Resolve, To Facilitate School Access to Federal Title I Funds and Improve the Delivery of Special Education Services

Sec. 1. Delivery of special education services. Resolved: That the Department of Education, no later than January 1, 2020, shall report to the Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs on the progress, including recommendations and suggested legislation, on the following current projects, which were recommendations of the Task Force To Identify Special Education Cost Drivers and Innovative Approaches to Services during the 128th Legislature:

1. Enhancement of response to intervention to become an all-encompassing multitiered system of support in all school administrative units and removing the regulations on general education interventions from Department of Education rule Chapter 101: Maine Unified Special Education Regulation Birth to Age Twenty and amending rule Chapter 125: Basic Approval Standards: Public Schools and School Administrative Units to include regulations on general education interventions;

2. Facilitation of the process by which schools apply for schoolwide status with respect to funds under Title I of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965;

3. Increased use of dual certification programs for general education and special education certification;

4. Review of the maintenance of effort funding component of the essential programs and services funding formula under the Maine Revised Statutes, Title 20-A, section 15681-A, subsection 2, paragraph D; and

5. Improvement of regional programs that facilitate MaineCare billing for medically necessary services for schools.

The Joint Standing Committee on Education and Cultural Affairs may report out a bill to the Second Regular Session of the 129th Legislature to implement any recommendations in the report.