BACKGROUND: 

 What is the funded enrollment cap? 

The funded enrollment cap sets a limit on how much funding a school district receives to fund special education programs and services. Currently, districts can only generate state special education funding for up to 16% of their students, even if they provide special education services to more than 16% of their students. 

How does this impact districts? 

If a district has identified 18% of their students as needing special education services, they will only receive state funding for up to 16% of those students. The additional 2% of students ‘over the 16% cap’ don’t generate additional state funding for a district. However, districts are still required by state and federal law to provide special education services to all students who qualify to receive special education services. 

Washington Special Education Formula Glossary 

• Funding multiplier is the rate of funding provided to support the special education needs of students. The higher the multiplier, the more funding received to provide special education services.  

• Early Support for Infants and toddlers: Early intervention services are designed to enable children birth to 3 with developmental delays or disabilities to be active and successful during the early childhood years.  

• Pre-K: This is to support the special education needs of kids aged 3 – 5 who have not yet entered kindergarten.  

• General Education Setting: Classroom settings that include students with and without an individualized educational program (IEP).  

• The special education funding model provides a higher funding level for K-12 students who are in the general education classrooms for 80% or more of the day to encourage broader adoption of practices that include students in the general education classroom more often, instead of placing them in segregated settings.  

For more detailed information: Special Education funded enrollment cap 

SUMMARY: 

This bill would remove the funded enrollment cap for all districts starting in the 2025-26 school year. 

The proposal would also increase the funding multiplier for K-12 special education increasing how much the state provides to districts to support the special education needs of students.

• The proposed changes also include eliminating the two-tiered special education funding system that provides more funding to districts who are served in the general education setting for 80% or more of the time.  

In addition, this bill would also increase funding to support young people before they enter the K-12 system 

This bill would also create a pilot program that would direct additional funding to up to 25 pilot schools that would become ‘Centers of Excellence for Inclusionary Practices.'

POINTS TO CONSIDER ABOUT THIS BILL: 

Enrollment Cap 

Historically, students with disabilities have been excluded from public education, segregated from students without disabilities, and not meaningfully included in the general education classroom. Washington has taken steps in recent years to address these historic practices, but are still in the process of creating a system that is inclusive and welcoming to all students. 

In July 2024, 137 of the state’s 295 school districts were above the current 16% enrollment cap. These districts are not receiving enough funding from the state and therefore rely on other sources of funding (such as local funding generated by local property taxes) to provide special education services. 

Special Education Funding Formula 

 School district spending data indicates that most districts are spending more to provide special education services to students than they receive from the state to provide services. This translates into districts spending hundreds of millions of local education levy funding to support special education, despite it being the responsibility of the state to fully fund special education.