12 January 2026 | Education & Early Learning

Education Funding Task Force Dives Deeper into Special Education Funding

By Emily Barnes | January 12, 2026

The Education Funding Task Force dove deeper into Special Education in its August meeting. In this edition, we cover what they learned about the Special Education weighting and how it helps determine what schools need to provide educational services for students’ unique needs.

Public Materials Provided During or After the Meeting:

Where Does Money for Special Education Come From?

Legislative staff began the meeting by explaining where special education funding comes from and how each district’s special education allocations are calculated.

The Special Education weighting is a component of the Total Foundation Aid formula and helps determine the amounts levied by a school district’s Local Option Budget (LOB).

States are required to provide special education services to students with disabilities between ages 3 and 21 years old. Funding for these services comes from federal, state, and local sources that, when blended together, support special education services.

Kansas typically receives around 10% of its special education funding from federal sources due to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Special Education State Aid is appropriated by the state and provides around 50% of the overall special education fund. To continue receiving federal funding, the state must maintain the previous year’s effort in the current fiscal year. This is called “Maintenance of Effort” (MOE). Local contributions, including the Local Option Budget, provide the remaining funding, amounting to roughly 40%. It's important to note that Base Aid for Student Excellence (BASE) or other weightings, such as At Risk, Bilingual, or others, are separate from these Special Education funds.

Many details about calculating and distributing Special Education State Aid can be found in our blog post summarizing the May meeting. To briefly review, the state calculates expenditures and determines “excess costs” of providing special education services. Since it began providing special education funding, the state has used excess costs to determine the necessary appropriation and has revised the formula through the years to what is currently used.

Excess costs are the amounts that go above and beyond the cost of regular education services. The state is obligated to fund 92% of excess costs, but subject to appropriations from the Legislature, sometimes does not. Most recently, Kansas funded approximately 74% to 80% of statewide excess costs with Special Education State Aid.

Special Education State Aid is distributed as a reimbursement to provide for Catastrophic Aid (high-cost special education services), Medicaid Replacement State Aid, Transportation Aid, and Special Teacher Reimbursement. For appropriated amounts that exceed $528 million of Special Education State Aid, an equalization formula determined by the Kansas State Board of Education is used for distribution.

This method of determining Special Education State Aid, along with BASE Aid and weighted amounts, helps a district calculate the Total Foundation Aid they are entitled to. A district must determine the weighted Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) number for the enrolled special education students to calculate Total Foundation Aid. Therefore, a district will divide its Special Education State Aid by the current year BASE to calculate their Special Education weighting.

Special Education State Aid / Current Year BASE = Special Education Weighting

The Special Education weighting calculation does not change the amount of State Foundation Aid a district receives, but it does impact the amount a school district can levy with its Local Option Budget (LOB). The LOB comes from a district’s local taxes and other revenues and is determined based upon the district’s Total Foundation Aid amount. The Special Education weighting allows a district to contribute larger amounts from LOB when necessary.

Each district uses a Special Education Fund to deposit the funds received – both state and federal – for special education services. Additionally, the district will transfer the amounts raised by the LOB that are earmarked for special education services. All expenditures for special education must come from this fund.

How Students Receive Special Education Instruction

Legislative staff also provided Task Force members with an overview of special education in Kansas. In accordance with the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Kansas’ Special Education for Exceptional Children’s Act (SEECA), children with disabilities receive crucial educational services.

Students aged 0-2 receive special education supports through Tiny-K/Infant-Toddler Services programs, also referred to as Part-C services. These supports are provided to the family through an Individualized Family Support Plan (IFSP). Once a child turns 3 years old, they receive special education services from their school district through an Individualized Education Plan (IEP). These may also be referred to as Part-B services.

Provisions within these laws require schools to locate and identify students with exceptionalities – both special education and gifted abilities. School must meet certain requirements, such as providing written evaluation reports of progress to parents, providing special education services to a student who attends a private school, allowing parents to appeal written decisions, and more.

Kansas provides special education and gifted services to almost 93,000 students across the state with an increasing number of students identified each year. Task Force members were curious about the increasing IDEA headcount despite trends showing public school enrollment is decreasing. Some wondered about how to identify the accurate number of students needing special education services.

