Special education costs evaluated in Millstone

Afather would like to see the Millstone Township School District keep more special needs students inhouse rather than send them out of district.

Kevin McGovern, who serves on the Board of Education, has a 6-year-old daughter who attends special education classes in the district. He said serving more special needs children in the district could result in significant cost savings. He stressed that he was giving his personal view and was not speaking as a member of the board.

During the Feb. 9 board meeting, a preliminary budget presentation reported that the school district has set a goal this year to develop strategies for returning special needs students to the district. While the district has seen a drop in overall student enrollment, its special needs student population continues to increase.

This year, the district has 29 students in special needs classes. Next year, the number is expected to rise to 32.

Superintendent of Schools Mary Anne Donahue said that the school district pays an average tuition cost of $53,000 for outof district special needs students. She said the tuition cost for students with "severe needs" can be $60,000-$70,000. Tuition does not cover the cost of transportation. The district currently pays $321,208 in transportation costs to the Monmouth Ocean Educational Services Commission (MOESC) for out-of-district special needs students.

By law the district must fund special education tuition and transportation costs.

The school district's Business Administrator Bernard Biesaida said that two unanticipated out-of-district placements this year have cost the district over $100,000 in tuition plus transportation costs.

Donahue said she would like the school district to include the start-up funding for a new special education class for severely handicapped students in the 2009-10 budget. She said the program would have an estimated cost of $247,000, with the bulk of the funding going to train one teacher, instructional aides, a behavioralist, and an occupational/ physical therapist for the program.

McGovern said if the school district could train the personnel and keep them, the cost of the program would drop in its second year. McGovern said that in-district schooling

would not be right for all special needs students. "No child should be returned to the district unless that child's needs can be fully and fairly met," he said. "It is important to remember that while bringing students back in district can be beneficial to both the student and the community, this will not always be the case." He said the district has

been making progress with bringing out-ofdistrict placements back. Last year, three out-of-district students returned, which saved approximately $136,000 in tuition payments, he said.

"However, the district spent roughly $110,000 on new out-of-district placements and increased costs for existing out-ofdistrict placements," he said. "So, even when we have some success on this issue, those successes are offset by additional needs and costs, which cannot be budgeted for."

McGovern said the school district will keep treading water if it does not expand its range of in-district special needs services.

"In fact, given the increasing number of special needs students that I think we can expect in the coming years, the real question is how long we can keep treading water?" he asked.

McGovern said the problem is coming up with the money to fund new, in-district programs.

"Unless we can find the will to adopt new budgets, we will have a problem that will only get more severe with time, given the statistics," he said.

McGovern said Mercer County has a county-wide special needs school district.

"It's a model Monmouth County should look at," he said, adding that a district's special education costs would be shared with other districts throughout the county with such a program.

McGovern, an attorney, has been a member of the Governor's Council on the Prevention of Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities since 2005. He said the council has received information indicating that one in 99 children in New Jersey have autism, whereas the country's average is one in 150 children. He said that if this information is accurate, the state must expect more children "coming through the doors" for special needs classes.