Specialized K-12 schools for high-needs students closing in rural Colorado

The Colorado Sun collaborated with Chalkbeat for a series on Colorado's "facility schools."  One story in the series, by Rae Ellen Bichell and Helen Santoro's story, is titled "Students in rural Colorado are left without options as specialized facility schools close." An excerpt follows:  

Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed a bill into law this spring that provides funds to prop up facility schools and strengthen services for students with severe needs in rural districts. But the sparse population and vast distances of the Western Slope and eastern plains mean serving these vulnerable students will likely remain a challenge.

“There are no services there. And so you get one student with autism that comes into this little tiny district, what’s going to happen? That child is not going to get what he or she needs, and they’re too far away from the Front Range,” said Barb Taylor, an educator turned consultant who serves as special education director for several Colorado facility schools.

According to a report submitted to lawmakers, among the main reasons students could not be placed at a facility school were lack of openings and, in rural areas, “prohibitive geographic location.”

A few rural patches of the state have figured out alternatives to serve students closer to home. For example, the Santa Fe Trail Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES, started the Southeast Alternative Learning Academy in La Junta for students in the eastern plains with emotional and behavioral problems.

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[A]cross much of rural Colorado, “we have people that are trying to work with these kids that are not qualified or that are not trained, that don’t have the skills that they need to be able to do that in the district,” said Sandy Malouff, executive director and special education director of the Santa Fe Trail [Board of Cooperative Educational Services, or BOCES].

This is, of course, a familiar tale, partly because of the challenge of achieving  economies of scale to deliver services--especially specialized services--in sparsely populated places.