UPDATE from Stop Special Needs Vouchers, Tuesday 26 January 2016

[Stop Special Needs Vouchers]

Greetings from Stop Special Needs Vouchers!

FYI:  AB751/SB615 - Technical Fixes to the Special Needs Voucher Program

When the Special Needs Scholarship Program was passed in the Wisconsin state budget last year, without a public-hearing opportunity for families or community members to express our concerns, Stop Special Needs Vouchers promised to continue to keep Wisconsin informed of new developments.

It turns out that the special needs vouchers as passed in the budget contained multiple errors and contradictions. Now, legislation has been introduced to make technical fixes.

The bill number is AB751 in the Assembly, SB615 in the Senate, and the text is online at http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/2015/proposals/ab751. The bills were introduced midweek last week, and public hearings will be held this week:

Wed. January 27 in the Senate Education Committee: http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/raw/cid/1221799

Thu. January 28 in the Assembly Education Committee: http://docs.legis.wisconsin.gov/raw/cid/1220009 

An example of a correction that the bill makes: the program as passed would have required a unanimous decision from an IEP team to decide that a child receiving a special needs voucher no longer had a disability; but since unanimous decision-making cannot be required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), that provision needs to be changed.

Since AB751 and SB615 are essentially cleaning up mistakes made in the rush to insert the vouchers into the state budget, Stop Special Needs Vouchers does not plan to testify as an organization at these hearings, but wanted to keep you informed!

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Open Enrollment Between Districts -- Improved Equity for Students with Disabilities

The state budget also included improvements to open enrollment between public school districts, making the program more equitable for students with disabilities. Starting this year, a resident district can no longer deny open enrollment for a student with disabilities on the basis of "undue financial burden," which was a type of denial that students without disabilities did not face.  

Stop Special Needs Vouchers has advocated for this change for years. One of the first SSNV blogposts in 2012 bore the title "It's Time to Fix Public School Choice (Open Enrollment) for Students with Disabilities" and included the statement:

Since “undue financial burden” is what we’re really trying to fix when it comes to open enrollment – let’s fix it within the public school system! The legislature can solve the problem of “undue financial burden” by reallocating funding for students with special needs, relieving the resident district of the issue and removing it as an open enrollment denial option. (http://www.stopspecialneedsvouchers.org/uncategorized/its-time-to-fix-public-school-choice-open-enrollment-for-students-with-disabilities/ )

The Survival Coalition of Wisconsin Disability Organizations issued a press release on Friday, "Survival Coalition Informs Parents of Children with Disabilities about their Right to Open Enrollment," with further information. The press release is available online at http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/0122sc.pdf

 

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