State Education officials report process mapping, vacancy reporting and new grants; council considers strengthened parent outreach

The State Department of Education provided updates on several system-improvement initiatives, including a WestEd evaluation, process-mapping work to speed guidance publication, talent-mapping to align internal capacity to legislative mandates, and a PCG usability review of CTSEDS. The presenter described these activities as designed to identify bottlenecks in guidance production and user workflows.

CSDE staff summarized legislative mandates related to behavior assessments and staffing vacancy reporting: districts must submit functional behavior analyses (FBA) and corresponding behavior intervention plans (BIPs) prior to certain out-of-district placements or report when an FBA cannot be completed for safety reasons. CSDE also described a statutory reporting requirement (applicable to approved private special education programs and the RESC Alliance) that asks programs to report staffing vacancies lasting 10 or more days; the department said it has received 36 submissions so far and is continuing outreach to encourage reporting.

Council members raised concerns that reporting may undercount vacancies, and they pressed CSDE about how public districts are monitored. CSDE said public districts provide vacancy information via periodic surveys and through its general supervision and monitoring processes; complaint investigations about implementation failures (often tied to vacancies) have risen about 20% year over year, CSDE said. Members discussed policy responses that could include legislative recommendations requiring broader reporting and strengthening retention and onboarding practices, including paraeducator mentoring and career-ladder strategies.

CSDE announced competitive grant and funding opportunities: a trauma-related grant ($500,000), a high-quality inclusive-programming incentive grant ($9.9 million), and $10 million in capital-improvement funds; competitive applications were being finalized for release this spring with funds available starting July 1. The department also shared call-center data (56 contacts in March) showing top topics: IEP placement and implementation, dispute resolution, and questions about educational benefit; ten cases were escalated to bureau consultants for tier-2 support.

Members and staff discussed parent-facing resources and next steps for professional development. CSDE led an interactive review of the Parent Guide to Special Education and asked members to identify strengths, missing content and preferred dissemination formats; members recommended clearer onboarding materials for families new to special education and suggested materials that explain roles, next steps and practical supports (tips, short videos or an app-style flow) to help parents navigate the system. The council identified aligning CSDE professional-development offerings (RESC Alliance, CERC modules, paraeducator programming) to SAC priorities as a follow-up task.

Jeffrey Spahr noted separate legislative action relevant to the broader disability community: he said Public Act 26-1 establishes required police training on interacting with individuals with mental or emotional disabilities (including autism) and allocates initial funds for that training.