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Special education pressures: district plans for more in‑house supports as out‑of‑district placements rise
Summary
Special education leaders told the board they expect seven out‑of‑district placements next year and proposed modest staffing increases to expand in‑district capacity (e.g., an additional MHA teacher) to reduce placements and better serve students with high needs.
Special education staff told the board that several factors — increasing complexity of student needs, limited related‑service capacity, and programmatic grade‑span restrictions at Mary Hart Academy (MHA) — are driving a projected rise in out‑of‑district placements and creating budget pressure.
The director said the district is projecting about seven out‑of‑district placements for FY27 and is planning to add staff to reduce reliance on costly placements. At Mary Hart Academy staff proposed adding a teacher to increase capacity for self‑contained students and to permit accepting some younger (sixth‑grade) placements when program mix allows. MHA leadership described current enrollment at 22 students (including two out‑of‑district students) and said they could take more students if additional ed‑tech staffing were filled.
Special education presenters also discussed related service coverage (speech, OT, PT), an expected small increase to speech positions (a 0.5 FTE) and an additional physical‑therapy day to address a backlog of unmet early intervention needs. They revisited past work on Medicaid/MaineCare billing and said administrative overhead and modest net revenue previously limited district uptake; staff agreed to reconsider whether changes in billing tools or partnerships now make it worthwhile.
The board asked for clearer cost and reimbursement estimates for out‑of‑district placements and for scenarios showing how added in‑district staffing would reduce placement numbers and net costs.
