With NYC spending close to $1 billon on private special education, Chancellor Banks lays out a vision for reform

Schools Chancellor David Banks laid out his vision for special education Thursday to better serve children with disabilities, lure back families who left the public system — and potentially save hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Department of Education will invest $205 million in its own programs, adding capacity for students with autism or emotional disabilities — in an effort to undo years of families seeking private services or watching their needs go unmet.

“Unfortunately, far too many families have had difficulties obtaining basic services, or have felt the need to go elsewhere to find a school that was best for their child,” said Banks at P.S. 186 in the Bronx, the site of a facility for students with sensory needs.

New York City spends hundreds of millions of dollars in reimbursements every year to send students with disabilities to private programs, as required by federal law when the local public school cannot provide a free and appropriate education.

That spending hit a record high last school year of $918 million — a more than 80 percent increase over the $499 million spent three years ago, according to a September analysis by the Independent Budget Office.

“We have to pay exorbitant numbers for our students to go other places,” said Banks. “I want us to be able to fulfill all the needs that every one of our children have in our schools right here in house. That’s my goal.”

Banks announced that the city is adding 15 new programs for children with autism, bringing the total number citywide to 118 programs — more than half of which allow the students to learn alongside their peers.

And based on that model, the DOE will add integrated classrooms for children with emotional disabilities to six schools across all boroughs but Staten Island, where they share classrooms with general education students in the so-called Path program.

For students with sensory needs, the DOE will expand a pilot program to 70 additional sites across the city by the end of the school year so that there is at least one facility in each school district. The Sensory Exploration, Education & Discovery, or “SEED” sites themselves offer the kind of equipment usually reserved for expensive gyms, like swings, trampolines and a miniature climbing wall.

“Families always had to seek these services privately and out of their own pocket,” said Christina Foti, chief of special education at the DOE.

The city is also creating paid internships for high school students with disabilities in physical, occupational and speech therapy, to lead programs on Saturdays for younger kids also in special education.

The DOE is also forming a 40-member advisory council on special education of parents, advocates, experts, and students and alumni with disabilities. That is in addition to two parent bodies that exist already — the Citywide Councils on Special Education and District 75.

“If the city can achieve what it’s laying out today, and continue building on that, it’s going to be such a better world for our students with disabilities and their families,” said Maggie Moroff, senior special education policy coordinator at Advocates for Children, who will sit on the new council.

Whether or not the increased capacity and future changes will encourage fewer families to seek private school reimbursements and more children to come back to the public system remains to be seen.

Commonly known as Carter Cases, parents — often of means — will place their children in specialized options and sue the city to pay them back. The cases are named for a 1993 Supreme Court case that expanded the right to a public education to a free education in private institutions when appropriate.

Despite the rising costs, the city only budgeted $446 million for Carter Cases this school year, according to the IBO. That baseline figure has remained the same for several years, researchers found, and the city usually has to add funding throughout the year.

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“Parents are going to leave the system if your child is not getting their needs met in the system,” said special education advocate Heather Dailey.

“It’s not about having an internship, or a sensory gym,” added Dailey, whose fifth grader has autism and participated in SEED last year in Queens. “It’s about at the end of the day, can my kid read write get a job, graduate from high school, get what he needs every day at school, get to school. There are still kids who don’t have a bus.”

The city covered private school enrollment for more than 10,000 students last year, including in state-approved private schools or through the legal process.

A recent report from THE CITY and ProPublica showed that more than half of Carter Cases last year involved students who live in just four wealthier school districts, spanning neighborhoods from the Upper West Side of Manhattan to Park Slope in Brooklyn. Needier school districts reported very few payments.

Banks and the DOE came under fire over the summer when suggesting that families who attend private schools on the city’s dime — and their consultants and lawyers — have learned to “game the system.” Parents and council members quickly fired back that the system itself was broken.

“From day one, they’ve had to fight to ensure that their child gets the resources, the attention and the education experience that they deserve. They’re some of the most fierce advocates I have met,” Banks said.

“I’m going to be a partner. You don’t have to fight with me. We’re going to work together,” he told parents.