Sto‑Rox official outlines plan to bring special‑education services in‑house to reduce costly out‑of‑district placements

Brittany Linson Bigler, Sto‑Rox School District director of student services and Title IX coordinator, told the Financial Recovery Advisory Committee on Nov. 19 that the district is accelerating efforts to provide more special‑education supports inside district buildings and reduce the number of students sent to out‑of‑district programs.

"These are our kids. We can't ignore the fact that our kids have strong needs, so we need to provide strong supports to meet them where they are," Bigler said, summarizing the rationale for expanding in‑district programming and staff training.

Bigler said the district added a second life‑skills classroom and another emotional‑support classroom at the primary center and plans to hire two additional paraprofessionals for that building to provide more in‑house support. At the junior/senior high school she described a full inclusion model and monthly coaching from the Allegheny Intermediate Unit (AIU) to strengthen co‑teaching between regular and special‑education staff.

She presented district cost estimates for last school year, saying "tuition alone is about $1,300,000" for out‑of‑district placements and that, when transportation, extended‑school‑year services, personal‑care assistance and related therapies are added, the total rises to "almost $2,400,000." Bigler also reported the district spends roughly $4,600,000 on third‑party contracted services that relate to special‑education and student services and said the district is examining which services could be provided more cost‑effectively in‑house.

To improve program quality and compliance, Bigler described a new special‑education handbook, stricter guidelines requiring reevaluation before recommending out‑of‑district placement (exceptions for extreme safety incidents), and increased attention to Act 16 reporting and PIMS child‑count accuracy so the district can pursue contingency and IDEA reimbursements.

The presentation outlined training and procedural steps the district has taken: implementing the Unique Learning System curriculum, sending teachers to AIU and Patton trainings, offering CPI de‑escalation training multiple times this year, and piloting updated threat‑assessment procedures at the junior/senior high school. Bigler said the district is also using AIU school‑based access programming to raise Medicaid reimbursements and tracking paraprofessional credentialing so eligible services can be billed.

Committee members praised the work. Leanna (committee member) said she was "seeing really, really positive things," and Steven Ramirez, a research analyst with PFM, said his team is modeling fiscal impacts and will report back to the chief recovery officer and superintendent.

Why this matters: Sto‑Rox reported that roughly 22–25% of its students receive special education — a share it described as significantly above the statewide average — and the district argues that building internal capacity could improve outcomes while reducing reliance on costly outside placements.

Next steps: PFM will return impact calculations to the CRO and superintendent for wider distribution; the advisory committee will reconvene Jan. 28, 2026, when the business manager will preview the 2026‑27 budget.