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Committee hears special education progress report; IEP compliance and MaineCare billing cited as priorities
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Summary
Special education leaders reported new data systems for IEP compliance, expanded professional development, improved walkthrough results across specialized programs, and outlined limits on MaineCare reimbursement; staff said they will pursue monthly data pulls and training to increase compliance and billing capture.
Jesse Applegate, senior director for special education and student support, told the Curriculum Committee that the district has built new data systems to monitor IEP compliance and is rolling out supports intended to raise on-time completion and accuracy.
Applegate described initiative 2.5 as a five-year plan to strengthen instruction for students with disabilities. He said the district established a new Acuity-based data workflow, added a program manager to manage IEP records, and produces monthly data pulls for coordinators and building leaders. “Because we have that data, we’ve been able to do a number of things, a monthly data pull that we’re sending to coordinators and building leaders on the status of these items,” Applegate said, adding the district also implemented automated reminders to case managers and targeted coworking/training to help finalize IEPs.
Staff speakers outlined professional development and program work: Sarah Rent, director of special education for elementary programs, said the district met its strategic-plan target that 75% of staff find PD relevant and has delivered training on specially designed instruction, crisis prevention and data-informed IEP goal-writing. Tisha McCarthy, director of specialized programs, reported that district walkthroughs show improvement across essential features of specialized classrooms and that piloted curricula (including an autism-focused academic-functional curriculum) will expand in the fall.
Applegate detailed four IEP compliance measures the district is monitoring: timely written notices, IEP completion within 21 days, accurate disability categories/least-restrictive-environment reporting, and correct dates in IEP records. He said some indicators have reached 100% in certain months but overall IEP completion remains about 70% month-to-month and requires further work.
On billing, Applegate explained Portland Public Schools bills MaineCare for speech-language therapy, occupational therapy and physical therapy when three conditions are met: the student has MaineCare, parental consent to release information, and a finalized IEP with required documentation and posted sessions. He said of roughly 646 students receiving at least one related service, 422 had a MaineCare ID, 299 had IDs plus parental consent, and 246 met the documentation and scheduling requirements needed to submit reimbursement. Applegate said staff will continue monthly data pulls, targeted documentation support and regular team meetings to increase capture of eligible reimbursements.
Blake Castle described family engagement activities including a three-part parent-university series (32 attendees at the first in-person session, 21 at the virtual session) and plans to form a parent advisory committee for special education. Staff said they will pilot additional resource-level program models and scheduling tools to better staff services in elementary schools.
Committee members asked for more disaggregated data by grade and ESOL classification and for information on students who have taken ACCESS multiple times. Staff agreed to work with the data team to produce multi-year and grade-level breakdowns and bring follow-up materials to the committee. No formal votes were taken on special-education actions at the meeting.
