CT News Junkie

State education leaders touted increased funding to help towns and cities handle the ever-increasing cost of serving the state’s growing population of special needs students at a forum at Naylor Elementary School in Hartford on Monday. The legislature passed and Gov. Ned Lamont signed Public Act 25-67 into law earlier this year. The omnibus bill tackles several areas of special education and provides $30 million for each year of the biennial budget in Special Education Expansion and Development, or SEED, grants to equalize special education spending around the state. State Rep. Maryam Khan, D-Windsor, co-chair of the General Assembly’s select committee on special education, said it was important to keep students with special needs in their home districts. “This grant encourages inclusion,” she said. “It encourages districts to invest in special education programming in their school buildings, like this one, to help keep students in-house as much as possible.”