The percentage of students with disabilities in Vermont’s education system is on the rise, while many school districts lack the capacity to meet their needs, according to a new report released this week by the state Agency of Education.
While overall student enrollment in Vermont’s schools has decreased, the number of students on individualized education programs, or IEPs, has increased at a rate outpacing the nation since the 2019-20 school year, the report said.
The analysis presented in the report paints “a complex picture of special education in Vermont,” the report reads. Students with IEPs in Vermont are spending more of their time in regular classroom settings — a positive finding in the report, experts said.
But at the same time, school districts in Vermont are sending more students with IEPs to out-of-district schools at a rate more than double the national average. Meanwhile, the gap in four-year high school graduation rates between students with and without IEPs increased to 19 percentage points in 2024.
The rise in students with disabilities is, in part, due to increases in the number of students diagnosed with autism since 2019, according to the report. Students who are labeled as having emotional disturbances are also a “key driver” in the increase “due to its higher-than-average prevalence in Vermont.”
The report noted that more students are also now qualifying for the state’s extraordinary cost reimbursement, a program that provides financial assistance to districts and supervisory unions who serve students with disabilities that are more expensive to address.
This, the report said, indicates “not only that more students are being identified, but that the intensity and complexity of their needs could be increasing.”
Many school districts, the report said, “lack the in-house capacity, staffing, and specialized resources to respond effectively.” This is adding financial pressures on to the state’s education system, particularly in tuition to speciality schools and transportation to those institutions.
This week’s report was issued in response to a requirement in Act 73, the sweeping education reform bill signed into law in July. It is the first step toward creating a three-year special education strategic plan as part of the state’s education overhaul, which includes new school district maps and a new education finance formula.
Vermont Education Secretary Zoie Saunders said the strategic plan will include advice from national experts on how to build state-level capacity to support schools and give them the tools and guidance to support their students.
“Analyzing the data alongside the lived experience of local communities and schools sharpened our understanding of existing gaps and helped illuminate a path forward,” Saunders said in a news release.
While the cause of the increase in students with IEPs is not entirely clear, the report suggested the COVID-19 pandemic has likely contributed to the rise in emotional and behavioral challenges among students and influenced special education classification numbers both in Vermont and nationwide.
Another contributing factor to the rise in students with disabilities could be the state’s “comprehensive and proactive approach to mental health and special education,” the report said.
Vermont’s policies may be more apt to identify students with emotional and behavioral challenges earlier than other states, “potentially leading to a higher classification rate,” according to the report.
“The state’s relatively small school and district sizes and a high number of staff per student may also play a role,” the report read. “These conditions can allow for closer observation and more frequent identification of emotional needs, which might go unnoticed in larger, more populous school systems.”
Cassie Santo, the director of special education with the Agency of Education, said in the agency’s press release that the report “underscores Vermont’s deep commitment to inclusive learning environments for students with disabilities while also revealing an urgent need to strengthen the system of support for all learners.”
“The data and feedback from the field confirms that inclusion alone is not enough,” Santo said. “To create belonging for all learners, we must improve the quality of instruction and build a stronger, more connected system that better supports all students.”
There are some positives to take away from the report, experts said. Vermont has a higher rate, compared to the national average, of students with IEPs who spend most of their school day in a regular classroom — 81.97% of students with IEPs in Vermont spend 80% or more of their day in a regular classroom, compared to 67.08% of students with IEPs nationally.
That shows Vermont is leading the nation in inclusive practices, Chelsea Myers and Mary Lundeen, the leaders of the Vermont Superintendents Association and the Vermont Council of Special Education Administrators, said in a press release from those organizations.
However, they noted, when students cannot be included at the classroom level, “they are disproportionately placed in separate schools, at more than double the national rate.” According to the report, 5.27% of students with IEPs in Vermont are in separate schools, compared to 2.36% of students with IEPs nationally.
“This ‘all-or-nothing’ approach reflects gaps in the continuum of supports within public schools,” they said in a news release.
Outcomes for students with IEPs, meanwhile, are lagging.
The percentage of Vermont students with IEPs who graduated high school in four years had remained steady since 2019 — hovering around 70% — but declined in 2024 to 67%, according to the report. The graduation rate in 2024 for students without IEPs was 86%.
Lundeen and Myers, in their press release, pointed to staffing shortages and the reduction of designated mental health services as fueling the pressures on the special education system. Out-of-district placement tuition rates, meanwhile, continue to rise with little oversight.
“These dynamics — strained local capacity and rising out-of-district tuition costs — paint a fuller picture of Vermont’s cost pressures,” the associations said. “It is a mistake to view special education as the problem, rather than looking systemically at the conditions that drive these expenditures.”
A forthcoming special education report queued up for December will make recommendations around changes to how special education services are funded, the Agency of Education said in a release.
This story was republished with permission from VtDigger, which offers its reporting at no cost to local news organizations through its Community News Sharing Project. To learn more, visit vtdigger.org/community-news-sharing-project.