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Special Ed Students Growing Faster than Overall Enrollment

The Mitchell paper reports that the state is seeing more students referred for special education services:

Statewide, there are a total of 20,224 students reported in 2016 with various learning disabilities, while 2015 reported 19,423 students, according to the South Dakota Department of Education.

The highest number of students had a specific learning disability at 6,846, while the second highest was a speech and language disorder with 4,293 students. The district with the most students requiring special needs was Sioux Falls with 3,788 students [Sara Bertsch, “Mitchell, State See Increase in Special Education Students,” Mitchell Daily Republic, 2017.07.08].

DOE stats say that our public schools served 4.12% more special ed students last school year. From 2004 through 2011, that rate was less than 1%, with 2007 and 2008 special ed counts actually dropping a bit. Since 2012, yearly increases in special ed students have exceeded 1%. Last year’s increase is the highest in the eighteen years counted on DOE’s spreadsheet.

The number of special ed students is increasing a little faster than total public pre-K–12 enrollment. In 2000, the farthest back year for which DOE has enrollment figures on its main enrollment webpage, 12.94% of public school students were in special ed. That percentage peaked at 14.64% in 2006; dropped back to a hair below 14% in 2011, 2012, and 2013, then bounced back into the fourteens to a new high of 14.89% in 2016.

In ten of the last sixteen years, the change in special education enrollment has been higher than the change in overall enrollment:

Since 2000, public pre-K–12 enrollment has grown at an average annual rate of 0.37%, while special ed enrollment has grown at an average rate of 1.26%.

Thus, we are seeing special education students make up a slightly larger percentage of our public school enrollment. Since special education requires more specialized services and one-on-one attention, that means costs will increase faster than straight enrollment would suggest.

7 Comments

  1. jerry 2017-07-09 16:55

    Of course NOem/Thune/Rounds and Daugaard all are willing to toss these kids under the bus by reducing and then eliminating Medicaid for Special Education. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/03/us/politics/health-bill-medicaid-special-education-affordable-care-act.html There seems to be no end to the go screw yourself attitude of these elected officials that do nothing for the voters but take. Nursing home residents and the disabled, are gonna die because of cult republican shifting of funds to their own pockets. The unborn will suffer for lack of prenatal care, the mothers of the unborn will suffer because of neglect. The children will suffer for lack of proper vaccines, just so NOem/Thune/Rounds and Daugaard get some more walking around money. Cult republicans have lost the right to even utter the name abortion for what they are attempting to do.

  2. jerry 2017-07-09 20:28

    We all need reminders on what is being stolen from us Cory. Thanks to your blog, these items come out for readers to understand what cavalier attitudes NOem has towards us all. I really don’t think voters understand the implications of it all. As an example, it you know of a person that has a child with Down’s Syndrome, even if it is a mild rather than severe form, they are in trouble with NOem and the loss of coverage for their child. Also keep in mind that Marty Jackboot Jackley has his dirty little fingers in this as well. Jackley advocated against Medicaid Expansion and has not been asked to clarify his position on trumpcare that I have seen. I do know that Krebs is all in for it just like NOem, so there is that. The cult republican legislature in South Dakota supports it because someone told them to at a mixer over a mixer. Not a thinker or much of a citizen in the whole cult IGotMine crowd.

    The SDDP is not on board the train to disconnection junction, big surprise there, not.

  3. jerry 2017-07-10 07:58

    The United Nations, as a violation of human rights, condemned the United Kingdom for disabled abuse in their austerity plans. Turns out the plans there are very similar to what we can witness here through NOem/Thune/Rounds/Daugaard/Krebs and Jackley. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/uk-disability-rights-un-report-government-treatment-disabled-people-a7616101.html Before trump there was at least some sort of safety net for our vulnerable, now with trump and our bunch from South Dakota, we are clearly going third world.

  4. Cory Allen Heidelberger Post author | 2017-07-10 18:06

    Incredible. We need to fix that mindset and get everyone back to respecting the value of education and public investment therein.

  5. mike from iowa 2017-07-10 19:55

    Back in the day when we still had a draft board, wingnuts were awfully fond of higher education then.

    Maybe that is what is needed to get that crazy De Vos woman out of the cabinet and restore respect for higher learning.

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