Nate, the district’s new director of special education, briefed the board on his department’s first-year priorities: strengthening compliance processes, rolling out EdPlan for IEP documentation, implementing a ticketing system to expedite school requests, and aligning allocations through a ‘critical needs’ application.

Nate described manuals and tutorials tied to the IEP framework designed to reduce clerical errors and streamline eligibility and prior written notices. He highlighted a new ticket system for requests (transportation, passwords and other operational needs), which has generated 349 tickets since September and allows the central office to escalate and track responses.

On instructional support, staff outlined a critical-needs application process to allocate base FTE and then allow schools to request additional resources based on documented student need. Nate said school teams will drive individual decisions and that the district will work to be equitable across sites.

Nate also shared early benchmark data (not comprehensive) indicating promising trends on some alternate-assessment measures and noted district-wide special-education rates of about 17% at the elementary level and 10% in secondary, equating to roughly 14% overall. He recommended continued development of cohort tracking to provide more longitudinal evidence of student progress.

Board members asked about compliance, access to provider services (SLPs, instructional coaches), and how minutes-based services (SCRAM) are recorded; Nate said the district is “doing okay on timelines” but can tighten systems further and that EdPlan and the ticket workflow should improve responsiveness.

Next steps: Nate will return with more comprehensive winter benchmark data and further implementation details for the ticketing system, critical-needs application and training schedule.