NBC Montana

A new law will bring funding to early special education in Montana for the first time in decades. The bipartisan effort got House Bill 168 onto Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk, and now, it’s law. According to federal law, all school districts in the nation are required to educate preschool-age children with disabilities. The Treasure State is no different, but since 1993, schools haven’t received any funding to provide those services. “Over the years, various school funding reforms, all well-intentioned and generally good, kind of an unintended effect seemed to be that those three and four-year-olds kind of fell off the radar,” said Rep. Jonathan Karlen, D-Missoula. The legislation, sponsored by Karlen, addresses the long-standing gap in Montana’s education system. While school districts have been federally required to provide special education services to preschool-aged children, the state has not allocated funding to support those efforts. This left local districts to either scale back essential services or reallocate funds from other K-12 programs to meet students’ needs.