Board reviews Keystone Central special-education plan for 2025–2028; district says services align with state monitoring

Keystone Central’s special-education director presented the district’s three-year special-education plan update for 2025–2028 on April 3, describing enrollment, service-continuum arrangements, compliance status and plans for parent and staff training.

Dr. Barnhart (presenting) said the plan uses 2023–24 data showing total enrollment of 3,378 students with 19.1% identified for special education. She said the district offers a continuum of services — ranging from supports in general-education classrooms to self-contained and out-of-district placements when required by an IEP team — and that cyclical monitoring completed in 2022–23 yielded no current corrective actions.

The plan documents least-restrictive-environment metrics and said Keystone Central’s rates for students spending 80% or more of the day in regular education align with state averages. Barnhart described procedures for placements outside district boundaries (court-ordered placements, medical/hospital placements and IEP team decisions) and noted the district has arrangements to provide instruction to school-age students placed in adult correction facilities when required.

The presentation covered positive behavior supports, functional-behavior assessments and staff training; Barnhart said paraprofessionals must meet 20 hours of required professional learning to maintain highly qualified status and that the district provides parent trainings based on survey-identified needs. She said the plan was posted for the required 28-day public review and that the district plans to submit the final plan by the May 1 deadline to the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Bureau of Special Education.

Board members suggested the topic could also be suitable for a deeper review in a board training or retreat.