Port Jervis reports rising special-education graduation rates and increased Medicaid reimbursements after consent drives

The Port Jervis City School District’s assistant superintendent for pupil personnel services reported to the board that the district has made measurable gains in special education outcomes and in recovering Medicaid reimbursements for related services.

Tanya Duryea said the district’s special education graduation rate has climbed from the low-50s percent range a few years ago to nearly 80 percent today as a result of strategic programming and intensive staff supports. The department is expanding the continuum of services with new resource rooms at the middle and high school levels and is preparing to pilot consultant-teacher services to further support students in-district.

Duryea also described a substantial increase in Medicaid billing after the district addressed a backlog of missing parental initial-consent forms. She told the board that the district had been missing roughly 250 initial consents in 2022 but had reduced that number to about 15 through outreach; that effort and staff changes allowed the district to back-bill and capture reimbursement for services that had not previously been claimed, including an estimated $77,000 in counseling billing recovered after arranging an MOA and licensed clinicians.

Board members asked technical follow-up questions about lookback periods and which services are billable. Duryea said allowable lookbacks depend on documentation (for example, RSS logs) and typically extend about six months; she said nursing services generally cannot be billed to Medicaid unless explicitly written into a student’s IEP. Staff discussed variation in reimbursement by service type (individual counseling often reimburses at a higher rate than group services or speech therapy), and board members expressed interest in a claims analysis comparing historical reimbursement by service type.

Duryea highlighted expanded work-based learning and CTE opportunities for students with disabilities, including regular community placements (Salvation Army, Pike Street, Ball Street, ShopRite, Price Chopper) and partnerships to support transition to postsecondary education or employment. She said the district works with AccessVR and the Office for People With Developmental Disabilities (OPWDD) to help students with IEPs pursue employment supports, assistive technology and preemployment programs.

The district’s presentation tied to finance and operations: board members and the auditor noted the district’s clean audit opinion and fiscal standing as a factor that strengthens its position for upcoming financing decisions discussed later in the meeting.

Quotes from the meeting: - “District got a clean opinion and unqualified report,” auditor Mark Levy said of the year’s audit. - “Essentially, pupil personnel services are all legally required services to support all children so all children can benefit and access their education,” Tanya Duryea told the board.

What happens next: Board members requested further claims analysis and data disaggregation; staff said they will follow up with comparisons of historical claims by service type and pursue consultant-teacher implementation and the pilot timeline. The district also anticipates an ongoing state audit related to transition planning (Indicator 13) and said it expects a positive outcome.

Article provenance (transcript evidence): topicintro: SEG 119; topfinish: SEG 676