Thirty-eight Vermont school districts and supervisory unions — nearly three-quarters of the total — are under state scrutiny for their special education practices, according to a list provided in response to a public records request.
At first glance, that number appears to be a sign of alarming deficiencies in the state’s special education practices and raises questions about whether Vermont’s students are receiving the services they need — and are legally entitled to.
“It is serious,” said Rachel Seelig, Vermont Legal Aid’s Disability Law Project director. “I do think that the state needs to be putting a lot of time and effort into getting students the services and support they need.”
But Seelig, as well as multiple superintendents interviewed by VTDigger, noted that the special education compliance rules are extremely strict. Even small mistakes — a document submitted just a day late or a wrongly used phrase — can land a district under state scrutiny, they say.
And some superintendents expressed frustration at the state Agency of Education, saying they have struggled to receive clear communication about special education requirements from the state.
“I don’t think we’ve ever heard outcry about monitoring like this, ever, in our entire careers,” said Julie Regimbal, the superintendent of the Missisquoi Valley School District, which appears on the agency’s list.
“It’s hard to correct a plan if they don’t tell you what you’re doing incorrectly,” she added.
What is targeted monitoring?
Through a process known as “cyclic monitoring,” Vermont education officials evaluate districts and supervisory unions once every three years for compliance with state and federal special education laws.
If, during cyclic monitoring, the state finds a district to be out of compliance with those laws, the district enters “selective monitoring,” in which local administrators are required to show that they have corrected those deficiencies.
If a district still fails to come into compliance with regulations even after selective monitoring, it is placed under the highest level of scrutiny, called “targeted monitoring.”
According to a list provided in response to a public records request, 38 districts and supervisory unions were placed in “targeted monitoring”— 74.5% of the state’s total, not counting career and tech center districts.
The list was first obtained through a records request by Mill Moore, the executive director of the Vermont Independent Schools Association, and provided to VTDigger.
Moore declined to comment on the school districts on the list but said he was aware that many schools, both public and private, have struggled to hire special education staff.
Lindsey Hedges, a spokesperson for the Agency of Education, declined multiple requests to make state education officials available for an interview.
In emailed responses to questions, Hedges said that districts could be placed in targeted monitoring “to address issues pertaining to data integrity, accuracy, and the ethical requirements associated with data submission.”
Districts could also face scrutiny for “dispute resolution requests, administrative complaints, communication disclosing non-compliance, and/or critical and/or special investigative audits and findings related to special education,” she said.
‘Needs assistance’
Every year, the U.S. Department of Education assesses each state to determine whether it is complying with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, a federal law that lays the foundation for special education across the country.
In 2020, U.S. Department of Education officials ranked Vermont as “needs intervention,” the second-most serious classification. Vermont students with disabilities performed poorly on standardized tests and received inadequate support when leaving high school, according to the federal government. The state was also dinged for taking too long to address complaints.
Only one other state, New York, was ranked at such a high level of concern that year.
In 2021 and 2022, Vermont was classified as “needs assistance,” a category that signals less concern but suggests a state is still not meeting federal requirements. Roughly half of U.S. states have been placed in that category for the past two years.
Federal officials, however, declined to issue findings of more serious noncompliance for the past two years due to Covid-19.
It is unclear how much, if any, of Vermont’s targeted monitoring program is due to its federal classification.
“Everything the Agency of Education does has some connection to both federal and state education laws, rules, and regulations,” Hedges, the state spokesperson, said in her email.
‘A paperwork oversight’
Children across the country are struggling with what experts have called a mental health crisis, one exacerbated by the upheaval caused by Covid-19.
That has coincided with a widespread shortage of mental health and special education staff, which has left some school districts struggling to provide services to their students.
But roughly a dozen superintendents or administrators whose districts were on the targeted monitoring list said they were there for minor reasons: missing a deadline by just days, or making small paperwork errors.
Many noted that some special education regulations required 100% compliance, meaning even a small error could land them on the list.
Jay Badams, the superintendent of SAU 70, a cross-border district that includes schools in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire, said that his district was on the list because administrators had filed paperwork just days after a deadline.
“In this particular case it was a paperwork oversight,” he said in an interview.
But Badams acknowledged that the strict regulations around special education documentation were important.
“These students are vulnerable, and they have privacy rights that we need to be very careful with,” he said. “I don’t disagree with monitoring at all. I think it’s very important.”
Pamela Reed, Rutland City Public Schools’ director of support services equity and inclusion, said the district had landed on the targeted monitoring list for errors in transition planning, a process through which teachers and administrators set goals for special education students after graduation from high school.
“Unfortunately, a very small percentage of goals in the reviewed plans contained errors,” Reed said in an email, citing an example in which one student’s plan was missing a date.
The errors are not an indication of the quality of the district’s special education practices, she said. “However because we did not have 100% compliance, as required, we have landed in the targeted category of monitoring.”
Sean McMannon, the superintendent of the Winooski School District, said that his district was under scrutiny because one student’s special education evaluation — an assessment to determine whether a child qualifies for special education — was three days late, “due to some circumstances around staffing and communication with parents.”
Being placed under targeted monitoring “feels punitive,” McMannon said in an interview. “It feels like it’s not weighted appropriately for what we did achieve.”
Earlier this year, news outlets reported that the Springfield School District was under targeted monitoring over special education violations. At the time, state officials did not reply to questions from VTDigger about how many other districts were under the same designation.
It’s unclear how many districts or supervisory unions on the list are being monitored for more serious violations, if any.
“At this time, no corrective actions, sanctions, or enforcement actions have been applied,” Hedges said in her email Friday.
‘It is very concerning for us’
Some superintendents contacted by VTDigger said that they were unaware that their districts were on the targeted monitoring list. One — Amy Minor, the superintendent of the Colchester School District — said that her district had since been cleared by state officials and should be taken off the list.
Many superintendents interviewed expressed frustration with the overall process, saying the requirements are overly bureaucratic and often unclear.
Some chalked up the confusion to the fact that Vermont has spent months without a state special education director, who could coordinate communication and oversight for local districts.
A job listing posted on the state’s website seeks applicants to “lead a strong team of 8-10 personnel” to oversee the state’s special education programs. Applicants must have, at minimum, a bachelor’s degree and five years of experience.
The posted starting salary is $31.70 an hour — which, assuming the director is working or on paid vacation for 52 weeks a year, comes out to just under $66,000 annually.
That sum has proven troublingly low for some local school administrators.
“A master’s level teacher, who works 185 days and who has a decent amount of experience, would be making more than the special ed director, who (has) a year-round position and is the alleged expert for special education from the state of Vermont,” said Sherry Sousa, the superintendent of Windsor Central Supervisory Union. “It is very concerning for us.”
Hedges, the state spokesperson, noted in an email Tuesday that the listed pay rate is only the starting salary for the position. According to a state pay scale, an employee in the job could eventually earn up to roughly $103,000 a year.
Asked about confusion over the requirements for compliance with special education laws, Hedges said that the state provides twice-a-week virtual “open office hour sessions” and officials are open for appointments.
“Additionally, we provide support via email on a regular basis, and publish documents that outline the monitoring process,” she said.
But staff in districts under targeted monitoring are required to complete training and submit even more paperwork to the state. Amid a widespread school staffing shortage, those bureaucratic tasks eat up precious staff time, school administrators said.
Jennifer Botzojorns, the superintendent of the Kingdom East School District, said special education staff want to work directly with students who need support. But when a district is being monitored by the state, staff sometimes must complete “a big long list of trainings and checklists because two deadlines were missed by one day.”
“Which is going to be better for the outcomes of our children, and which is time that could be better well spent?” she asked.
