Background

Fair Student Funding gradually shifts funding for special education away from funding per class type and toward funding for student needs. In doing this, FSF aims to help reinforce that:

• Special education students are a wholly integral part of a school, not a separate subset of students. FSF aims to eliminate the view of special education as strictly prescriptive, immovable, and segregated from the kinds of innovative thinking that occurs in general education.
• Special education students are also eligible for poverty, ELL and academic intervention weights. Funds generated from these weights should be used in addition to the special education weights to support the needs of special education students.
• The full continuum of services is available to serve students: Schools receive per-student funding based on the number of periods a day that a student requires special education services, rather than funding based on a specific service delivery model. This should increase schools’ flexibility to develop service delivery models or a combination of models tailored to meet the individual needs of the students.

Policy

Schools will receive per-student funding based on the number of periods a day that a student requires special education services. Fair Student Funding will cover only special education classroom services in non-District 75 schools.

While promoting innovation and flexibility, the Department is committed to providing all services required by the Individualized Education Program (IEP).

For self-contained and Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT) students at the elementary and middle schools only, the Department will initially allocate and fund a full class in anticipation of greater classroom utilization after the start of the school year. This means that funding will come for “filled seats” and “unfilled seats”.

Schools will be adjusted as of December 31, 2008, for special education classes and seats. This year, if a school has unfilled seats as of December 31, funding will be removed for all but two of them. The only exceptions to the funding removal are:

• Capped classes and low incidence classes will not lose funding based on confirmation from the Office of Student Enrollment and Planning (OSEPO) that students have not been turned away.
• Determination regarding funding adjustments will be made based on a review of the wait list at that time.

In conjunction with the FSF needs adjustment, the grade weight will also be adjusted based on the audited October 31 registers for general and special education students. A second adjustment will be applied to the grade weight for increase in total enrollment between October and December stemming from an increase in special education registers.

The Fair Student Funding formula generates sufficient resources to support the classroom/basic paraprofessional in a 12:1:1 self-contained setting. No additional funding will be provided.

Special education students also are eligible for the poverty, ELL, and academic intervention weights. Therefore, significant other resources will be available to fund the needs of these students.

Eligibility

The table below provides a summary of the types of services that map to each category of special education funding:

FSF Category	Previous Classification
Less than 20%	Special Education Teacher Support Services (SETSS)
Between 20% and 60%	Multiple SETSS, Part-time Collaborative Team Teaching (CTT)
Greater than 60% Self-contained	Self-contained students including 12:1, 12:1:1 and 15:1
Greater than 60% Integrated	CTT

Detail on Policy:

• In Greater than 60% categories, funding is given as “filled” and “unfilled” seats. By funding school upfront for the cost of a CTT or self-contained class, even though the special education register for the class has not reached maximum number of special education students, it is possible for schools to hire teachers when doing the rest of their budget planning.
• Schools may receive an upward or downward modification to their special education weight allocations on June 15, 2008. OSEPO will work with schools before that date to determine whether the class configurations initially funded are the most appropriate ones given the needs of the students at that school and the overall needs of the district. Schools are expected to open all classes projected at the June 15, 2008 adjustment, in order to assure appropriate funding.
• Funding will be removed at mid-year—December 31—for all but two unfilled seats. The money for unfilled seats is given with the full expectation that seats will fill as OSEPO continues to place special education students throughout the year.
• Schools will receive a grade weight adjustment based on total enrollment. For schools that receive an class equivalent allocation, a second adjustment will provided for overall increase in registers between October and December due to increase in special education enrollment.
• An important note on CTT classes: Schools must organize CTT classes with the requisite number of general education students to allow placement of special education students up to the maximum allowable or funding for all unfilled seats will be removed. Regardless of the number of students a CTT class starts out with at the beginning of the year, classes must be programmed with the full complement of general education students in line with the contractual class size for general education classes at grade level, leaving seats for up to 12 students with IEPs. The only exception is for a class size of 20 that can be increased to 25 students. In schools with reduced class size funding, CTT classes are considered “reduced” with a total class size at 25.