District outlines special-education staffing gaps and recruitment options

District instructional staff told the board the special-education program is strained by staffing shortages and the board discussed recruitment strategies and trade-offs.

"The change now would leave us with 3.8 OTs in the district," Kat Cox, director of instructional support, said while explaining the embedded occupational-therapy model that the district adopted near the end of the COVID era to increase coverage in life-skills classrooms.

Cox outlined the embedded-OT approach and said some equipment or interventions (slant boards, stools, adaptive devices) are focused supports that vary by classroom. She also said the state guidance frames caseload expectations (an OT could be expected to carry up to 190 students under state guidance), but she cautioned that those numbers are not advocacy targets.

To address EdTech shortages and flexible staffing needs, Cox recommended exploring referral incentive programs, using hiring platforms such as Indeed or ZipRecruiter in a fuller capacity, and evaluating vetted outside agencies for behavior clinicians (BCBAs) while acknowledging supervision and oversight trade-offs for subcontracted staff. Board members asked about exit interviews, data collection on turnover and the cost trade-offs between subcontracting and hiring.

Finance director Abigail Ketchin reiterated budget constraints that frame staffing decisions and offered examples of what modest local tax increases could yield in additional dollars for personnel and programs.

Next steps: district staff will follow up with more detailed numbers on current EdTech counts and return to the board with recruitment cost estimates and possible partnership options.