[geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

[Lionel Peterson]

>From: Mike Hebel <nimitz at nimitzbrood.com>
>Date: 2007/04/13 Fri AM 09:12:40 CDT
>To: The Geeks List <geeks at sunhelp.org>
>Subject: Re: [geeks] New Tech Schools: Digital Harbor in Baltimore

<snip>

>Indeed.  We have to be quite agressive but there are many parents who take
>it to extremes.

In my school district last year, there was *terror* in the school administration building because there was a good chance a profoundly needy child may moveinto our district, but we wouldn't know until August, fully four months after the budget for the school year is set. Now, typically a single child can be absorbed without much fuss, but this child had needs that required whichever school district that child lived in to incur nearly $300,000 in annual expenses.

Don't get me wrong, that child deserves and should get everything s/he is entitled to, but because the education of such children falls squarely on the backs of the local taxpayers (in my district, taxpayers fund 94% of the school budget directly, state and federal aid amounts to only 6%).

Had this child moved into our district, we would have had to make some very tough calls about where to pull $300,000 out of our budget, to the detriment of probably a hundred or more mainstream students ($300K = about 5 full teaching positions) because the funding would have to come from certain areas in the budget.

In my opinion, the state should fund all special needs students, that way funds are always available to meet the needs of the students, and the school district wouldn't be slammed by such a simple thing as a family moving to our district...

That is an *extreme* example, but it is a real example - and for completeness, the total expenditures in our school district for Special Needs students equals about 5% of our school budget, and about 5% of our students receive some benefit from Special Needs programs, from a simple math or reading tutor on up.

Lionel