ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Special education advocates are visiting lawmakers on Capitol Hill this week, urging them to dedicate more funding to student mental well-being and educator shortages to improve outcomes for students with disabilities.

Many of the challenges facing special education are connected. For example, advocates say more funding and resources are needed under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to meet the demand for special education personnel and related service providers. And without qualified staff, it is a challenge to meet students’ mental health needs, advocates said.

Those comments came during this week’s Special Education Legislative Summit, hosted by the Council for Exceptional Children and the Council of Administrators of Special Education with more than 225 participants from across the country.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 70% of surveyed schools reported special education teacher vacancies in the 2023-24 school year. About 50% of special education teachers leave the profession within the first five years of teaching, according to CEC and CASE.

At the same time, more and more students are being served under IDEA. About 7.5 million students were identified with disabilities in 2022-23 — equaling about 15% of the pre-K, elementary and secondary student population, according to NCES. CEC and CASE estimate the number of students with disabilities will rise to 7.94 million during the 2024-25 school year.

Glenna Wright-Gallo, the assistant secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, speaks to Special Education Legislative Summit attendees on July 29, 2024, in Alexandria, Va. Kara Arundel/K-12 Dive

On Monday, Glenna Wright-Gallo, assistant secretary of the U.S Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, told summit attendees of the nonnegotiables in how she approaches her job. They include building the conditions for special education professionals to succeed and sending a message of urgency for supporting students.

″​​Because what happens today impacts those children for the rest of their lives, we do not have time to say, ‘We can’t get to that. I’ll get to that next year. That’s part of my three-year plan,’” Wright-Gallo said. “We have to do it now.”

Here are other highlights from the summit.

Mental health needs

As the 2024-25 school year gets underway, student mental well-being continues to be a high priority for the education profession. To help support students’ mental health, CASE and CEC are focusing on increasing school-based health services and recruitment and retention of high-quality professionals.

Specifically, the organizations are encouraging support for a Senate bill, the Creating Access and Resources in Education for Student Mental Health Act. The measure would authorize two mental health grants under the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to increase the number of school-based mental health professionals.

“We know that when we have a child who comes to school who is having a crisis, a mental health crisis, who’s upset, who is not ready to sit in the seat and engage, that learning doesn’t happen,” said Myrna Mandlawitz, a policy and legislative consultant at CASE. “So this is critically important to make sure that our students are able and prepared to learn.”

A Tuesday panel on student mental health discussed the importance of mentorships, positive school climates and school-family relationships.

Lakeisha Steele, vice president of policy for the nonprofit Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, also said it’s important for schools to implement a social-emotional framework to help students build skills for success in school and in future careers.

Although the terms SEL and well-being have been criticized by some politicians and parents in recent years, Steele said, CASEL “is trying our best to protect and safeguard the term social-emotional learning as an evidence-based strategy.”

Staff shortages

Critical special educator shortages have hampered the field for decades, but CASE and CEC said it’s important not just that people fill teacher vacancies but that they have the knowledge and skills to meet the unique needs of students with disabilities.

According to a Government Accountability Office report released Monday, there is a “snowball effect” when staffing shortages — including for teachers, psychologists, counselors and social workers — result in some students receiving delayed services and support, or no services at all.

GAO’s research found that in the 2021–22 school year, only 20% of public-school students with disabilities attended a school having a social worker, school psychologist, school nurse and counselor.

To better address obstacles to special education services, GAO recommended that Congress grant the Education Department authority to collect information on the number of students who receive specific types of special education related services such as speech therapy and physical therapy, as well as the number of staff providing special education services.

Laurie VanderPloeg, CEC’s associate executive director of professional affairs, emphasized this point during a panel Tuesday. Updated and reliable data can help both special and general educators better understand where barriers exist so that comprehensive solutions for recruiting, preparing and retaining teachers and other education professionals can be implemented, she said.

“Otherwise, it’s like shooting an arrow at the wrong target,” VanderPloeg said.

Funding levels

CEC and CASE are asking advocates to support the IDEA Full Funding Act, which would put IDEA allocations on a path to full funding — or 40% of the excess cost of serving students with disabilities.

That 40% funding level was the original intent of Congress nearly 50 years ago when it approved the law that is known as IDEA today. The federal share is currently only at 10.7%, according to CASE and CEC.

But it’s not just IDEA funding that special education advocates are paying attention to, speakers at a Tuesday panel said. Funding for Title I, early childhood education, teacher preparation, and state and local monies are also critical to supporting special education initiatives.

A $5.2 million study is currently being conducted by the Education Department’s Institute of Education Sciences to examine national spending practices for special education and related services for students with disabilities. One of the issues to be studied is to what extent federal contributions to special education funding are meeting their target.

Expected to be completed in 2026, this will be the first comprehensive study on the topic in more than 20 years.

“The goal is to get an updated, accurate answer about what the actual costs are, what the expenditures are, to identify the gap so that we have better statistics to bring to Congress to hold their feet to the fire on this issue,” said Kuna Tavalin, CEC’s senior advisor for policy and advocacy.