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Schools

BOE to Increase Special Education Staff

School district to use federal funds for special services coordinator.

Westfield Public Schools plans to use federal stimulus funds to hire a full-time behavioral counselor to improve the district's ability to help students who need special services.

The position would be financed by funds received by the district from Congress' stimulus package earlier this year, formally called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA.

The goal for the new employee would be "to build capacity within the district with staff and parents," to support students who need special services, said Theodore Kozlik, assistant superintendent for pupil services.

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The main goal would be helping parents understand what kind of development to expect from children with special needs and ways to best deal with their cases, he said. The district chose to take its share of those funds over two years instead of one, which still means that the board would have to decide what to do with the position when the federal funding runs out.

"The idea would be that the capacity would remain even after the funding doesn't," said Schools Superintendent Margaret Dolan.

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The plan came up at the Board of Education meeting on Tuesday when the district was presenting the special services portion of the 2009-2010 budget, as a way of preparing the board for working on the 2010-2011 budget.

The district received $262,000 in ARRA funds for the 2009-2010 school year and expects a similar amount for next year.

This new employee would teach the district, including its teachers, support staff and parents, a process and communication method that the district could continue on its own, Board President Ginny Leiz summed up.

Budget breakdown

Kozlik also detailed what went into the current school year's budget for special services, which, excluding salary, benefits and related costs, account for 9.3-percent of the district's 2009-2010 budget, or about $7.88 million.

"I think we're pretty efficient the ways we expend funds," Kozlik said. "Some of that has to do with the wealth of the district's parents" and more willingness to share costs of some services, for example.

The bulk of the special services budget, $6.57 million, goes to fund the 98 students in out-of-district placement, according to his presentation and information on the district's web site.

"It's a tidy sum of funds but in the end, it saves quite a bit of money" instead of funding staff, facilities and other aspects of serving students with special needs, he said.

About 18% of the district's students, or around 1,100 children, receive special services. The state average is about 17.5-percent of students, Kozlik said.

The district spends an average of $10,098 per student receiving special services on salaries, benefits and related costs for all of the special services teachers, paraprofessionals, and support staff including school psychologists, speech, physical and occupational therapists and the like.

That compares to an average of $10,680 per every student for salaries, benefits and related costs.

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