Missouri Independent: Missouri unveils plan to transform program for students with disabilities

Missouri unveils plan to transform program for students with disabilities

by Annelise Hanshaw, Missouri Independent
May 14, 2025

Missouri education officials are considering a plan to consolidate schools serving students with disabilities after consultants deemed the current program “not sustainable.”

Missouri is the only state to operate separate day schools for special education, dubbed the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled.

The program serves K-12 students in 34 schools statewide, with anywhere from five to 60 students in a school. Some students spend the majority of their education as a MSSD student, concerning stakeholders who prefer to integrate students with disabilities into a broader student body.

The problems with the program go beyond a desire to desegregate disabled students. The schools struggle to staff classrooms, with a quarter of roles vacant.

And many school buildings are ill-equipped, with some missing gymnasiums and nurses’ offices. The schools have a collective $50 million in deferred maintenance.

“It’s important that we have to look beyond the status quo right now that we have in Missouri, and think about how we can reimagine MSSD,” said Mark Wheatley, assistant commissioner in the office of special education with Missouri’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

For two years, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education has been studying the schools alongside a group of educators, parents and representatives from nonprofits. Wheatley presented the work group’s recommendations to transform MSSD in a State Board of Education meeting Tuesday. During its meeting next month, the board will be asked to approve the plan.

“If the decision is that we just need to get better at doing what we’re doing now, we are already starting that work,” Wheatley said. “But some of these bigger levers that we have to move to make the program more beneficial for more students is going to require direction from (the board).”

The work group suggests closing 24 of the 34 MSSD buildings, six of which were recently consolidated in emergency situations stemming from poor staffing and aging buildings.

Following a decline in enrollment over the past 16 years, MSSD is using under half of the space available for students.

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Consolidation would allow the department to better utilize existing buildings and renovate the aging properties. Two new buildings would be built, bringing the program to 12 schools by the end of 2036.

The cost of the construction is estimated at nearly $183 million, which lawmakers would have to fund.

The state would also have to invest in special education in public school districts. The work group hopes to create collaboratives of districts in rural areas to serve students closer to home.

“We don’t want to create a situation where kids are sent back to their local school district and the local school district is not equipped to handle them,” said Jacob Klett, an education advisor with Public Consulting Group.

Board members were largely impressed with the presentation Tuesday, calling the work “extraordinary.”

But Brooks Miller, a new board member from Sunrise Beach, questioned the longevity of the plan.

“Are we trying to design something now that’s going to take us three or four years, and then in five or six years, it’s not nearly the problem that we had when we designed it?” he asked.

Wheatley said he plans for continuous assessments and hopes to keep an active workgroup to continually study special education in Missouri.

Missouri Independent is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Missouri Independent maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jason Hancock for questions: [email protected].