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Lisa Balzano’s recent visit to a Fairfield high school left her floored by one sight in particular: a supply room stocked with almost anything a teacher would need. 

“She opened this room with supplies, and I almost fell over,” Balzano recalled. “I said, ‘What’s this?’”

Balzano is a special education teacher at Bridgeport Military Academy, where she buys her own tissues, pens, pencils, markers and more. Anything she needs, she purchases — except for paper. Teachers are allocated two reams a month. 

“That was a year or two ago, and it’s still embedded in my brain how it was just Fairfield,” Balzano said. “It’s 10 minutes from where I live, and it’s just completely different.”

As a Bridgeport educator working in special education for nearly 20 years, Balzano is no stranger to shortages. A position went unfilled last school year, and Balzano’s caseload jumped from 25 students to around 40 students. While it was normal for her, Balzano said she’s heard that other towns consider a caseload of 25 students high.

Special education programs across the state have been historically underfunded, and some urban districts like Bridgeport and New Britain — as well as smaller rural districts, like Thompson — have struggled especially to support their special education students because of lower teacher pay or limited access to resources.

Statewide, special education accounts for a large portion of district budgets. From 2023 to 2024, districts in the state spent, on average, almost a quarter of their total expenditures on special education.

Earlier this year, in a move many educators said was long overdue, Gov. Ned Lamont and the state legislature injected an additional $70 million into special education. Of that, $40 million was allocated as an emergency grant for the fiscal year that ended June 30 and $30 million went toward a new grant for fiscal year 2026. But this money still isn’t nearly enough to meet the needs in many districts, and officials are working to fill in the gaps.

Spending is high, but students are struggling

Some districts spend over 30% of their annual budgets on special education. But such high levels of spending don’t necessarily mean students are getting what they need. 

When a district can’t meet a student’s level of need, that student may be sent to a school in another district or placed in a private school or facility. But this has historically been very costly for districts.

The costs are due to a variety of factors, said Michael Morton, deputy executive director of operations and communications for the School and State Finance Project, a nonpartisan, nonprofit policy organization.

“When you have historically underfunded districts, they’re not going to have the resources to build in-district programming,” Morton said. “As a result of that, you are going to have a lot more students being sent out of district, which results in increased costs.”

And that raises other costs, Morton said. “You’re also paying for transportation to make sure those students get to a place where they can get the services that they deserve and are legally entitled to.”

Districts statewide spent around $268 million on transportation for all special education students in the 2023-24 school year and just under $700 million on tuition.

Michele McKinley, who heads up special education for Bridgeport schools, said the district outplaces anywhere between 250 and 300 students — which comes with a high cost.

“Out-of-district placement may cost $200,000, and that’s on the low end. Well, we don’t get $200,000 per student,” McKinley said, referring to state funding. “So then that’s additional funds that we have to go into the general budget to pull to ensure that we are meeting that student’s needs. Because ultimately, we have to meet the individual student’s needs.”

“There just aren’t the funds to support the legal requirements. And that’s a real problem.”

Andrew Feinstein, attorney

Bridgeport faced significant teacher shortages last year, with 24 special education teacher vacancies and 46 paraeducator vacancies, according to a complaint filed in June by the Center for Children’s Advocacy. The complaint detailed allegations from families who said their children regressed due to inadequate staffing of educators with no special education training.

One student was allowed, on multiple occasions, to hit their head against a wall hundreds of times, according to the complaint.

McKinley said the district has already begun addressing issues in the complaint.

Bridgeport is in a better position this upcoming school year, with only three special education teacher vacancies as of Aug. 15, according to Bridgeport Public Schools. McKinley said “a lot of intentional work” went into recruiting and retention initiatives.

But funding disparities mean some districts face steeper challenges than others. Districts in Connecticut get around 57% of their education funding from local property taxes, according to the School and State Finance Project. That means more affluent towns tend to have more money to spend on education. 

Both New Britain and Greenwich put around 27% of their total education expenditures towards special education in 2023-24, a bit above the state-wide average of 23.7%. But taking into account each town’s tax revenues, and the number of students they serve, there was a more-than $20,000 disparity between New Britain and Greenwich in per-pupil expenditures for students in special education. 

Greenwich spent over $50,800 per special education student, while New Britain spent $25,686 per special education student.

In Bridgeport, where Balzano works, nearly 30% of all education expenditures went towards special education; That amounted to $28,081 per pupil in special education. 

