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Bend-LaPine board hears $20 million integrated-programs review amid special-education staffing strain
Summary
Deputy Superintendent Lisa Burke and student-services leaders briefed the Bend-LaPine School Board on how about $20 million in integrated-program funds were spent on CTE, Wayfinder SEL, newcomer supports and that the district faces acute special-education staffing shortages after an increase in IEPs and 504 plans.
Deputy Superintendent Dr. Lisa Burke told the Bend-LaPine School Board at its November meeting that the district’s integrated programs — a group of grant-funded streams including the Student Investment Account, high-school success funds and early-literacy dollars — total roughly $20,000,000 and are focused on career and technical education, standards-based grading supports and social‑emotional learning.
“The fact is we haven’t done new and exciting big different spending,” Burke said, describing the dollars as being redirected toward long-standing priorities including CTE development and substitute time for teacher collaboration. She flagged one recent use: “We spent about $200,000 in the last year for renovations related to air‑duct quality for woodworking spaces.”
The presentation included a wider student‑services overview from Executive Director Sean Reinhardt, who outlined partnerships with Healthy Schools, Mosaic Community Health, Trillium Behavioral Health and St. Charles; he said school nurses and counselors are central to supporting students with chronic conditions and mental-health needs.
Reinhardt said the district currently serves roughly 2,600 students with Section 504 plans and IEPs and that, “over the last five years, coming out of COVID, we identified an additional 264 students who have IEPs,” creating caseload pressure without a proportional staffing increase.
Multiple board members pressed administrators for more granular data. Director (unnamed in the transcript) asked how integrated-program dollars are allocated to individual schools; Burke said each school receives an allocation used primarily for staffing and that she did not have site-by-site line items available at the meeting but would provide additional detail.
Administrators and directors repeatedly identified special‑education staffing as a persistent challenge. Burke said rural and less‑populous regions show an acute shortage of special‑education professionals and that hiring outside the typical February–April window is difficult. School staff also reported increased needs related to students with limited English proficiency and rising mental‑health supports.
Administrators noted additional resources in the pipeline: a biennial grant agreement will come to the board for approval at the next meeting to continue receiving integrated-program dollars, and the district said it would supply the requested breakdowns of counts and service allocations in board materials and follow-up emails.
What’s next: The board will receive the formal grant agreement for the next biennium at a future meeting and the district said it would circulate the detailed service and staffing breakdown the board requested.
