Jan 27, 2025, NBC Connecticut: Connecticut schools asking lawmakers for special education cost assistance
VIDEO
Reporter: A single student with special needs can cost a local town $100,000 or more, so now the legislature is creating a new committee to try and find solutions.
Frances Rabinowitz: Special ed should be all of our concerns. We have 92,000 children identified as special ed in Connecticut.
Reporter: Local schools are asking for help with the skyrocketing cost of special education.
This includes money and more flexibility to control those costs.
Lawmakers say they’re listening.
Sen. Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox: We’re tasked with a big ask. I think, special education, the reason it’s a priority is because it affects every single town.
Reporter: A new select committee on special education in the legislature is beginning to take on that challenge. Today, getting their first chance to get information about how much special education costs and what requirements are placed on towns.
Sen. John Kissel: To grapple with that we have to first figure out what’s the universe look like, and then we can address how maybe we can adjust things to make it fairer.
Reporter: Local officials say it starts with money. State education aid hasn’t kept up with inflation. Cities and towns say they had to make up the difference through local property taxes.
Joe Delong, CT Conference of Municipalities: I think that’s something that’s important not only to people who have children in the school system, but frankly it’s important to every taxpayer in the state.
Reporter: They also want incentives for more regional cooperation and help recruiting special education teachers.
Rabinowitz: You can’t provide the quality services that we want to provide to every child if you don’t have the personnel to provide it.
Reporter: The committee is just getting started, but lawmakers say they feel the need to ensure it proposes bills to the rest of the legislature this spring.
Gadkar-Wilcox: We have a moral obligation to meet these needs of students, so we have to do better.
Reporter: This committee is also going to do something that other committees don’t usually do here, and that’s get out into the community.
They’re planning at least four events around the state likely sometime in February. They hope to have a schedule for those events later this week.

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