Special education has always been underfunded in Hamilton County. Worse, existing funding is misspent on an educational model that buses children with disabilities to distant “cluster sites” around the county, where they are placed in self-contained classrooms and subjected to a “life skills” curriculum equipping them for anything but. The inclusive education model endorsed by the school board last year changes this. Come August, the majority of children with disabilities will attend their zoned schools and be in regular classrooms whenever possible.
The proposed school budget supports these reforms, and the investment promises a return. And whereas cluster sites mean busing costs exceeding $7,000 per student with a disability, compared with less than $600 per typical student, inclusion begins shifting those dollars into classrooms. Then there are the costly lawsuits the county consistently loses because of malpractice addressed by this budget. Superintendent Johnson’s special education budget is the fiscally smart move.
Dr. Cale Horne
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County, schools should live within their means