Lake Washington School Board hears update on expanding inclusion for students with disabilities

The Lake Washington School Board on Jan. 13 received an update on the district's inclusionary practices for students who qualify for special education services, including demographic trends, district strategies for secondary schools and steps taken to expand student access to general education.

Dr. Holman, a Lake Washington School District administrator, opened the presentation by framing inclusion as a district value and linking it to board operational expectations on learning environments and family engagement. "Inclusion is really about every student, having a place in our schools, learning with their peers, participating fully, being seen for who they are," Dr. Holman said.

The presentation, delivered primarily by Dr. Shannon Hitch, described several data points the district is using to guide inclusion work. Dr. Hitch said special education enrollment has remained roughly stable at about 9.6% of students districtwide, but the proportion of students identified with more complex needs has risen. She told the board the district’s share of students identified in the autism category is roughly 27%, compared with about 13% statewide, and that a third of multilingual learners in the district who qualify for special education are identified under autism.

Why it matters: district officials said the shifting mix of needs — more students with higher-intensity supports — affects staffing, classroom models and secondary transitions. Dr. Hitch said secondary schools face unique structural challenges: multiple teachers, faster-paced schedules, distinct expectations for executive functioning, and greater social complexity as adolescents navigate new peer groups. She said those conditions often increase the supports students need during the move from elementary to middle and middle to high school.

What the district is doing: district leaders described a range of steps taken or underway. The cabinet allocated additional classified staff this year to increase paraeducator and support coverage, and the district has pursued high-cost safety-net submissions to request partial state reimbursement for students who require 1:1 supports. Dr. Hitch said the district purchased targeted professional learning for paraeducators and built paraeducator PLCs and that co-teaching and co-planning remain a primary strategy for inclusion at the secondary level. She said instructional leaders are training MTSS coaches with a special-education focus and that district special education staff are doing sustained in-building coaching.

Data and metrics: Dr. Hitch listed multiple indicators the district is tracking for inclusion, including LRE (least restrictive environment) time-in-general-education data, IEP goal progress, state and local assessment results, Panorama and FastBridge measures, family and student feedback, classroom observations (for example, APERS-type indicators), and postsecondary outcomes. She said the district has reduced the percentage of students spending nearly all of their day in self-contained settings and that these changes have not produced a compensatory increase in mid-tier restriction, indicating movement into general education settings.

Equity concerns: the presenters flagged disproportionality in identification rates. Dr. Hitch said the district over-identifies some groups (for example, higher rates of health-impairment identification among white students and higher risk ratios for Hispanic/Latino students in the specific learning disability category) and under-identifies others. She said the district plans listening sessions with families — including Hispanic/Latino families — and cross-department work with Equity and Student Services to examine assessment, referral and intervention practices.

Secondary-specific accommodations and transition planning: the update explained that secondary IEPs add transition planning addressing post-high-school goals, community agency connections (DDA, DVR), course-of-study planning and work-based learning. Dr. Hitch noted that students may access the supports in their IEP for extracurriculars and overnight trips when required, and she described growing participation in unified sports and unified-school efforts that aim to change school culture.

Public comment and board response: Director Yell, a Lake Washington School Board member, said: "Focusing on students furthest from educational justice ultimately benefits all students," and described concern that some students move from more inclusive elementary settings into more segregated secondary placements over time. Board members and staff agreed to hold a second part of the session to cover remaining slides and questions.

Next steps: leaders said they will hold a follow-up session (a "part 2"), continue district-level listening sessions with families, expand targeted professional learning, and follow up with the board on staffing-fill rates and specific paraeducator counts. No formal votes were taken during the study session.

The meeting adjourned after the board set a date for additional follow-up and invited written questions to Dr. Holman before the continuation session.