MAC joins advocates in briefing legislators on Special Education Circuit Breaker

Pictured: Elizabeth Dello Russo Becker, Executive Director of the Massachusetts Association of 766 Approved Private Schools (maaps), delivering the Coalition’s request to a full room at the State House.

MAC joins advocates in briefing legislators on Special Education Circuit Breaker

By David Spicer

Massachusetts Advocates for Children, a member of the Massachusetts Coalition for Special Education Funding, participated in the Special Education Circuit Breaker briefing on February 11 at the State House. Supporters called for full funding ($386,467,760) of the Special Education Circuit Breaker account.

Each locality manages its own special education program. Local programs receive funding from four major sources—the general funds of the city or town, federal special education grants (IDEA grants), Chapter 70 funds from the state, and the Circuit Breaker grant, alongside state funding.

The Circuit Breaker helps offset the cost to local school districts of providing specialized services for the increasing number of children with severe disabilities, including students with autism and other neurological disabilities. The state’s Special Education Circuit Breaker program provides critical financial support for districts to deliver legally mandated special education services and programs and to provide the least restrictive environment for children with severe disabilities.

Eileen Sandberg, a longtime parent advocate, knows intimately the importance of Circuit Breaker funding. She shared her story as the parent of a son with autism, who benefitted from this funding as a student. Eileen shared that the educational opportunities afforded to her son thanks to the Circuit Breaker “really made a life-changing difference for him.” Eileen’s son, Sam Sandberg shared how attending a school that is the right fit for a student “can make an indescribable difference.”

Also speaking at the briefing were sponsors Representative Alice Peisch and Senator Jason Lewis; Carla Jentz, Association of Special Education Administrators (ASE) Executive Director; Cindy Taylor, parent advocate; Shelley Berman, Andover Public Schools Superintendent; Dave Manzo, Cotting School Executive Director; and Joanne Haley-Sullivan, Massachusetts Organization of Educational Collaboratives (MOEC) Executive Director.

For updates on the status of the Circuit Breaker budget item and calls to action, join our email list by emailing communications@massadvocates.org.

David Spicer is a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Communications Intern at MAC