The Española School District spent close to $40,000 over the last several months in special education funds to transport students with behavioral or extreme problems to an out-of-state residential facility.
The facility specializes in behavior therapy, psychiatry and other issues, which the District is not able to handle in-house.
Superintendent Bobbie Gutierrez called the recurring expense a Public Education Department approved expenditure. She said some Individuals with Disabilities Education Act funding is used to support special needs students in alternative, private settings.
She said the practice of locating students in private facilities across the nation, while not commonly known by the public, occurs in other school districts including Santa Fe, which at one time had a student in Vermont and another in Washington State.
“Teaching is not as easy as some people think it might be,” Gutierrez said. “Often those ‘a-ha’ moments for teachers involve all the challenges that we have with our young people.”
Public Education Department representatives did not return calls or emails regarding the funding mechanism school districts use to contract with private facilities to provide specialized care for students, but Gutierrez said 15 percent of the District’s Individuals with Disabilities Act budget is set aside just for private education tutoring.
According to data made public by the Public Education Department, as of May, the Española School District has a rate of 95.2 percent of students ages 3 to 5, with individualized education programs, attending a separate special education class, separate school or residential facility. The District rate did not meet the state target of 32 percent.
The District did meet the state target of less than 2 percent of students with individualized education programs ages 6 through 21, in separate schools or residential facilities, with a rate of 1.74 percent.
Alternatively, according to the Public Education Department’s data, the Mesa Vista Consolidated School District reported no students in the 3 to 5 age category in residential facilities or separate school facilities. Neither did the Jemez Mountain School District. The Dulce School District met the state goal for students, ages 6 through 21 and had no students ages 3 to 5, in separate school or residential facilities.
According to information made public by the District, Española spent $18,835 in the month of October on services provided by Bayes Achievement Center, based out of Huntsville, Texas.
The District spent another $19,685 in November, in costs associated with the 24-hour facility which in addition to education services, provides speech therapy, operational and mobility services and case management for a select number of out-of-state students, annually.
“Even though it’s a lot of money, it’s still cost-efficient, long-term,” Gutierrez said. “You may have one student that’s an extreme case and 20 that the District can provide just fine for.”
Gutierrez cited the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) and the need for confidentiality associated with students at Bayes, for not being able to provide further details and she did not make clear, the number of students the District has referred to the facility, this academic year.
Bayes Center Admissions Coordinator Monica Bayes said typically, the residential treatment facility only houses a small number of out-of-state student residents, with typically less than five students coming from neighboring states and the majority hailing from Texas.
“We’ll take students with any type of behavior issues,” Bayes said. “These range from self-injury to other extreme behaviors.”
Bayes said school districts often don’t have the staff to handle these special education students but the Huntsville-based facility has the structure and staff trained to handle services, which are impossible to provide within a public school setting.
According to the facility’s online description, Bayes Achievement Center offers a residential treatment program in teaching homes where students engage in many of the same activities they would in their own homes, including household chores, learning to prepare snacks and meals and recreational and leisure activities.
Bayes said the facility’s ability to maintain a three-to-one staff to student ratio, in addition to ready and available nurses and psychiatrists 24-hours-a-day, makes the center able to implement behavior therapy programs and provide other services from qualified staff.
Although she said she was not familiar with the funding school districts utilize to pay for services, Bayes said typically, if a family is having a hard time with a specific student, the district will work with the facility to implement their educational plan.
She said a student’s stay at the facility is determined on a case-by-case basis, and therefore it is difficult to gauge how long a student will reside at the Center, but for most, it ranges anywhere from six months to a year.
Bayes said the goal is to return the students to their home environment as soon as a possible, but some require longterm treatment while the staff works on targeted behaviors. She said the older the student, the more difficult it is to treat some behaviors, which have become ingrained over time. The Center services students age 6 to 22, with older students working toward more vocational education goals.
“Their needs are beyond what we’re equipped to do,” Gutierrez said.
She said the need for specialized residential care may vary. A child’s parent could be addicted to drugs, or the student may have been sexually abused by a parent or guardian and therefore, has to deal with emotional or psychological problems stemming from such incidents or backgrounds.
New Mexico used to have more local treatment facilities she said, but that is no longer the case and new teachers are often unprepared to deal with these types of students because they often don’t have the background or experience necessary to assist them.