East Penn presents 2024'27 Special Education Plan, cites 19.9% special-education enrollment
March 25, 2024 | East Penn SD, School Districts, Pennsylvania
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Jody Fried, East Penn School District Director of Special Education, presented the district Special Education Comprehensive Plan for school years 2024'27 at the March 25 board meeting.
Fried said the plan, required by state regulation (Chapter 14), focuses on the least restrictive environment (LRE), continuum of services, positive behavior supports, interagency coordination and personnel development. Using the most recent PennData child-count figures (based on the December 1, 2022 submission), presenters said 1,594 students in East Penn received special education services out of 8,005 total students, or 19.9 percent.
The presentation highlighted that East Penn places a higher share of students inside general-education classrooms than the state average: presenters cited 80.9 percent of special-education students spending 80% or more of their day in regular classrooms compared with a 61.6 percent Pennsylvania average. Fried and her team said the district wanted to expand the continuum of services at elementary, middle and high levels, add mental-health and behavior supports, and pilot an IR life-skills lab (a simulated apartment for community-based instruction).
Fried said the plan includes proposals to increase in-district behavioral capacity by hiring two BCBAs rather than contracting those services and to expand training for paraprofessionals and teachers in autism supports and IEP development. The plan also lays out metrics to monitor progress: PennData reports, local benchmark assessments, and IEP-goal mastery tracking.
Fried said the district began committee work in January; the LRE component was reviewed early in February and the full plan was presented March 25. The plan will be posted for public review for 30 days on the district website; the administration plans to seek board approval on April 22, and to submit the final plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Education on or before May 1.
Board members asked about phasing, facility needs for specialized programs, ESSER funding supporting some positions, and whether rising identification rates reflect increased need or improved identification through MTSS; Fried answered that both greater awareness and MTSS implementation contributed to increases in special-education identification and that the district is monitoring trends.
Fried said the plan, required by state regulation (Chapter 14), focuses on the least restrictive environment (LRE), continuum of services, positive behavior supports, interagency coordination and personnel development. Using the most recent PennData child-count figures (based on the December 1, 2022 submission), presenters said 1,594 students in East Penn received special education services out of 8,005 total students, or 19.9 percent.
The presentation highlighted that East Penn places a higher share of students inside general-education classrooms than the state average: presenters cited 80.9 percent of special-education students spending 80% or more of their day in regular classrooms compared with a 61.6 percent Pennsylvania average. Fried and her team said the district wanted to expand the continuum of services at elementary, middle and high levels, add mental-health and behavior supports, and pilot an IR life-skills lab (a simulated apartment for community-based instruction).
Fried said the plan includes proposals to increase in-district behavioral capacity by hiring two BCBAs rather than contracting those services and to expand training for paraprofessionals and teachers in autism supports and IEP development. The plan also lays out metrics to monitor progress: PennData reports, local benchmark assessments, and IEP-goal mastery tracking.
Fried said the district began committee work in January; the LRE component was reviewed early in February and the full plan was presented March 25. The plan will be posted for public review for 30 days on the district website; the administration plans to seek board approval on April 22, and to submit the final plan to the Pennsylvania Department of Education on or before May 1.
Board members asked about phasing, facility needs for specialized programs, ESSER funding supporting some positions, and whether rising identification rates reflect increased need or improved identification through MTSS; Fried answered that both greater awareness and MTSS implementation contributed to increases in special-education identification and that the district is monitoring trends.
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