Oak Park and River Forest High School is sending more special-education students to alternative off-campus facilities for additional health services this year.
The higher number of students needing additional services that OPRF cannot provide on-campus has resulted in higher special-ed costs for the school, a roughly $1.3 million increase from the 2013-2014 school year.
The cost increases are due to more students with special needs enrolling at OPRF, according to Tod Altenburg, OPRF’s chief financial officer.
OPRF is also seeing an overall increase in the student population. Of the roughly 600 special-education students currently enrolled, 84 are at off-campus alterative schools for the 2014-2015 school year, up from 64 students last year.
Students needing additional services that they can’t receive at OPRF typically are placed at off-campus facilities, Altenburg noted. Special-education costs at OPRF have steadily increased over the last decade or so, with off-campus tuition the major driver, he added.
Including salaries and benefits for the roughly 70-member staff, the high school is spending about $12 million in special education this year, up from roughly $11 million the previous year. Except for a slight drop in 2011 — when special-ed expenditures were about $10 million — costs at the high school has consistently trended up since the early 2000s, when the school spent about $5 million in special education.
That upward trend will likely continue as enrollment increases, according to Altenburg.
“My guess is that it’s going to increase just because of the trend,” he said. “Typically in the business office, we look at trends and what’s happened over time. Now the ray of hope is that we’re doing a special-education audit of the department, and we’re taking a look at all aspects of the whole special-education program, and maybe in that process we’ll identify something that can be tightened up. Maybe there’ll be some opportunities for us to not deny students services, but bring costs down.”
The high school this fall has hired outside consultants to review the special-education department, a move launched by Supt. Steven Isoye to see what improvements or changes, if any, are needed.
In terms of revenues, the school is getting about $8.6 million in state and federal aid combined this year. In 2000, they received roughly $3.3 million, Altenburg noted.
But the amount of state and federal aid has fluctuated from year to year, and since 2010 has been going down as education funding has been cut at the state and federal levels. And that’s impacting not only OPRF but other school districts in Illinois, he said.
“There’s a little bit of our tax levy that goes for special education, but most of our funding comes from state and federal sources, and if you look over time, especially since 2010 or so, we were getting $2.3 [million], and in 2011 just over $2 million. In 2012, it was just barely $1.4 million, and this year we’re projected to hit $1.3 [million] on the state side,” Altenburg said.
Federal aid to OPRF has also trended downward since 2010, from $1.8 million that year to $1.6 million this year. For those students placed off-campus, Altenburg said the school wants to provide them with all the services they need, whether that’s on campus or off-site.