Connecticut: 100,000 SPED students; 23.3% increase in 10 yrs, "no clear cut answer"

July 30, 2026, Governing: The Rising Cost of Special Education Is Straining School Budgets

Connecticut's special education population has grown by more than 20 percent over the past decade, increasing pressure on districts and fueling calls to overhaul the state's funding system.

The number of special education students in Connecticut is nearing 100,000, state data shows. The number represents an increase of 23.3% over the last 10 years, leaving districts to contend with rising costs and inadequate funding to meet the growing demand.

Local educators and special education advocates say that special education teacher vacancies and costs associated with transportation and outplacement are severely impacting school budgets and the ability to effectively meet students’ needs. They argue that more funding for special education is needed, with some also suggesting regionalization would ease funding and equity issues. Others say that re-examining the special education funding mechanism is warranted.

Gov. Ned Lamont’s newly convened Blue Ribbon Commission on K-12 Education Funding and Accountability is “tasked with delivering a top-to-bottom overhaul of how the state funds its public schools.”

The majority of funding for special education comes from each municipality’s property tax revenue and is augmented by funding through the Education Cost Sharing formula, which dictates the distribution of $2.4 billion in state education funding to public school districts, the Excess Cost Grant, which assists districts in paying for expenses for students with extraordinary special education needs, and the Special Education and Expansion Development (SEED) grant.

In Connecticut, 19% are identified as special education students. While data is not yet available for the 2025-26 school year, metrics from the previous school year show that the state’s overall rate of special education students was higher than the national rate by 2.1%.“There absolutely needs to be more state dollars allocated for education,” said Rep. Jennifer Leeper, a Fairfield Democrat and co-chair of the Education Committee. “Ideally, we raise the foundation amount in the Education Cost Sharing formula and then permanently pin it to inflation. I know that districts also want more for Excess Cost reimbursement, for the most expensive students who need to be educated outside their home district.”

Andrew Feinstein, a special education attorney, said, on average, special education costs comprise 27% of a town’s budget.

“We are not spending nearly enough to meet the needs of our students,” he said.

“The vast majority of special education kids are in general education and most of the time are integrated with your regular kids. There are a number of kids who are seriously impaired and need a tremendous amount of support. Districts can’t handle them and in many cases outplace them.”

While education experts agree that there is no one clear cut answer why the number of special education students is increasing exponentially, some say it is due to more students being identified as having a disability while others blame the impact of COVID, technology and social media as affecting students’ ability to learn effectively.

Learning Needs

Data for the 2024-25 school year, the most recent data available, shows Connecticut reported 14,248 students diagnosed with autism; 5,215 with an emotional disability; 2,937 with an intellectual disability; 31,528 with a learning disability; and 5,478 with other disabilities.

“We are seeing a massive increase in the number of kids with disabilities and it’s not just a matter of diagnosis,” said Feinstein. “It may be a matter of diagnosis in the autism sector. Generally what we are seeing is kids who just cannot learn like their fellow kids.”Feinstein said that cellphones and the internet, in his opinion, have impacted the increasing number of special education students.

“I don’t think that we as a society have really recognized the impact of COVID,” he said. “The explosive growth I am seeing is in kids utterly unable to manage their time, focus and work.”

Aimee Turner, Wallingford assistant superintendent for special education and president of the Connecticut Association for Special Education Administrators, said technology certainly plays a role.“Mental health is really what we see nationally impacted by technology,” she said. “If a student has depression or anxiety, significant emotional or mental health issues that are impacting their ability to learn then they require specialized instruction.”

Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, said, “I think when we talk about the increase in identification we know that coming out of COVID, technology was significantly impacting our students’ mental health and well being.”She said after COVID, educators realized that the needs of students were broad.

“And the problem we have in our education system right now is if you have a child who is struggling and maybe they’re struggling with anxiety or depression or this sort of social anxiety, we have no tools to identify children other than special education,” she said. “It’s a deep frustration we have as educators. We see a kid who is struggling and we go, how do we get them support?”

Casey Cobb, Neag professor of education policy at UConn, said improved methods of diagnosis and identification and more advocacy for students with disabilities are factors in the growth of special education students.

Patrice McCarthy, executive director of the Connecticut Association of Boards of Education, said experts do not have a definitive explanation for the growth in special education students.“I just think in general that the professionals have gotten better at recognizing a case where special services are needed,” she said.

Numbers Over the Years and Spending on Special Education

In 2020, there were 79,058 special education students. Over the last six years that number rose to 94,960.For the 2024-25 school year, the state’s school districts spent $3.2 billion on special education.

In that same year, state school districts spent on average $34,686 per special education student compared to $22,721 for all students, according to data from the School + State Finance Project.

“The current situation is both untenable for district budgets and if nothing changes it’s also not going to be sustainable for the state in the long term without diverting resources or generating more revenue elsewhere,” said Michael Morton, deputy executive director and chief of staff for the School + State Finance Project. “For the longest time we were one of only four states that didn’t even have a separate system for funding special education.”

For the 2025-26 school year, the state provided $221.1 million in funding for special education from the Excess Cost grant and $30 million from the SEED grant.

About one quarter of The Consolidated School District of New Britain students have an Individualized Education Program, for students with disabilities.“The costs make up nearly one half of all local dollars,” said New Britain Superintendent Superintendent Tony Gasper.

“This means that a higher and higher percentage of our staff has been dedicated to special education services. A complete rethink and reset on how special education is funded is what’s needed immediately.”

Waterbury Superintendent Darren Schwartz said special education is a major contributor to rising costs in the district.The costs include personnel to develop programs and all the support services available to educate special education students, Schwartz said.

He said it is part of the district’s duty to provide special education students with everything they need to ensure they are meeting their IEP goals.

“But at the same time,” Schwartz said. “I don’t want to have to keep battling and saying, ‘well I can’t give all the students this because I have to reallocate funding over to special education’. All of our kids deserve more, especially in Waterbury.”

Outplacements

The outplacement of students has profoundly impacted school budgets, officials say.

For the 2024-25 school year, 95% of Connecticut’s 165 school districts outplaced at least one student, according to data from the School + State Finance Project.

Overall, data shows that 11,058 students with disabilities were outplaced, with 3,938 being outplaced to private special education providers and 7,120 students outplaced to other public schools (mostly RESCs) for special education services, according to the School + State Finance Project.

“I think one of the issues that districts have is very unpredictable expenditures,” said Dias. “We do these annual budgets but all it requires is one or two kids that either come to the district or become identified with one of those outplacement costs and your budget is blown.”

Michael Grove, assistant superintendent for finance and operations at Meriden Public Schools, said five years ago it cost the district $75,000 to outplace a student. Now that cost has increased to $125,000, he said.

Grove said with costs rising for outplacement, Meriden, like many districts, began creating its own special education programs in house.

“It works better for the students too because now they go to their neighborhood school or at least they are in their neighborhood,” he said.