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Pittsburgh Public Schools outlines three-year special-education plan after state monitoring
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Summary
Assistant Superintendent Patty Camper told the education committee the district's state-required three-year special education plan reduces corrective actions from 16 areas to six, but persistent gaps remain in behavior supports, discipline practices, least-restrictive placements, and assessment proficiency for students with disabilities.
Assistant Superintendent Patty Camper presented Pittsburgh Public Schools' state-required three-year special education plan to the Education Committee on April 14, framing it as both a compliance document and "a 3 year road map focused on improving outcomes and reducing variability in services for students with disabilities." The plan, she said, connects monitoring findings and indicator data to targeted corrective actions and longer-term improvement strategies.
Camper told board members that the district's cyclical monitoring by the Bureau of Special Education identified corrective action in 16 of 21 monitored areas during the 2023 cycle; she said that number has been reduced to six for the current planning cycle. "While this reflects significant progress," Camper added, "there remain persistent areas that require focused attention, particularly in positive behavior supports, discipline procedures, extended school year documentation, least restrictive environment implementation, and state assessment outcomes." (Patty Camper)
The presentation walked the board through three indicators that anchor the plan. For Indicator 3 (assessments), presenters said participation among students with disabilities has improved but proficiency on the PSSA/Keystone and the alternate PASA assessments remains below state targets, indicating the need to strengthen instructional quality and alignment. On Indicator 4b (suspensions and expulsions), presenters said the district is currently in a warning status for not meeting state thresholds for two consecutive years for Black students with disabilities removed from instruction 10 days or less, and emphasized expanding proactive, preventative behavior supports districtwide.
To address these patterns, staff described targeted actions including standardized diagnostic tools and a consistent IEP-goal development process, structured data-review cycles tied to instruction, expanded de-escalation and SafetyCare trainings, alternatives to suspension such as restorative practices, and annotated IEP templates to support higher-quality, more consistent plans across schools. Anne Maketa, the district's senior program officer, said the work is intentionally aimed at reducing variability so that successful practices scale from model schools to the whole district.
Board members asked how the problems are distributed across grades and schools. Camper said suspensions are higher in neighborhood high schools than in K–8 campuses and that fighting is the leading category for high-school suspensions. She and other presenters cited social media, increasing independence of older students, and out-of-school stressors as contributing factors to the spike in high-school discipline incidents.
Camper said the plan was developed with a steering committee, focused subcommittees, principal feedback and parent input, and that, pending board approval, it will be submitted to the Bureau of Special Education for review and final approval before implementation planning begins. The administration emphasized the plan's focus on measurable, data-driven changes rather than broad aspirational goals.
The committee did not take a formal vote during the presentation; presenters invited feedback and signaled the plan will return as an action item pending the bureau's review and board approval.
