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Board weighs revised special services restructuring after staff feedback
Summary
After staff input and listening sessions, the district presented a second restructuring option that retains six school psychologist FTEs (with ~0.4 FTE sold via purchased-service agreement), reduces the ECSE coordinator role and creates two assistant director positions. Board members pressed for clarity on impacts to buildings and professional development funding.
The board heard a revised, "option two" reconfiguration for the special services department on April 13, presented by Caleb Davidson, incoming director of special services.
Davidson said listening sessions with early childhood and elementary teams produced feedback on the initial proposal and that the second option "reduces the early childhood special education coordinator position to design and build two assistant director positions" while keeping administrative coverage in buildings more consistent. He said the district would keep six FTE school psychologists but seek to sell about 0.4 FTE to a neighboring district under a purchased-service arrangement: "we would most likely have one of our school psychologists work with another district two days a week through a purchased-service agreement," he said.
Board members focused questions on implementation details: how the 0.4 FTE split would be scheduled and whether the assistant directors would be available to respond in building crises; Davidson said the assistant directors would be based in buildings and could support de-escalation and IEP/LEA responsibilities when on site. Several members asked whether proposal two adequately addressed staff concerns, noting that it reduces available PD funds and that retaining school psychologists in each building was a key staff ask.
Administrators noted trade-offs: proposal two is less costly for staff satisfaction but yields fewer savings than the original proposal. Dr. Hillmann and Val Mersterf framed the discussion within broader budget-restoration options the board is considering, including restoring HR and instructional-services leadership positions and partial restoration of a high-school dean role.
What's next: The board will continue discussion of budget restorations and may act at the April 27 meeting on restoration items; special services restructuring remains under review as administrators refine costs and stakeholder feedback.
