About 12 percent of Siloam Springs School District's students -- a total of 498 as of Dec. 1 -- have special needs, according to Special Education Director Doris Henderson.
Henderson, who will retire from her position at the end of the school year after 34 years of service, gave the school board a report about her department at Thursday's meeting. She also introduced her replacement, Shawna Asencio-Porter.
"Shawna is an amazing, wonderful teacher and leader and I am very excited to hand the department over to her," Henderson said.
The numbers of special education students in the district steadily increase each year, from 228 during the 2004-2005 school year to the present numbers as of Dec. 1, Henderson said. The biggest growth has been in the number of students with catastrophic needs, defined as cases where services are beyond the routine and normal costs of physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy associated with special education, she said.
The number of children with catastrophic needs has grown from seven during the 2009-2010 year, with $132,344 of additional costs claims, to 18 students at present, with $510,520 of additional costs claimed, she said. Most of the additional budget pays for personal care paraprofessionals, she said. Paraprofessionals spend anywhere from 30 minutes to four hours each day helping students with tasks such as eating and pushing them to class.
The district cares for 10 children in wheelchairs, six to seven children with feeding tubes, and up until recently cared for a blind student as well as a deaf student.
The district expects to get at least 48 new special needs children coming into kindergarten from prekindergarten this year, Henderson said. That number only includes students who were enrolled in the district's prekindergarten program, not students who have yet to attend school or who attended another prekindergarten program.
The school is celebrating the completion of its first year with a psychologist, Henderson said. The new employee has administered more than 125 IQ tests over the past year, she said. The department also has two teachers on special assignment who administer assessments and gained board approval for a third teacher on special assignment position Thursday.
The special education department employs a total of 74 people, including special education teachers, paraprofessionals, physical and occupational therapists, a personal care nurse, a medical billing clerk and a school physiologist, Henderson. The department has five open positions for teachers and paraprofessionals. It is getting difficult to find qualified staff members because there is a critical shortage of special education teachers across the state, she said.
In other business, the school board took the following actions:
• Approved a continuing service agreement with Arkansas School Board Association for model policy manual service.
• Approved hiring a list of summer employees.
• Accepted the resignation of prekindergarten teacher Mary Kennelly.
• Approved two emergency sick leave requests.
• Approved contracts for classified staff members for the 2016/2017 school year.
• Approved five transfers from the Gentry School District to the Siloam Springs School District.
• Approved one transfer from the Siloam Springs School District to the Gentry School District.
General News on 05/18/2016