Committee hears competing views on bill to allow outside ABA providers in schools

The Michigan House Education and Workforce Committee heard more than an hour of testimony on House Bill 50 44, a proposal to permit outside applied behavior analysis (ABA) providers to deliver clinically prescribed services in public schools.

School special-education leaders told the committee the bill’s definition—"any medically necessary service"—is written so broadly that "the gate is wide open," raising the risk that medically billed services will duplicate, crowd out or conflict with services schools must provide under federal special-education law. They said funding, supervision and compliance with IEP procedures are unresolved.

The committee heard from Eric Hopstock, superintendent at Berrien Regional Education Service Agency, who said the bill’s language could force schools to reconcile two separate systems. "It is any medically necessary service. So the gate is wide open," Hopstock said, adding that privately billed clinical services are governed by medical rules and…