Lake Forest reports rising special-education enrollment, expands in-district programs as outside tuition climbs

The Lake Forest Board of Education on Feb. 13 heard a detailed specialty-education briefing showing a steady rise in students with individualized education programs, the expansion of in-district therapeutic classroom seats and mounting tuition pressures for placements outside the district.

Michelle Ullman, presenting the district's special programs report, said the district's special-education population is roughly one-fifth of total enrollment and that staff and program capacity have increased to match demand. "This year, we have 749 special-education students, resulting in about 20 percent of our population," Ullman said. She later cited slightly different slide figures (739) for identified students, which she said reflected how counts can change during enrollment and reconciliation.

The report outlined staffing growth in related services: speech-language staff rose from six to seven, occupational therapists increased from zero to two (with a third OT just starting), and behavioral-health specialists grew from one to four. Ullman described expanded in-district programming intended to reduce reliance on costly outside placements, including two HighRoads classrooms (an elementary K–4 classroom with nine seats, five students enrolled; a 5–8 middle classroom with nine seats, two students enrolled) and a middle/high arrangement for older students. She said the district also buys seats at private programs and uses consortium placements when students require services the district does not provide.

District finance presenter Curt Keltner framed how special-education "units" translate into multiple funding lines. He told the board that converting identified students into locally counted "division 1" teacher units brings additional funding across several categories: teacher salary money, Division 2 AOC funding (which he said had been $2,925 per AOC unit in the current figures), Division 2 energy funds and Division 3 educational sustainment and technology funds. Keltner said the governor's recommended state budget includes an inflation factor for some unit funding but noted most per-unit rates have not risen in years.

Ullman and Keltner described several specific drivers of district cost and budgeting decisions. The board was told the district had "cashed in" additional units this year to support in-district HighRoads programming; Ullman said "we did cash in 3 units to pay" toward HighRoads costs, while Keltner earlier referenced "almost 8 units" in broader remarks — a discrepancy the presenters acknowledged reflects different slides and timing of counts during the year. Ullman said those additional teacher/related-service units can represent substantial discretionary funding when combined with associated streams; she referenced a teacher-unit figure mentioned in the state budget discussion as an example of how a teacher unit can be worth roughly $82,000 in one metric, plus ancillary funds that increase the effective value.

Board members pressed for clarity on tuition billed by outside programs. Ullman said the district pays full tuition for consortium placements (Capital and Christina school districts) and a 30 percent share when students are approved for ICT (intensive specialized) placements; the state pays the remaining 70 percent after approval. She said the district had not yet received final tuition bills from Capital and Christina for the year and that those late bills can cause year-to-year variability. Keltner described the state's annual reconciliation process: outside providers submit cost reports to the Department of Education, which then allocates costs back to districts.

Board members also asked about program capacity and supervision rules for occupational therapy assistants (OTAs). Ullman explained supervision requirements: an OT must be employed in order to supervise OT assistants (CODAs), and a single OT can supervise up to three CODAs; she said the district had temporarily contracted part-time OT supervision while building in-district OT capacity.

Ullman described other district supports and partnerships: a University of Delaware IEP training project (more than 50 hours of training last year and ongoing school-based PLCs), a year-round 12-month program hosted at Camp Lenape through a partnership with KSI, expansion of the HighRoads program, attendance by related-service staff at national conferences (ASHA, NASP, Council for Exceptional Children, AOTA) and a reading-based summer intervention (UFLY). She also reviewed the district's multilingual-learner screening and WIDA scoring process and explained differences between 504 accommodations (Americans with Disabilities Act) and IEPs (IDEA), noting the district receives no federal funding for 504 accommodations.

Why it matters: board members said the combination of rising identified enrollment, higher outside placement costs and the state's yearly tuition reconciliation makes investment in in-district therapeutic capacity both an educational and fiscal priority. Dr. Lucas and other board members praised staff efforts to expand services but asked for continued monitoring of costs and tuition bills.

The district's financial report for January was placed on the consent docket and later approved by the board as part of routine financial items voted that evening; board members noted unresolved tuition bills from outside providers would be reconciled later when final invoices arrive.

Board discussion closed with direction to continue building in-district options where feasible and to return updated cost and unit-count reconciliations when the outside tuition bills are finalized.