Discussion also highlighted the increasing requests from parents for evaluations and referrals from teachers for difficult behavior since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. This has led to an increase in eligibility for students, specifically when considering emotional and behavioral referrals.

A representative of the Kansas State Department of Education (KSDE) provided the Task Force with information about requirements for paraeducators and how they spend their time in the classroom with students. The agency noted that outcomes for special education students are driven by the student’s IEP, which is developed with measurable goals to be completed by the student within the school year and meet their individual needs. The goals are monitored with similar frequency to a general education student, like quarterly or semester.

The agency noted that students with disabilities are considered general education students first and therefore are given instruction to progress with curriculum. However, when a student displays a significant cognitive disability, their instruction in the IEP may be adjusted while trying to stay in alignment with grade level standards.

Two public virtual schools presented their programs and how they support students and their families. These programs are accredited, attached to a school district, and meet the same requirements as brick-and-mortar schools, but offer their educational services virtually. Both have seen an increase in students with IEPs, with about 15% to 20% of their student populations receiving instruction according to an IEP; their special education staff includes special education teachers and paraeducators, speech and language pathologists, school psychologists and others.

Task Force members were curious about how the virtual schools collaborate with the families, districts, cooperatives, and interlocals to address the complex logistics and funding barriers they face.

For instance, when a family chooses a virtual program for their child, they must participate in specific training, orientation, and onboarding to ensure the student is guided effectively. The learning coach, or the adult at home with the child (who is most often the parent), provides the support and instruction to the student. The necessary supports vary according to the child’s needs, such as grade level.

The presenters also shared that special education staff on the IEP team work with the learning coach and communicate daily to track the completed progress and that the program requires partnership between families and the virtual school. Additionally, when students graduate, they receive a diploma from the school district, but the virtual school may opt to add their name as well.

This opened discussion about reimbursement for the virtual school program. These programs do not receive special education funding, but rather “flat rate” funding, or their per-student funding that is not increased due to the Special Education weighting or other weightings (like At Risk or Bilingual). The schools noted that this causes financial shortfalls. Task Force members discussed that reimbursement for services is impacted based upon whether the special education staff is hired by the school district and assigned to the virtual school or hired by the virtual school directly.

Special Education in Other States

Legislative staff summarized information about funding categories and tiers used in other states for special education. Some states use different weighted values for different grade levels, staff-to-student ratios, types of disability with tiered weights dependent upon severity, and the nature and intensity of the service provided to the student. This allowed staff and Task Force members to consider model runs from a handful of states – Maine, Louisiana, New York, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Washington, D.C. – to consider how implementation in Kansas might impact Special Education State Aid.

Maine highlighted a Density model for special education and projected a decrease in Special Education State Aid.
Louisiana’s model uses a single weighting and, although it is simple to implement and calculate, it likely would not be fair to students and would create significant funding losses if applied to Kansas.
New York’s model uses a weighting for students receiving special education services and displayed how to utilize a Transition weighting for students who may be eligible to exit their IEPs. The Transition weighting is a smaller amount during a student’s first year without an IEP. This model showed a potential increase in State Aid, but Task Force members wondered about effective monitoring as a student exits an IEP to ensure continued success.
Mississippi uses a three-tiered model by implementing different weighting values based upon the severity of the disability. Similarly to Kansas, Mississippi considers gifted students in its tiering model. However, the model shows a potentially large decrease in funds when modeled for Kansas.
Oklahoma uses a model of designating weightings for a primary and secondary exceptionality for students, which displayed a significant decrease in funds if applied to Kansas.
Washington, D.C., bases funding upon the number of hours per week that services are delivered. They use four levels of time ranging from eight hours or less provided per week to more than 24 hours per week, which could include a self-contained classroom or residential facility. This model could lead to increases in funding for Kansas districts.

General Discussion

The Task Force stated their hope to focus heavily on student-based funding models and improve data reporting and transparency. Some members would like to prioritize addressing how assessment outcomes connect to funding. They also wondered about engaging with school district stakeholders for insight into recommendations for changes like tiers and cost estimations. It was noted that when implementing a new formula, schools will need time to integrate the changes. This may require a phased-in approach.

Final Meeting

The Task Force ended their work with a final meeting in September 2025. Our next (and last) edition of this blog series will summarize the topics they focused on in this meeting, including the Career Technical Education (CTE) weighting and final pieces of follow-up information.

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