks more ETC time, specialized staff, and higher transportation funding
Summary
Director Shannon Nolan asked the committee to convert three elementary special-education ETC (evaluation, transition, case) positions from 0.5 to full-time, add specialized assistants (SLPA, RBT), a TLC coordinator, a part-time school psychologist, and additional special-education transportation funding amid rising in-district services demand.
Director of Student Services Shannon Nolan told the Triton Regional School Committee on Jan. 15 that the FY26 student services budget responds to increasing behavioral and medical complexity among students and seeks to expand in-district capacity.
Nolan asked the committee to convert the three elementary ETC positions (currently 0.5 FTE at each elementary) to full-time roles, saying part-time schedules impede timely IEP meetings, family engagement and compliance with special-education timelines. “The ETC position also includes other responsibilities other than facilitating meetings… meeting deadlines is huge,” she said.
Nut graf: Nolan’s budget request includes staff proposed to reduce out-of-district placements and costly contracted services: a 0.5 speech-language assistant at Newbury to support AAC device work, a 0.5 TLC coordinator to supervise an in-district therapeutic/communication program, a registered behavioral technician (RBT) for elementary Reach programming, a part-time (0.5) or alternatively full-time school psychologist to reduce contracted testing costs, and two instructional assistants to cover potential 1:1 and 18–22 transition program needs. She also requested a roughly $148,000 increase in special-education transportation reflecting in-district placements and monitoring needs.
Nolan said about 11 students in the TLC program use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) devices and that device training and insurance paperwork consumes substantial SLP time: “Most of those students… use an AAC device,” she said, and contracting outside specialists can cost roughly $200 per hour.
She reported lower out-of-district tuition needs this year because the district kept more students in-district and noted a decrease of about $308,000 in out-of-district tuition in the proposed budget. Nolan and administrators flagged rising special-education transportation costs stemming from increased in-district programs, required monitors or nurses on buses, and vendor driver shortages that sometimes require higher-cost alternatives.
Ending: The committee will weigh Nolan’s requests during the FY26 prioritization process; no personnel actions were taken at the meeting.
