JAY — Regional School Unit 73 Board of Directors Thursday night, Sept. 22, unanimously approved hiring an additional special education teacher for grades seven to 12.

“The numbers at the middle school and high school are very concerning,” Special Services Director Cherie Parker said. “Our caseloads and classrooms are bursting at the seams and the staff, even the very veteran team we have at the high school, is voicing overwhelmed, not enough hours in the day, drowning feelings.”

The teams within each building have done their best to move students around to even out caseload numbers, Parker said. “Legally each teacher can have 35 students on a caseload,” she noted. “We are just at the beginning of the year and the caseload numbers are between 25 and 30 in the resource rooms and 16-19 in our more intense life skills and behavior programs.

“When the numbers go above 15 in the behavior program and life skills, it becomes very stressful because almost all academic programming is taught to the students in these rooms on an individualized basis according to the Individualized Education Plan [IEP].”

Maine Unified Special Education regulations outline the permitted student to teacher ratios as:

• Ages 10-14, eight students to one teacher

• Ages 15-20, 10 students to one teacher

• An education technician would allow five additional students in the classroom.

Some teachers at both the middle and high schools are exceeding these group sizes due to identified student needs, Parker noted. Of the 381 students in special education, 223 (58.5%) are in the middle and high schools currently, she said.

“If we look at projecting for next year using the current numbers, the middle school will lose 33 to promotion and gain 42 incoming sixth graders,” Parker said. “The high school will lose 19 to graduation and gain 33 incoming ninth graders.” In 2023, there will be 119 special education students at the middle school. 127 at the high school for a total of 246 or about 65% of all special education students in the district, she added.

In the monthly report Parker gave earlier in the meeting, she noted there are 33 students in the referral process, an increase of 16 since the beginning of the school year.

Current special education numbers:

• 74 students at the primary school, a decrease of four

• 84 students at the elementary school, an increase of seven

• 110 students at the middle school, an increase of nine

• 113 students at the high school, an increase of four

There are eight students in special purpose schools out of the district and one student who has recently transferred into the district who requires a day treatment setting in a special purpose school as the IEP written by the previous district must be followed, Parker said.

An Ed Tech III position is open at the middle school, Ed Tech I and Ed Tech II positions are open at the primary school and an Ed Tech III at the elementary school, Parker noted.

The special education teacher has been advertised as certified for grades seven to 12, Parker said. Once hired, the building coordinators at the middle and high school would meet to figure out how to make the best use of that teacher, she noted.

Board Chair Robert Staples of Jay said he spent his first four years teaching special education. With that many students teachers are trying to keep their heads above water, he noted.

“It is not safe,” Staples stated. “This request is definitely needed.”

Director Joel Pike of Jay asked how the position would be funded.

There is local entitlement carryover and money is put in the contingency fund every year, Superintendent Scott Albert said. “We can find it,” he added.

“The state needs to take over this stuff,” Director Joel Pike said. “Every school department gets into this, [special education] needs to be done. You have got to take care of the kids.”

Parker said all special education teachers are also case managers, have paperwork to complete and by law must meet at least once a year for each student. Some students have had two meetings already this year, she added.

Vice Chair Robin Beck asked if there was enough money in the budget to hire two special education teachers.

“If we need it, we will find it,” Albert said. The question is can we find the [teachers], he queried.

Parker said she had contacted some former applicants, hadn’t heard back from them.

Earlier in the meeting community member John Benedetto of Livermore Falls asked if there had been any discussions about the mill in Jay closing and how that was going to affect budgets.

Information is being gathered to use in the budget process going forward, Albert said. Albert has reached out to Education Commissioner Pender Makin, another at the state level to see what they can do in the three towns, he noted.

With these issues it gets geared towards budget concerns, Director Phoebe Pike of Livermore Falls said. “Our teachers, students need to be supported,” she said. “It will pay off in the long term. If we don’t support them who will?”

In other business, two recipients of $1,000 from the Marcia and Louis Brown Scholarships were announced.

“It was incredibly difficult, there were so many wonderful applications,” Director Phoebe Pike noted. “It came down to having to look for the negatives.”

She said the recipients are:

• Hunter Dalton, studying environmental science at University of Maine Farmington.

• Morgan Dalton, studying nursing at St. Joseph’s College of Maine.