Note: This story has been updated to include a recap from the March 24 special budget meeting.
Wake County Public School System (WCPSS) is compiling what district officials are calling “perhaps one of the most challenging budgets to prepare in the past 20 years” for the coming academic year, and $18 million worth of special education funding is on the chopping block.
WCPSS would eliminate about 130 special education teacher positions next school year, according to an email to staff last week by Lisa Allred, the assistant superintendent for special education services. Since WCPSS currently has 1,453 special education teachers according to district spokesperson Lisa Luten, that translates to a 9% reduction in force.
The cuts would affect cross-categorical resource special education teachers, who do not teach within a single classroom but instead support special education students and implement their individual education plans, or IEPs, school-wide.
“I think this would be devastating,” Laura Huntington, a special education instructional assistant at Carver Elementary School in Wendell, told the INDY last week. “All of our classrooms have been strained to the breaking point, but especially our [special education] classrooms. Cutting these positions isn’t going to eliminate the needs of the students, it’s just going to displace them into already-overwhelmed classrooms that can’t meet their needs.”
In addition to herself, Huntington’s pre-K classroom has one teacher and 18 students, about half of whom have IEPs and receive special education services—meaning they may have learning or developmental disabilities or be on the autism spectrum. Huntington and the teacher she works with are specially trained to support those students’ needs.
When one or a few students in her classroom need personal attention, the rest of the class can easily get out of hand. Recently, during a particularly difficult moment where one student was kicking, punching, and “tearing up the classroom,” she called for extra support on her school’s walkie talkie system but nobody responded.
“We were already stretched so thin, the people who were available to help were already dealing with other issues in the school, with other students,” Huntington said. “Making cuts is the exact opposite of what needs to be done.”
Less money, more need
WCPSS knows that the need for special educators is growing.
“Over the past several years, more students are receiving special education services, and more of those students need additional support, specialized staff, or services outside their school,” Luten wrote in an email to the INDY.
According to Luten, WCPSS has for several years been using federal carryover funds— leftover, unobligated grant money from past budget cycles—to cover rising special education costs. Those funds have now run out. Meanwhile, other expenses within the special education department, including health insurance costs and state-mandated salary increases, have gone up.
The special education budget cuts aren’t happening in a vacuum. WCPSS Chief Operating Officer David Neter reminded the school board last week that ongoing federal funding for public education is uncertain and North Carolina still doesn’t have a budget. Meanwhile, WCPSS’s operating costs, insurance premiums, and the share of funding for charter schools are all rising. Because of all the uncertainty and cost increases, next year’s schools budget probably won’t include any funding for new programs or expansions of existing programs.
Neter said WCPSS expects to ask Wake County for an additional $25 million in funding for next year’s budget, even though the district’s need is “far in excess of that 25 million.” (The county has routinely increased the district’s budget by about $50 million annually for the past several years.) Neter said WCPSS isn’t asking for the full amount it says it needs in part “based on what is projected to be the county’s capacity to fund,” noting that Wake County has lowered its property tax revenue projections for next year.
Christina Cole, president of the Wake County chapter of the North Carolina Association of Educators (Wake NCAE) and a special education teacher, called the cuts to special education “absolutely unacceptable.”
“When the state and federal government are proposing cuts, it is the responsibility of the county to generate revenue to fund our public schools,” Cole said in a Facebook Live after last week’s school board meeting.
Wake NCAE’s number one ask to the district this budget cycle was for more special education funding: more behavioral support positions per school, higher pay for special educators, and lower caseloads. The union polled its members and found that funding increases for special education was their top priority. It also calculated that a 0.01% property tax increase would pay for 200-plus new hires, a $200 monthly pay raise for special educators, and more.
According to Cole, since November, Wake NCAE has gathered over 2,000 petition signatures and met with six of nine school board members, Taylor, and Allred in support of its special education campaign. The union—along with WCPSS parents and students—organized protests outside several schools around the district last week to protest the planned cuts and call on district superintendent Robert P. Taylor to reverse course before he presents his budget proposal to the school board on April 7.
In response to the public outcry, school board chair Tyler Swanson called a special board meeting for Tuesday to continue discussing the special education budget.
For nearly five hours, the Wake County school board grilled superintendent Taylor and his staff about the plan. In a rare display of unity for a board that often cleaves along partisan lines, every member expressed opposition to the proposed cuts.
“I am not in favor of balancing budgets on the backs of our most vulnerable students,” Swanson declared.
Top district staff sat at a long table beneath the board’s dais as if they were testifying at a hearing. Board members took turns questioning and berating them: Why did the board receive inconsistent, incomplete information about the special education budget for months? Why did the district notify teachers of impending layoffs before the annual budget was even approved? Why didn’t staff sound the alarm about dwindling federal grant funds until March, when they knew about the problem in the fall?
“We should have been talking about this for the last six, seven months,” said board member Sam Hershey.
Multiple board members asked district staff if they’d taken time to hear from the special education teachers at risk of losing their jobs. They hadn’t.
Board member Toshiba Rice pondered out loud the possibility of making a motion to fire Taylor. And she wasn’t the only one who made her displeasure known.
“I don’t think the solutions that were offered here really reflect an understanding of staff and family needs,” board member Chris Heagarty said. He added that this wasn’t the first incident of poor communication between district staff and the board.
“You have to get a handle on this,” Heagarty urged the superintendent. “This is unacceptable.”
Swanson said he’d received “hundreds, if not thousands” of concerned emails about the proposed cuts, and indicated he would not support a budget proposal that included them. To make up the $18 million, he suggested reducing non-academic roles like central office staff or assistant principals.
What Will Happen to Those 130 Teachers?
Luten told the INDY that WCPSS has enough teacher turnover each year that the district expects to be able to place most of the laid-off special education teachers into other, newly-vacant positions at the end of this school year.
“We expect to be able to keep all of the special education teachers who are on continuing contracts, and many of those that are on terminating contracts,” Luten said.
Part of the reason Allred notified special education staff of the cuts ahead of Taylor unveiling his budget proposal is so that teachers can apply to vacant positions as they open.
Intent Versus Impact
Allred’s email said special education teacher ratios would “remain within or below state-recommended ranges” after the cuts. North Carolina recommends that public school districts maintain ratios of no more than 35 elementary students and no more than 50 middle or high school students per cross-categorical resource special education teacher. Currently, WCPSS’ ratios are 1 to 20 in elementary schools, 1 to 24 in middle schools, and 1 to 37 in high schools, Luten told the INDY. Next year, after the cuts, the ratios will be 1 to 25 in elementary schools, 1 to 30 in middle schools, and 1 to 40 in high schools.
The state’s recommendations help ensure special education students receive the additional support outlined in their IEPs, which are legally binding documents. Luten stressed that after the cuts, students “will continue to receive all services outlined in their IEPs.”
Huntington, the special education instructional assistant, isn’t so sure.
“I think the reality is that it’s going to be very difficult for students to receive the services that they need,” she said.
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