Portland Public Schools, Oregon’s largest school district, needs to cut $30 million from its budget next school year, and officials have indicated that special education staff positions could be cut. That alarms advocates for students with disabilities. In a letter to the Portland School Board last week, the two Portland-based advocacy groups, Disability Rights Oregon and FACT Oregon, called on members to meet with them and families to discuss potential cuts before making any decisions. The district’s 2024-25 school year budget will be finalized on April 23, and the school board will vote on approving the budget in May. “We know there are budget difficulties, and I don’t think we’re asking for impossible things. I think the concern is that so often students with disabilities will bear a disproportionate impact of cuts,” said Christy Reese, executive director of FACT, which advocates for people with disabilities. “They’re students who are entitled to an education like all students.” Portland Public Schools’ interim superintendent, Sandy Husk, indicated at a March school board meeting that half of the cuts will come from the district’s central office with the other half from the district’s 81 schools. In late February, Jey Buno, chief of student services sent a proposed budget plan to the school board that would shrink expenses in the central administration partly by reducing its special education staff. “There will be less central office administrative staff in the special education department moving into next year in order to become more efficient and effective,” wrote Buno.
Sydney Kelly, a spokesperson for the district, said in an email that eight special education jobs are being considered for budget cuts. “Special education is a small percentage of the reductions being discussed,” Kelly said. Shifting responsibilities The cuts could include staff who train teachers and classroom aides to use specialized technology that helps nonverbal students communicate and who train staff to safely feed students with feeding tubes. The district plans to shift these responsibilities to speech language pathologists and occupational therapists already in the district’s schools. But advocates said these professionals currently work with twice as many students as they’re paid for. Those who help students with disabilities participate in gym classes and some behavioral health staff could also face cuts. “All students requiring assistive technology and feeding needs outlined within their individualized education plans will have their needs met,” Kelly said. She said some behavioral health staff in the central office will be reassigned to individual schools. The district’s $30 million budget shortfall for the year is due to inflation, to the winding down of federal emergency relief money from the pandemic, enrollment declines and a lack of adequate funding from the state, district leaders say. The district also needs to come up with an additional $175 million over the next three years to meet contract obligations for teachers following their historic three-week strike last fall. The teachers gained total average wage increases of more than 14% over the next three years, more time for lesson planning and the creation of committees to oversee class sizes. State Sen. Sara Gelser Blouin, D-Corvallis, who has championed dozens of bills to boost resources, staffing and protections in schools for students with disabilities, said in an email that this would be the worst possible time for a district to scale back special education and behavioral support staff. “It is mind boggling that reductions in behavior supports would be suggested at a time when there are so many discussions about the need for further support to address unmet needs of students that lead to challenging behaviors,” she said. “Dumping kids in classrooms without support for the students or the teachers that serve them is guaranteed to result in failure, with kids left to pay the consequences.” GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX SUBSCRIBE