Wappingers Central School District

Wappingers Central School District was comprised of 14 schools, serving approximately 11,000 students. The District was large, winding across several towns in Dutchess County, from the commercial bustle of Route 9 to peaceful valleys adjacent to the Taconic Parkway. The District’s facilities included ten elementary schools, two junior and two senior high schools.
In the early fall of the 1995-96 school year, the New York State Legislature, through the State Education Department, awarded competitive grants to school districts whose officials wished to assess the efficiency of selected programs in the district, while identifying needed improvements and cost saving measures. In the fall of 1995 the Wappingers Central School District asked Value Management Consultants to write such a grant for a review of its Special Education Program. On receipt of the grant, the District wanted VMC to conduct the study, summarize its findings and make recommendations in a report to the School Administration and Board of Education. The grant was approved by the State Education Department, and VMC’s efficiency study was begun in November of 1995.
Together with the District’s Director of Instruction and the Coordinator and Assistant Coordinator of Special Education, VMC gathered information from meetings, classroom visits and direct observations. In addition, VMC analyzed written documents, including the school budget, enrollment reports, the PD-1 and standardized forms used by the Committee on Special Education. The primary method of data collection, however, proved to be a series of interviews with significant stakeholders in the Program—District administrators, principals, parents, teachers, support staff (including psychologists, social workers and guidance counselors), the teachers union president, and the District’s attorney.
The interviews were open-ended, and were designed to elicit perceptions from each unique perspective. The information surveyed in this manner presented a global picture of the Wappingers Special Education Program, and allowed VMC to reach certain broad conclusions.
The Districts physical plants all seemed well maintained and in good repair, with excellent overall conditions. However, at that time the District was under fiscal constraints, having had several budgets defeated. Therefore, the real issue facing the District was the fact there was less money than necessary to fund all of the Program needs. To resolve this issue, VMC recommended several alterations which represented cost saving measures. For example, one big-ticket item within the District’s Special Education budget was the expense of enrolling students in Alternative High School settings at BOCES centers outside the District. Reasons for those assignments were varied, and not always the result of special academic needs. A significant budgetary reduction was realized by finding other means of providing specific educational interventions and opportunities for students without academic concerns.
Other means of finding cost savings related to specific efficiencies which could easily be instituted, including greater use of computer technology to free clerical help, and greater training for teaching assistants to enable them to work with the Special Education Teachers and students more effectively and meaningfully rather than being confined to ministerial tasks.