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Director of student support services reports rising special-education caseload and evaluation workload
Summary
Director Nikki Martin told the board that special-education enrollment has hovered around 500 students districtwide and detailed workload pressures: 1,186 CPSE/CSC meetings, 269 IEP amendments, 67 initial CPSE evaluations, 21 school-age initial evaluations and 170 reevaluations; the district also declassified 25 students this year.
Nikki Martin, the district’s director of student support services, presented special-education data and said the district’s K–12 special-education counts have hovered near 500 since 2021, representing roughly 18–20% of students. She said the district has absorbed evaluations previously provided by outside agencies and that staff conducted 1,186 CPSE and CSC meetings in the past year. "Our total CPSE and CSC meetings were 1,186," Martin said.
Martin reported 269 IEP amendments during the year and 67 CPSE initial evaluations. For school-age initial evaluations she cited 21 cases, and she said the district completed 170 reevaluations. She also said the district had declassified 25 students so far in the 2023–24 year—12 preschool CPSE declassifications and 13 school-age CSC declassifications—which she described as part of efforts to return students to the least restrictive environment where appropriate.
Presenters said placements shifted in part because some students returned from out-of-district or residential programs and required self-contained settings before reintegration. Martin and other staff emphasized that declassification is followed by monitoring and support: students declassified after eighth grade retain testing accommodations and others receive D-class support services for a year to ensure continued progress.
The presentation included a discussion of efforts to reduce suspensions and improve graduation outcomes through functional behavior assessments and behavior intervention plans; staff said those efforts are connected to LRE goals. Board members asked whether suspension data for the special-education population showed improvement, and presenters said initial indications suggested some decreases but that full-year data were still pending.
