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Yahoo
15-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Research suggests state not doing enough to help Maine districts manage student behavior
(Photo by Getty Images) Student behavior in classrooms across Maine appears to be getting worse and researchers say the state is not doing enough to provide schools with the tools they need to respond — leaving educators overwhelmed and students without the help they need. A statewide survey of more than 3,400 educators conducted by the Maine Education Policy Research Institute (MEPRI) found that thousands of educators are overwhelmed by increasing disruptions in daily class activity and feel unprepared to manage it — despite that the state has invested in various programs and initiatives aimed at deterring such behavior. The problem, researchers told the Maine Legislature's Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs on Monday, is that those efforts often lack coordination, technical assistance, and consistent implementation. The result is exhausted educators, students with unaddressed behavioral needs and inefficient classrooms, the report found. 'It's really affecting the wellbeing of both students and staff,' Sarah Wilkinson, assistant professor of Special Education at the University of Southern Maine, told members of the Education Committee during the briefing Monday. 'And we know that if the learning environments are being disrupted and staff are frustrated and fatigued and reluctant, academic instruction is likely not happening at the level that we'd like to see.' The report also mentioned the lack of state support to help districts adopt what's known as an Integrated Multi-Tiered System of Supports (I-MTSS), which is a framework designed to identify and address students' academic, behavioral, and emotional needs. Maine is currently the only state in the nation that does not offer technical assistance for districts using I-MTSS, according to the researchers. Educators are spending valuable class time every day dealing with student behavior. Nearly all of the more than 3,400 educators that responded to the survey (96%) reported managing disruptive behavior during the 2023–2024 school year, with 77% dealing with it daily. More than half said they managed behavior crises — episodes involving severe or dangerous behavior — and nearly 20% of administrators reported handling such crises multiple times a day. Educators reported spending up to 48 minutes on a single behavior crisis and losing hundreds of hours each school year managing various levels of behavioral issues, the report said. For some roles, this represents 20% of their annual work time. General and special education teachers, educational technicians, and administrators also described burnout, emotional stress, physical injuries, and an increasing reluctance to stay in the profession as direct impacts of dealing with student behavior. Administrators who participated in focus groups also said that student behavior has become a top concern, especially in elementary grades, and is now one of the biggest challenges to recruiting and retaining staff. Some principals reported spending entire days managing individual students rather than providing academic leadership. Educators also worry that unaddressed behavior problems could push more general education students into special education — further straining an already overburdened system. Maine currently has the second highest special education identification rate in the country. A Multi-Tiered System of Supports, known as MTSS, is essentially a tiered model schools use to ensure all students have their academic, emotional, or behavioral needs met. The system evaluates what tier of support each student needs to stay on pace with their peers, from the most common, tier 1, being general classroom instruction to the least common, tier 3, which includes a small number of students who need personalized instruction or significant mental or behavioral health support interventions. If students don't make sufficient progress in their assigned tier, MTSS models require districts to intensify personalized support. The Maine Education Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan research institute funded by the Maine Legislature and University of Maine System, recommends the model because it helps schools meet students' needs in a more organized and effective way. The system gives teachers tools to step in early when problems start, instead of reacting after things get worse. When used well, national research has shown that MTSS can reduce behavior issues, improve learning, and make schools feel safer and more supportive. So far, the Maine Department of Education has only offered basic introductory training on the system, largely leaving districts on their own to decide how to use the model, researchers said. In response to questions about state support for MTSS, Chloe Teboe, a spokesperson for the department, pointed out that MTSS is currently something that districts can opt into. The department provides resources such as monthly office hours, one-on-one consultations, mentoring and regular training, available for districts that want them, she said. However, during the legislative meeting, Wilkinson recommended the department help districts implement the framework, with dedicated resources and support, as well as to expand professional development in behavior management and de-escalation strategies. 'Without those skills, educators will continue to struggle to respond effectively to the behaviors that are occurring,' she said. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
