Lynnfield schools planning to hire two new SPED teachers

LYNNFIELD – Lynnfield school officials plan to hire two more special education teachers for the upcoming school year to better accommodate special education students in-district.Kara Mauro, director of special services for Lynnfield Public Schools, said that the hiring increase is not necessarily because of an increase in special education students for the next school year.”There are students that require more intensive support or a schedule that’s modified in a certain way or some students that need to be in a structure that’s co-taught with a special education teacher,” she said.One teacher will work at Lynnfield High School and the other will work at Lynnfield Middle School, Mauro said, bringing the total of special education teachers to six at the high school and eight at the middle school.Superintendent Thomas Jefferson submitted a budget at the Feb. 27 Board of Selectmen meeting that called for $137,176 for the new special education teachers.The cost of the teachers will be covered in the 4.5 percent increase in the school district budget for fiscal year 2013, Jefferson said, and the total operating budget of the district will be $19,467,090.In presentations before the School Committee and the Board of Selectmen, Jefferson said paying two more teachers who could serve special education students who may otherwise go out of district will yield savings in out-of-district education and transportation costs.The proposed budget, which was approved at the Feb. 28 School Committee meeting, has a $345,086 decrease in special education out-of-district tuitions and contracted services for fiscal year 2013. The figure from fiscal year 2012 was $1,125,477. For out-of-district transportation, the school district will save $48,505 for the upcoming fiscal year. The school district spent $293,727 for transportation last fiscal year.The additional teachers have the potential, but not the guarantee, to bring back special education students who have left the district, Mauro said. Requests to Mauro for the number of students who went out of district this school year and the past school year were not responded to by press time.Jefferson said the advantage of keeping special education students in-district is that the students can be taught according to their needs, while remaining in the “least restrictive environment” of their home schools.”A lot of families speak to how wonderful it is to have their special needs and typical needs children together in the same building with the same administration,” she said.Sarah Mupo can be reached at [email protected].