New N.H. law may cost Seacoast school districts hundreds of ...

Communities slated to pay for transporting student to out-of-district charter schools

NEWMARKET ? Director of Pupil Services Jean Parsons warned the School Board on Thursday night that a new state law could cost the district hundreds of thousands of dollars each year.

The law, SB 300, changes the state's charter school statute and requires a student's resident district to pay to transport special education students when their parents send them to charter schools outside their home district, Parsons said Thursday night.

Before the law went into effect Aug. 10, the district in which the charter school is located had to pay to transport students, as long as they were subjects of individual education plans, Parsons said.

Parsons estimated that, under a "worst-case scenario," if the law had been in effect last year, it would have cost Newmarket more than $600,000 to transport five special education students living in town to four different charter schools outside the district.

"The whole law is ludicrous," Parsons said. "But the cost is pretty phenomenal."

Parsons said the law is "just impossible to budget for."

"I don't want to depress you too much. I'm depressed enough," Parsons said as she finished her presentation to the School Board.

Parsons said in August a group of special education administrators on the Seacoast sent a letter to the state Department of Education asking for clarification on the law, but it has not yet received a response. So neither Newmarket nor other Seacoast school districts have paid any of the transportation costs, Parsons said.

She blamed politics for the change in the law.

"There's a real political movement that charter schools are great," Parsons said.

School Board Chairman Cliff Chase called the amended law and its potential budget implications "frankly nauseating."

In addition to transportation costs, the special needs students' home districts maintain "the responsibility, including the financial responsibility," to ensure the students receive a "free appropriate public education," as provided for under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

But Parsons insisted that's impossible, as Newmarket and other school districts can't control what happens at a charter school in another school district.

Parsons, during an interview after she spoke to the School Board, said she believes the law was passed after the school district last year tried to compel the state to pay to transport a student with serious disabilities to a charter school.

The Newmarket School District's action came after the child's parents tried to get the school district to pay the costs, she said.

Parsons said she doesn't believe it's a coincidence that the Legislature passed the law after Newmarket tried to compel them to pay for the student's transportation.

"We kicked a skunk on that one," she said.

A copy of a memo written by attorney Gerald M. Zelin of Drummond Woodsum in Portsmouth states SB 300 is unconstitutional because it requires local districts to pay for the transportation costs without providing any money.

"Simply put, SB 300 is unconstitutional insofar as it increases local costs," Zelin wrote. "However, a school district wishing to raise that defense will need to create and preserve evidence documenting those increased costs."

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Source: http://www.seacoastonline.com/articles/20121006-NEWS-210060335

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