26-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Researchers recommend changes to special ed funding under state formula review
Mar. 26—State researchers on Wednesday recommended changes to special education funding and regional salary adjustments as part of an ongoing examination of the fairness of Maine's oft-critiqued school funding formula. The recommendations from the Maine Educational Policy Research Institute, a nonpartisan wing of the University of Maine System that works with legislators, are part of an ongoing effort to update the two-decade-old formula, which the Legislature initiated last year. Many education leaders and lawmakers say that it fails to account for growing needs like special education, multilingual learners and homeless students. The research group, known as MEPRI, kicked off its presentations last month with data trends and superintendent perspectives and continued Wednesday morning with briefings on two specific aspects of the formula: regional salary adjustments and special education funding. SPECIAL EDUCATION One of the issues that education leaders have been most vocal about is special education, which has evolved significantly since the formula was created. Maine spent about $517 million on special education in 2023, which accounts for about 20% of all education spending. More and more Maine students are in need of special education, with rates of autism rising by 86% over the past decade, and the state's overall special needs student rate rising from 16% to 20%. Maine also has one of the nation's highest rates of special education students. The current special education funding model starts with the number of students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), then makes additional adjustments for students with more intense needs or those who attend out-of-district specialty programs. But then that number gets compared to the district's total special ed spending from the previous year, and if it's higher than the calculated value, the district just gets that higher amount. "At the end of the day, for many districts — not all — it's based really on how much they're spending," Amy Johnson, co-director of MEPRI, said. Superintendents have critiqued this model as allowing wealthier districts that are able to spend more on special education to inherently received greater state funding. Johnson said the model has several outdated elements, and the expenditure-driven model raises equity concerns. "More money goes to districts that probably have more ability to pay," Johnson said. The wealthiest districts are getting much more funding per pupil than the poorest districts. The wealthiest third of districts get an average of $3,839 per students, while the poorest third of districts get $1,307 for each student, according to 2020 data Johnson presented. That's why MEPRI is suggesting a funding model based on different weights for students with different levels of need. Johnson proposed dividing students into two tiers based on the intensity of need. She said MEPRI needs more comprehensive data to suggest exactly what those weights should be and is still developing a model to suggest to lawmakers. That proposal, Johnson said, will be in the final report. REGIONAL ADJUSTMENTS The current funding formula also accounts for regional differences in salary in an effort to provide adequate staffing resources to districts in both high- and low-cost areas. Those adjustments are based on a "labor market area" model, wherein Maine is divided into different markets (like Greater Portland and Bangor) and each is assigned an adjustment — either higher or lower than the baseline — based on salary data in the area. "The reason that this is important is, if you are in a high-salary area of the state, you need more resources to be able to pay those salaries," said Johnson. She also said low-salary areas benefit from those adjustments to keep their tax rates down. But, Johnson explained, those labor markets are based on data from when the formula rolled out in 2005. She said MEPRI has recommended changes to the regional adjustments five times, but they've never been implemented because of legislators' fears that some districts will be negatively impacted while others will benefit. In the current report, the researchers compared five different adjustments to that model, including updating the salary data and introducing a floor or cap for the adjustments. Johnson said MEPRI prefers a scenario where the data is updated and both a floor and cap are added because it would keep the adjustments affordable and fair while accounting for shifts that have happened over time. But an even better method, she said, would be to switch to a model based on cost of living rather than on salary costs themselves. That information is already calculated and updated regularly by several outside agencies at a county level. "We believe that switching to cost of living is an improvement, partly because of the practical reasons of being able to tie it to an external index that can be updated over time, but also because we believe that using only salaries is capturing ability to pay, and not just labor market issues," she said. MEPRI has divided its report into five presentations that are being delivered to the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee over the course of the session. The next funding formula presentation, on districts' ability to pay, will be next month. The final report should be out by the end of April. Copy the Story Link
