WATERVLIET, N.Y. — Dylan Goering ended up at St. Colman’s Autism Program in Watervliet as a last resort. The 12-year-old’s needs were too difficult for the tiny Green Island school district to handle and he was rejected by the local BOCES program for being aggressive.

St. Colman’s seemed like a good fit, his mother Amanda Nacco said. Dylan adored his teachers, aides and classmates, and his communication and behavioral skills improved. Then COVID-19 came along.

While other schools in the region have resumed full-day in-person learning five days a week, Dylan and his schoolmates have not had access to consistent services and full-time in-person instruction since the pandemic began in March 2020.

Due to staff turnover, Dylan has missed out on occupational therapy, physical education and speech services.

For kids on the autism spectrum, change is hard, Nacco said. “Dylan absolutely loved his speech teacher. They had an amazing bond. … I try to do some of the things at home with him, but clearly I am not her, and he just doesn’t adapt to it.”

State and federal agencies have flooded public school districts with COVID-19 relief aid in an effort to maximize in-person learning for the 2021-2022 academic year, but those resources have not filtered down to private facilities serving kids with the most intensive needs.

Experts say remote learning has been uniquely challenging for the nearly half a million New York students classified as having disabilities, who represent about 18% of the total K-12 student population.

When disabilities are identified, students receive individualized education programs, or IEPs, that detail services and specialized instruction they are entitled to. Those whose needs cannot be met by the local public school district are referred to state-approved private institutions.

Next year, students with disabilities will have a right to compensatory services to make up for programs and services that they missed during the pandemic, according to Randi Levine, policy director of Advocates for Children New York.

“These services are not optional. Students with disabilities have a legal right to receive the services recommended for them. These are services they need to make educational progress,” Levine said.

At St. Colman’s, which has two programs — one serves kids with autism and the other specializes in students with emotional disabilities — a number of key employees left last August when public schools resumed in-person instruction, according to Heather Worthington, principal of St. Colman’s Autism Program.

Tough work conditions and lower pay have made it nearly impossible to compete with school districts that dangle hiring bonuses and other incentives, according to school officials.

“To be perfectly honest, our staff can go work at McDonald’s and make more,” Worthington said.

There was a brief attempt to restore full-time programming in September but due to safety concerns, the school soon reverted to a hybrid model, involving three days a week of in-person learning, two days of remote instruction and heavy parental involvement.

Job listings have turned up few qualified candidates. Though school districts are legally required to ensure that IEP plans are met, St. Colman’s requests for support from districts and local BOCES organizations — which are grappling with their own staff shortages — have elicited a “deer in headlights” response, Worthington said.

“We do have speech and occupational therapy in the building. … Even though the services aren’t being provided necessarily as they are listed on the IEP, we are able to provide guidance to the classroom teacher so that the services are at least being touched upon,” Worthington said.

A shortage of special education professionals exists across the sector, but at specialized private schools, it has reached a crisis level, in part, because the state’s tuition rate-setting formula has failed to keep up with providers’ needs, according to advocates.

In this year’s historically large state education budget, public schools got an average 7% increase in state aid while private special education providers received a 4% tuition increase.

Special education preschools are especially underfunded, according to Advocates for Children. Before 2015, spending for specialized preschools had been frozen for six years. Since 2015, the preschools have seen a 2% annual tuition boost.

The salary gap for teachers between specialized private schools and public schools can be tens of thousands of dollars, according to the organization.

Funding parity for private schools serving students with disabilities has long been a legislative priority for the Board of Regents and state Education Department, according to department officials.

A bill unanimously supported by both houses of the state Legislature would have reformed the funding formula for state-supported private schools, correlating tuition increases with growth in state funding for public school districts.

Gov. Kathy Hochul vetoed the legislation in December and instead announced a one-time cost-of-living tuition increase of 11%, a total state investment of $240 million, as part of her budget proposal.

“Throughout my time in office, I’ve made it a priority to listen to the disability community and provide the resources and support they need to thrive,” Hochul said in a statement.

State Sen. John W. Mannion, a Syracuse Democrat who sponsored the parity bill, said the 11% bump will provide much-needed help to special education programs this year, but providers will need a longer-term solution.

“This governor, I think, gets it,” Mannion said. “She understands the importance of this … I know that we cannot and the schools cannot fight year after year after year for fair funding. We want it in the statute. … These kids deserve what other kids deserve.”

Ahead of this year’s budget talks, state education officials are requesting $1.25 million to design a new tuition rate-setting formula that aligns annual funding increases to special education providers with growth in aid for public schools.

Department officials have also requested that the state pause the end-of-year “reconciliation process,” which requires specialized private schools to provide an accounting of their spending. If the allocated funds are not fully spent on qualifying expenses within a certain time frame, a private school could see a reduction in its per-pupil tuition rate.

In other words, if a school loses employees midyear and cannot immediately refill the positions, the program risks losing funding the following year.

The state should also allow state-approved schools five years to spend tuition revenue, state education officials said.

© 2022 Times Union
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