PROVIDENCE — Facing escalating costs and new federal requirements, state education officials are considering key changes to special education that would affect more than 32,000 students who receive services.

One of the most controversial changes is eliminating restrictions on class size for special-education students and caseload maximums for special-education directors. Both would force profound changes in teacher contracts statewide.

Other changes include reducing services to roughly 400 special-needs students who attend private school and no longer automatically offering an extended, 230-day school year to 1,100 students who have severe disabilities.

“On the surface, looking at modifying regulations may initially seem like a loss of services,” said Kenneth G. Swanson, director of special education for the Rhode Island Department of Education. “But I firmly believe it’s a way to hold districts more accountable for services to kids with disabilities.”

The 2004 federal reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires states to review their own laws to make sure they meet the minimum federal requirements. If approved, the Rhode Island changes will be phased in over the next year or so to give districts and families a chance to adjust, Swanson said. The state has until June 30, 2008, to comply.

Rhode Island historically has offered more to special-education students than the federal minimum requirements. However, as the state grapples with a severe budget shortfall and communities clamor for property-tax relief, some of the proposed changes would eliminate the state’s more generous provisions in favor of federal law.

It costs about $22,893 a year to educate a special-education student in Rhode Island compared with $9,269 a year for a regular-education student.

The state’s Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education intended to approve the changes at a 4 p.m. meeting tomorrow at the Shepard Building, 255 Westminster St., and schedule public hearings in May, but the board will probably ask for more time to consider the proposal, said Elliot Krieger, spokesman for the state Education Department.

Teacher union leaders, parochial schools and advocacy organizations agree the time is right to review Rhode Island’s special-education system, but voiced concerns that some of the changes might take away services from students and make teaching such students more difficult.

“Anytime there’s a change, there’s a fear of the unknown. Even if it’s not perfect, you know what you have,” said Dawn Wardyga, program director for Family Voices, a family information and health center affiliated with the Rhode Island Parent Information Center. “Having said that, there are two ways to look at this. One is, it’s an opportunity to improve the special-ed system and you have to invest trust in the system. Unfortunately in my experience, especially for this population of kids and their families, they’ve had to fight for everything they get for those kids whether the [services] are mandated or not. So it’s hard to enter into this with an open mind that the system will truly do what’s best for these kids and their families.”

Teacher unions say they are particularly concerned about changes to class-size regulations and the caseload restrictions for special-education directors, social workers and occupational therapists.

Rhode Island allows self-contained classes of 10 or fewer students, with one teacher and one teaching assistant. Classes with severely disabled students are limited to 6 students. Caseloads for administrators are also kept low. Providence, for example, has 15 special-education directors.

Swanson said the state has some of the most generous class-size restrictions in the country. He also said there appeared to be no educational research used when the regulation was adopted.

In contrast, federal law mandates no class size or caseload maximum.

In a public work session Monday, Amy Beretta, a member of the Regents, asked why state levels had been set in the first place and questioned whether they should continue.

Colleen Callaghan, a member of the Regents and director of professional development for the Rhode Island chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, said she was worried special-education teachers are already stretched too thin, and that districts might rush to expand class sizes or integrate more special-education students in an attempt to save money, without considering the students’ needs.

“I’m worried about the signal that will be sent if the federal language is adopted,” Callaghan said.

“I think it’s sending a stronger signal by saying no more arbitrary numbers; instead we will monitor performance,” Beretta said. “But then the question is, how to monitor this.”

Larry Purtil, president of the Rhode Island National Education Association, said strain on teachers must be considered if class sizes are increased.

“Talk to special educators and ask them what’s the biggest burden they have and they will tell you it’s the paperwork and all the demands. If you lift the cap on that, you need to think about the fact that it’s already a field that’s hard to attract people to,” Purtil said. “My number-one concern is that the teachers and students won’t get the support they need to make these changes successful.” Parochial schools are worried about another proposed change that would reduce financing for special-education students whose parents have chosen to send them to private school.

The federal government provides money to districts to help cover the cost of such services. In Rhode Island that amount comes to about $1,100 per student. Often, that is not enough to cover all costs, and Rhode Island has required the town where the student lives to make up the difference. The Board of Regents is considering eliminating that requirement.

But private schools say that would be penny wise but pound foolish.

Sheila Durante, superintendent of schools in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Providence, says 16,594 students attend Catholic schools in Rhode Island, 451 of whom qualify for services under IDEA. For 92 of those students, their needs are met by the $1,100 "proportional share" required by the federal goverment and paid by the community where the private school is located. However, 359 students in parochial schools require more special-education services and the additional cost is covered by the city or town where they live.

“It costs the cities and towns about $2 million a year,” Durante said. “But if these 359 students left and went to public school, that cost would jump to $5.4 million. So we want to see the law in Rhode Island stay as it is.” Another proposed change would affect about 1,100 students with severe disabilities who are now entitled to an extended school year of 230 days. That means going to school during February and April vacations, Christmas break and several weeks of the summer. But many students do not attend all 230 days and the quality of the programs needs to be reviewed, Swanson said. In addition, different students may need extended programs of different lengths, so automatically scheduling a 230-day school year does not make sense, he said.

Other proposed changes include:

•Expanding the age range of students identified with a disability from ages 3 to 5 to age 8; federal law allows states to identify students as late as age 9.

•Adopting the federal requirement that a student identified with special needs must be evaluated within 60 calendar days, replacing the state law that an evaluation occur within 45 school days.

•Requiring schools to use new interventions to help struggling students rather than wait until the student is in crisis and is eligible for more extensive services.

•Keeping Rhode Island’s more generous requirements that schools establish short-term goals and objectives for students in special education; and requiring that schools begin planning for such students’ futures by age 14, not by age 16 as the federal law mandates.

Clarification: This story was updated to explain in more detail services provided to students attending Catholic schools in Rhode Island.

jjordan@projo.com