Providence > Instructional Equity > Indicator #4
# and % of students enrolled in special education programs, by school.
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This indicator measures the percentage of students who have Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), written plans that outline goals and the support services that a student with a disability needs to succeed in school. You will find data for the last 10 years, for every school at every school level, as well as data for the district as a whole.
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The data shows that the percentage of students who have IEPs has been consistent for the past 10 years, hovering around 15%. The percentage of students with IEPs in each school does vary greatly though. For example, at the high school level, Classical has 1.3% of students with IEPs, while Hope has 17%, an almost 16 percentage point difference. At the elementary level, these differences are even more pronounced, with Pleasant Valley having almost 40% of their students with IEPs (39.6%) and Reservoir Avenue only 7.2, a difference of 32.4 percentage points.
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Supporting students with IEPs requires specialized resources, like special training for teachers, teacher aids or other paraprofessionals to provide individualized support, and an IEP team that can help track how students are doing in their plan’s goals. Having big disparities between schools, without the appropriate resources being made available to schools with a higher number of students with IEPs, may result in students not getting what they need to succeed.