In the Shoreline School District, $2.6 million in funds that are slated to go towards smaller class sizes, family advocates, activity coordinators, campus security and more is spent on special education.
Like other districts statewide, Shoreline uses local levy dollars to make up for a wide gap in state special education funding.
“(Those) are uncovered costs by the state,” said superintendent Sue Walker, who said that special education is underfunded, “absolutely.”
Twelve other districts who were fed up with the situation sued the state over it and received a decision from a judge this month. The judge upheld the current system but threw out a cap that limited how many special education students districts could get funding for.
The lawsuit claimed that the state violated the state constitution by underfunding special education by more than $100 million a year statewide.
Shoreline’s special education budget is about $9.4 million. About $1.9 million of that comes from federal funding, about $4.9 million comes from the state and the rest, about $2.6 million, comes from local levy funds.
The percent of local levy funds Shoreline uses to fill the special education gap is the same as in other districts, Walker said.
The funds are supposed to be used for enrichment and could also be applied to athletics, activities, nurses and bilingual support.
Until now, districts have only been able to claim 12.7 percent of their students as special education pupils and get funding for them. The judge threw out that cap.
In Shoreline, 12.87 percent of students are special education students.
That means more funding for the district, but Walker isn’t sure how long it will take to see it.
Gov. Christine Gregoire’s budget proposes adding $63 million for special education. Walker didn’t know when — or how — that could impact Shoreline.
Special education funding is part of the larger issue of state underfunding of basic education, a topic broached by district officials, educators, legislators and community members in recent years. The conversation has intensified since the state Legislature is in session and is making decisions about school funding.
The Shoreline School Board, at its March 19 meeting, adopted a resolution in support of state funding of K-12 education, including general education, special education, technology support money and more.
The resolution was developed with members of the Shoreline Education Association, or SEA and Shoreline Educational Support Professionals Association, or SESPA.
“We are hoping that by adopting a resolution about school funding that we will better educate our community and create a better coalition to fund our schools,” said Elizabeth Beck, SEA co-president at the meeting.
“I think it’s about time,” said board member Debi Ehrlichman, who added that the sooner people were educated, the sooner change would happen. “It’s a broken system.”
This week, the state House released a nearly $30 billion, two-year state budget that legislators called “family (and) kid-oriented.”
But the Washington Education Association, the state teachers union, has said the proposal doesn’t do enough for education considering the state has a roughly $2 billion surplus. The budget includes an additional $1.1 billion for public schools.
The state Senate is expected to release its budget proposal next week. A compromise then will be worked out between the House, Senate and governor.
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