Districts Hire Outsider to Trim Special Ed. Costs

Speech-pathology assistant Kate Lampron walks one of her prekindergarten pupils back to his class after a therapy session at the Webster School in Everett, Mass. The Everett district hired Ms. Lampron’s employer, Futures Education, to help it trim special education costs and provide therapy services for students.

—Erik Jacobs for Education Week

By Nirvi Shah

Everett, Mass.

In a prekindergarten class at the Webster School here, occupational-therapist assistant Ashley Tarentino leads five children in a round of “The Wheels on the Bus,” triggering the children with autism and other conditions that have affected their gross and fine motor skills to pedal their arms along with the actions in the song.

While this scene could be taking place anywhere in the country, one invisible factor sets this classroom apart. Ms. Tarentino doesn’t work for the school, or the district. She’s an employee of Futures Education , a private company that works with dozens of districts around the country on cutting special education costs.

Futures Education may be hired simply to evaluate how a district’s special education students are served, or it may go as far as providing therapists or aides and revamping how those services are delivered based...