Some less affluent districts — that can’t provide the qualified staff or infrastructure required by law for special education students — spend millions of dollars to send students to schools outside the district.

Outplacements strain Bridgeport’s budget significantly, McKinley said. But the district is currently building a new facility for students with “complex learning needs” that would house around 260 students. She said she hopes this will save the district money and provide students with the services they need.

If special education costs exceed what the district has budgeted, McKinley said they have to tap into funds that are intended to cover other things.

“That’s the importance of the new facility that we’re building, it’s to provide some of those services where we have had to send students out of district — to provide those services in district.” McKinley said.

Like most things, special education has gotten more expensive

Special education costs have risen steeply in recent years for districts across the country. In Connecticut, the number of special education students has steadily increased despite an overall decline in statewide enrollment.

Andrew Feinstein, a special education attorney, said districts statewide are struggling to hire educators. The state Department of Education has also highlighted the problem. This shortage is exacerbated in districts that offer less-competitive salaries, typically lower-income districts.

“Cost, of course, escalated enormously in special ed,” Feinstein said. “We are reaching the real area of scarcity, where there just aren’t the funds to support the legal requirements. And that’s a real problem.”

Six years ago, districts were putting a smaller portion — closer to 20% — of education expenditures towards special education. Districts now are dishing out over 25%. And students are still struggling.

Naomi Nova is involved in the special education system as a parent, special education attorney and as the vice president of Special Education Equity for Kids of Connecticut, or SEEK. Nova came face-to-face with the impacts of staff shortages after a recent planning and placement team meeting. (Nova wanted to clarify that at this meeting, the board was not represented by an attorney.)

In the parking lot, as she was leaving, Nova was approached by one of the evaluators.

“It wasn’t a confrontational meeting at all, but she came up to me in tears after the meeting, grabbed me in the parking lot and told me that there were so many more assessments and things that she wanted to recommend and do to help students, and that she couldn’t do it because her number of evaluations that she was now expected to do was so high that there just weren’t enough hours in the day,” Nova said.

Nova said families sometimes seek supplemental support for their children outside of the school system, but that can present financial challenges.

“These are huge expenses, and they’re huge expenses for any family,” Nova said. “But for people who can’t afford it, it’s truly devastating.”

What’s the state doing?

The Connecticut General Assembly passed legislation creating additional grants to fund special education during the 2025 legislative session in an effort to help districts, their students and staff.

The bill passed in June included the creation of the Special Education Expansion and Development (SEED) grant that will allocate $60 million over the next two fiscal years, or $30 million a year. The general assembly also approved a High Quality Special Education Incentives grant to allocate $9.9 million in FY 2027 among other initiatives targeted at managing costs in special education.

If the grant were fully funded — which it is not — it would allocate over $190 million across the state. Under the current allocation, it provides a few less-populated towns with just a few hundred dollars for the year. 

“I don’t think anyone would say it is [a magical solution],” Morton, of the School and State Finance Project, said. “But it is a step in the right direction to hopefully making sure that we have a special education system that is not only well funded but is making sure that every student is getting the services that they are legally entitled to.”

Before the creation of the SEED grant, state special education funding was primarily distributed through two grants: the Excess Cost grant and the Education Cost Sharing grant. The Excess Cost grant is a high-cost service funding grant that partially reimburses districts for the cost of some special education students. To cover additional special education costs, districts pull money from the state’s general education funding, distributed under the Education Cost Sharing grant.

[RELATED: How are CT schools funded? What to know about the ECS formula]

Connecticut is one of the only states in the nation that did not distribute state funding for special education through a dedicated formula prior to FY 2026.

Districts can request reimbursement through the Excess Cost grant for the cost of students exceeding the basic contribution, or when a student’s education costs over 4.5 times the district’s average expenditure per student from the prior year.

The grant also fully reimburses districts for students requiring special education services placed by the state. This includes students who may be attending an out-of-district school because of a foster care placement. 

But these grants don’t typically meet districts’ needs, leaving local school systems to pay the difference. For districts, this creates what Kate Dias, president of the Connecticut Education Association, calls a “disaster in local budgeting.”

“You’re talking about some districts having to make up three, four, five million dollars because the Excess Cost grants were only funded to 60%,” Dias said. “You had the federal government not meeting its obligation, the state not meeting its obligation, but the services have to be provided and then paid for at the local level, causing these incredible pressures.” 

