Meeting of the Missouri Board of Education on June 3, 2025 in Jefferson City (photo of Alisa Nelson)
The Missouri Board of Education is considering recommendations that aim to better provide services to disabled students.
The State has 34 schools for the disabled seriously with around 600 students registered.
The Missouri schools for seriously disabled disabled are a program operated by the state established by state law in 1957 and served children and young people aged five to 21. According to the State Department of Primary and Secondary Education, Missouri is the only state that still uses a distinct state school system for students with significant support needs.
A recommendation that the Board of Directors is discussing is to permanently close 12 school buildings operated by the State. At the meeting of the board of directors of the state on Tuesday, Mark Wheatley, deputy commissioner of the department, said that around 115 students would be affected by the closures.
“The third thing we are going to ask for approval is the possibility of initiating the budget and planning to establish and build a new school in the general region of Kansas City,” said Wheatley.
Meanwhile, the State Board of Education is one more step towards the approval of a new certification of computer teachers. Deputy Commissioner Paul Katnik said there was no current occasion for an individual to obtain an initial computer certification.
“You have never been able to be a computer teacher only. You always had to be something else and that has always had an impact on the number of people available and how schools have taught computer science to their students. So it will be a big change. This has a lot of support behind this because people have been wishing it for a long time,” Katnik told the board of directors.
A proposal to create certification will be published for comments from the public and will then return to the State Board of Education for a final vote, probably in August.
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