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Burbank Unified unveils live special‑education staffing tracker and flags heavy agency use
Summary
District staff presented a new live staffing spreadsheet for special education showing site‑level IEP counts and FTEs and a notable reliance on nonpublic agency hires; trustees asked for further analysis on agency costs, outcomes and whether pay or hiring practices should change.
District special‑education leaders presented a new, site‑level staffing snapshot to the board on Jan. 15 that the department said will make head counts and FTEs more transparent and provide a baseline for staffing formulas.
Jennifer Nicholson, the director of special education, and Alex Potapenko, who helped build a live Google Sheets system, walked trustees through examples at SEED (Horace Mann), Emerson Elementary, Huerta Middle School and Burroughs High. Nicholson and Potapenko explained how the report reconciles enrollment, the number of students with IEPs and the FTE calculation used for certificated and classified positions.
The presentation highlighted inconsistencies that can appear when counting students who receive speech‑only services or when agency staff supplement district hires. Nicholson said the work produced a “baseline that we’re able to see where we are at a given point in time.” Potapenko described the new tracking as a two‑way system that lives at school sites and feeds information back to the district.
Trustees pressed for sharper breakdowns. Dr. Weisberg said her review pointed to more than 20 certificated and about 140 classified nonpublic agency (NPA) positions in special education — a heavy reliance that increases cost and can affect continuity of service. “Out of the 100‑plus classified and 20‑plus certificated, how many of those are flown and not filled?” she asked, seeking the number of posted but unfilled district positions versus agency hires.
District leaders said the majority of those NPAs reflect positions that were posted and could not be filled, leading to expensive agency alternatives. Nicholson said the team is using the data to develop staffing formulas — for example, how many aides a classroom needs to run a program effectively — and to identify where changes should be proposed for the next school year. Board members asked for follow‑up analysis on: agency costs compared with district pay; utilization and deployment (how itinerant staff are reassigned when students are absent); and correlations between staffing patterns and student IEP outcomes.
Trustees and staff agreed the new tracker is a first step. The board asked staff to return with clarified metrics — including agency versus district employee counts, a timeline for interdepartmental access (HR and business services), and proposed targets for staffing formulas — so trustees can weigh fiscal tradeoffs alongside instructional needs.
