PROVIDENCE — The state Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education has agreed that the state education commissioner was justified when he granted a School Department request to increase the class size for special education students.

The regents voted on Wednesday to support a ruling by an appeals committee of the regents.

The appeals committee upheld a decision by Education Commissioner Peter McWalters, who granted a request by Supt. Donnie Evans to increase class size from 10 to 12 students, provided the district complies with a number of requirements aimed at improving the quality of special education.

“While monetary issues may have been the motivation for the Providence school district’s request,” the appeals committee wrote, “the commissioner’s response to it was, in our opinion, motivated by the need to fulfill his obligation to improve the performance in the district in a manner not constrained by dogged adherence to an arbitrary number for class size.”

The Providence Teachers Union argued in a suit in Superior Court that the School Department decided to increase class size in a last-ditch attempt to close a $3.4-million budget deficit, created in part by the General Assembly’s decision not to award a 3 percent school aid increase to cities and towns.

The union argued that there was no educational justification for increasing class size, adding that special education children would, in fact, be harmed by such a move. After hearing testimony in the case last fall, Judge Allen P. Rubine sent the matter to the regents because, he said, they set education policy for the state.

In his decision, Rubine said that the regents would have to determine whether McWalters granted the district’s special education waiver because of valid educational reasons or whether his actions were motivated by a budget shortfall that an increase in class size would correct.

Rubine urged the regents to reject McWalters’ ruling if it was merely a way to do “an end-run around the Caruolo Act requirements,” which do not permit the commissioner to grant variances to special education regulations based on the cost of providing those services.

If, on the other hand, the regents had found that McWalters based his decision on the need to increase student performance, then, Rubine said, the regents could find that the commissioner “acted properly within his broad authority” under a state law called progressive support and intervention. Progressive support and intervention allows the commissioner to intervene in schools or districts whose students are chronically underperforming.

The appeals committee also noted that the regents last month voted to remove class-size restrictions across the state. The new regulations say that class sizes for self-contained special education classrooms will be based on the needs of students within a particular district.

“It might be argued that this case is moot,” the appeals committee wrote, “but we have decided to proceed on it because of the possible consequences to district programs and personnel if the changes brought about by the variance were left in doubt.”

lborg@projo.com