The Hollister School District faces two issues
– declining enrollment and a perceived over-identification of
special education students – which stand to directly affect both
the quality of education and outside funding levels.
With lingering concerns over funding, the district’s focus on
the two areas comes down to dollars.
The Hollister School District faces two issues – declining enrollment and a perceived over-identification of special education students – which stand to directly affect both the quality of education and outside funding levels.
With lingering concerns over funding, the district’s focus on the two areas comes down to dollars.
Reducing the special education population would cut costs, as teachers overseeing the programs are in higher demand – there’s a nationwide shortage of them – and must maintain differing, focused credentials from other educators. It’s a drain on school resources, but worthy of the investment as long as those dollars are going toward children who need the attention.
Declining kindergarten enrollment – preliminarily a 10.4 percent drop from last year – ties directly into the state’s formula for funding local school districts. It’s also yet another troubling sign of Hollister’s stagnant growth since the building moratorium started.
While the district and individual schools have control over how they designate students needing special education, they can do little about declining enrollment, for now. And Superintendent Ron Crates made the wise decision to implement a hiring freeze about three weeks ago.
In the long term, as the city naturally grows after the moratorium’s lifting in late 2008 and enrollment rises with it, we must find ways to provide affordable housing to young families who largely lack the means to buy homes in San Benito County, despite the slumping real estate market. The district’s approach to special education is much more complicated, and subjective.
While the district’s intentions are sound, to reduce over-identification of such students and move some into the mainstream while saving taxpayers’ money, the focus should be more about an analysis of individuals’ needs and achievement – and not so much on numbers.
The goal is to trim the percentage of special education students from around 13.5 percent to 10 percent. District officials have pointed to surrounding districts’ lower numbers as one sign of over-identification here. The Gilroy Unified School District’s population, for example, is about 8.6 percent of total enrollment.
Although Crates didn’t rule out the area may have a higher concentration of students with special needs, he said it’s “not probable” it’s the case. While the district’s analysis is worthy, officials should examine further whether the ratio here is, indeed, more about demographics than anything and whether, perhaps, Gilroy Unified under-identifies its specialized population.
Because doing so here, while saving money, would ultimately hurt some students who need the attention to succeed.
