LGISD Reports 411 Students in Special Education, Addresses Evaluation and Funding Challenges
During the La Grange School Board metting on Monday, Nov. 17, Codi Kadlecek gave the board a report on the special education program at LGISD including numbers of students currently in the program and numbers of students currently being evaluated.
She stated that there are currently 411 students in the program. Of these 411 students, 151 receive speech services, 170 receive dyslexia services, 268 are in the resource program, 56 are in the self-contained program, 7 are in the VAC (vocational adjustment class) program, and 113 are mainstreamed in the classrooms.
There have been 64 students referred for initial evaluations so far this year.
Some statistics on those 64 evaluations
• 39 evaluations have been completed
• 25 are in progress
Referrals have come from the following:
• 34 parent requested
• 30 campus requested
• 18 came from private schools or ECI (early childhood intervention - a program serving children from birth to age 3) She then explained what the role that public schools have in servicing private schools and home schools..
She said “We (as a district) are under the obligation to test any kid that lives within our region if requested. We have to offer what we would consider is FAPE, (free and appropriate education) within the school system. If they choose to not come here, then we send them a letter that says, they did not want to take us up on our offer.
“We are ready, willing, and able at any point in time to serve your students based on the individualized education plan that we have created.
“They request us to do the evaluation. And then we have to do the evaluation, make a recommendation, then they can stay at the private school. So given the increased funding, the assumption is we’re going to see more requests. They (private schools) can actually get up to $30,000 instead of the allotted $10,000 given to public schools.
Kadlecek continued, “Currently we’re paying $1,200 to do an evaluation. And the state’s only going to give us $1,000 back. Also, that money is not going to the Special Education accounts, it’s going to the General Education accounts. I want to reiterate that this is all federal. So everything you’re hearing is coming down from the federal government.
“The state of Texas does not like to match the federal law, so then I have to go be the bad guy and say, I understand that the state of Texas says that we don’t have to follow certain guidelines, but the federal government says that we do.”