[there are 2,000 special needs children in my district. The $5 million allocated to provide them services is a part of the $70 million total amount it costs to educate children. All children.]
What $ were allocated to special ed prior to IDEA?
What’s the total number of children, non and special combined?
I’m not judging if $5million is too much. I’d just like to see the numbers.
IDEA was passed back in the 70s, so sorry — not going in search of that archived information.
I provided the amounts. There are 7,200 students in the District, of which 1,000 are on IEPs and 1,000 are on 504s.
One last notation — take the $5 million away from the SpEd kids, and it is not going to be redirected back to the typical children. The budget would be instead $65 million.
The typical children are not losing out on anything, if they need funds for programs the budget will be increased to meet that need.