The Baltimore Banner has published several stories on the crisis roiling special education in the Howard County Public School System (Howard County schools could add jobs next year. Will it work? Jan. 16, 2025). Chronic underfunding, mismanagement and lack of accountability has resulted in educators leaving the profession, and has allowed students and their families to suffer.

Special educators have been sounding the alarm for years. In 2019, Howard County’s teacher of the year testified about how the special education system in Howard County made her feel like a “failure.” She resigned that same year, and all the other teachers who testified before the board that year are now gone from HCPSS.

But there is another, bigger reason why this situation has reached a tipping point. As needs of students with disabilities have increased, the county government has devoted a smaller and smaller percentage of its own budget to HCPSS every year. In 2019, when those educators testified, the county spent 53% of its budget on K-12 schools. In FY25, it is only 46%. If HCPSS was funded at 2019 levels, it would have $116 million more than it does now. Consequently, per-pupil spending in inflation-adjusted dollars has remained flat, and per-pupil spending in special education has declined.

With those funds, we could achieve what administrators and educators have been begging for: more school-based paperwork support, nonteaching team leader positions and differentiated pay so that we can keep the special educators we already have. To paraphrase a parent who testified, our kids aren’t looking for luxury, they are looking for fairness. Let’s start by restoring a fair portion of the county’s budget to the school system. Our kids cannot wait.

Benjamin Schmitt is president of the Howard County Education Association.