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Goochland schools report rise in special-education enrollment; officials warn of added costs
Summary
School leaders told supervisors that special-education enrollment has increased and that the intensity of some students' needs can cause substantial, hard-to-predict fiscal impacts. Officials described the child-study process and said they will calculate more precise costs for the board.
School officials told Goochland County supervisors that special-education enrollment has risen recently and that the range of student needs creates fiscal uncertainty for the FY27 budget.
Dr. Armstrong said the division has seen a steady increase in enrollment over the past two years, and that of 47 recent new enrollees, roughly half were students receiving special-education services. He said the division's staff have launched a housing-yield and enrollment study and would report more refined projections in six to eight weeks.
Officials cautioned that special-education services vary widely in intensity and cost. School staff described a child-study process used to evaluate students' educational needs and noted that while some students come with medical diagnoses, the school-based educational evaluation determines services and placement. "It's a very individualized process that our school psychologists are pretty involved in," Sarah Franklin Murray, director of exceptional education, said.
A county staff member summarized FY24 per-pupil figures used in state reporting: the school's accounting suggested an elementary special-education student cost about $22,900 to educate in FY24 compared with roughly $14,000 for a general-education student, a difference that includes federal, state and local funding. School leaders said legal fees and litigation related to exceptional education have been an added local expense; they also said additional state aid and grant revenue can offset some costs but that precise local impacts require further calculation.
Supervisors requested that the schools produce more specific dollar estimates for anticipated special-education costs so the county can incorporate them into the FY27 local transfer deliberations. School leaders said they will prepare those calculations and return with details.
Next steps: the school division will refine enrollment and special-education cost estimates and provide them to county staff for budget planning ahead of the May decision timeline.