That’s led districts like Bridgeport to place special education students in costly private schools. A federal report from 2023 found that Connecticut outplaced 6.3% of all special education students — the highest rate in the nation.

Some students require district outplacement for their learning needs, but many need mid-tier interventions they can’t get in their districts. With the newly approved SEED grant, and additional future funding, Dias is hopeful districts can create collaborative centers for students to receive “the lowest level of intervention with the highest level of impact.” 

“These ideas of regional centers are going to have to take root in some capacity,” Dias said. “We can’t afford to continuously outsource special education. We’re going to have to figure out, how do we create something different?” 

A new approach

That “something different” may look unconventional on the outside — like the Farmington Valley Diagnostic Center. 

The center, directed by Sara Steinberg, is a temporary school for 6th through 12th graders located in a small one-story building in Simsbury. The goal of the school isn’t to keep students enrolled — rather, it seeks to send them back to their home districts.

Overseen by the Capitol Region Education Council, the FVDC allows member districts to purchase a certain number of seats at the beginning of the school year at a much lower cost than conventional private outplacements. 

Steinberg said memberships cost “far less” than what a conventional outplacement would cost since the center is not looking to make a profit.

Steinberg said FVDC is “scrappy,” transforming closets into reboot rooms with pillows and calming lights for students and bringing in community members with service dogs to interact with students weekly — for free. The school, which has been open since 1998, recently purchased new furniture for the first time in the history of the center.

Around half of the students at FVDC have reached a point where they are refusing to attend school in their home district, and many have undergone severe trauma, Steinberg said. The goal of the center is to realign and reset students in a standard 8- to 12-week period placement. Steinberg has seen countless success stories from students who leave the center and return to their home districts.

“Our systems are not always set up for early intervention, unfortunately, but this is actually an example of earlier intervention,” Steinberg said. “It’s an opportunity to do something in a supportive, proactive way and seeing then what the next step is.” 

Sometimes, students are still sent to outplacement programs if they can’t return to their district. But the program offers a step before outplacement that many districts, especially smaller districts, don’t have the bandwidth to offer, Steinberg said.

“I do think if we can create these smaller settings within larger settings, there’s a place for that,” Steinberg said, adding that SEED grant funding could bolster that effort. 

We can’t afford to continuously outsource special education. We’re going to have to figure out, how do we create something different?”

Kate Dias, Connecticut Education Association

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, co-sponsored the bill that provided for SEED grants during this year’s legislative session, and he said it’s a good opportunity to fund intervention to support students with lower-levels of need.

“So this is hopefully an incentive for communities to come together and say, ‘Can we pool our resources and educate some of these kids instead of sending them to other places where it’s more expensive?’” Ritter said. 

In addition to Bridgeport’s announcement of its new school tailored to special education students, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti has said he wants to open a regional special education school. 

Morton said he believes the special education bills passed may allow districts to consider expanding resources. “People are more likely to consider — because of the additional funds that are being provided and the additional incentives — [creating] in-district or multidistrict programming, rather than relying on outplacing students,” Morton said.

The SEED grant won’t solve all the problems in special education in Connecticut, but, Ritter said, “You’ve got to take a step to walk a mile.”

Not a ‘magical fix’

As the staffing shortage continues, educators like Balzano see the impacts of underfunding each day. Statewide teacher shortages are exacerbated in less affluent districts because of lower incomes, fewer resources and larger class sizes and caseloads.

When Balzano had around 40 students on her caseload, she not only had to fill out paperwork for each of the students, she also had to teach them.

“I was spread very, very thin,” she said. “And I heard some teachers stay at school till 8:00 at night. I just can’t do that. I can’t and I won’t do that.”

Balzano was able to get her work done and not stay late because of an agreement established through the Bridgeport Education Association and the Bridgeport Board of Education that allowed educators to get coverage for classes if they needed additional time to finish paperwork. Even though the vacant position is now filled, Balzano said there is still a lot of teacher turnover in the district, and people often leave for higher paying positions in the state.

But Balzano said she’s dedicated to her Bridgeport school. 

“The students need somebody that they know will stay, because I think they’re so used to a transient teacher and staff population. I think there’s a comfort to know that that teacher or staff member will always be there,” she said. 

Balzano, who only had one other job before working in Bridgeport, said this is “it” for her.

“I can’t really imagine doing anything else, and I just love working with the kids and their families,” she said.