Three in 10 Gloucester students now qualify for special education, and out of district tuition tops $7.2 million

Three out of every 10 students in the Gloucester Public Schools now qualify for special education, the district's special education director told the School Committee on Wednesday, Oct. 28. The number was 28 percent last year, and members said they had long assumed it was about 24 percent.

The update filled most of a 2 hour 51 minute meeting in the Gloucester High School library. The committee took only two votes, from the meeting video: it approved its consent agenda by voice vote and adjourned. The vote on its own operating rules that was on the agenda did not happen.

What happened

• Special education eligibility is at 30 percent of enrollment, counting students placed outside the district. The district runs its own programs for 229 students.
• The number of students placed in outside schools fell from 71 in fiscal 2025 to 52 this year, but tuition rose from $5.6 million to $7.3 million, because rates go up every year and residential placements went from four to six.
• There is no language based program at the high school, and 18 students are in the one at O'Maley Middle School for grades 6 to 8.
• A state review found no special education problems. Its one finding, on bullying prevention training, has been fixed for all but one staff member.
• The Gloucester Biotechnology Academy will pilot a program in January that lets three to five Gloucester High seniors train in its labs while still in school.
• The committee went through a new set of operating protocols line by line, changed a dozen passages, and sent the draft back to its Program Subcommittee. No vote was taken.

Special education by the numbers

Director of Special Education Mike Jarvis said he is not covering test scores or the budget in detail; those come to the committee's Nov. 18 meeting. He said the district has rebuilt its special education programs around inclusion, meaning students get help inside regular classrooms where possible, so that the separate programs stop growing and fewer students have to leave the city for schools that cost more.

"We're serving 229 students district wide in district programs," he said. Those programs include language based classrooms for students with reading disabilities, autism programs that use one on one teaching, therapeutic programs for students with emotional disabilities, life skills classrooms and a transition program for students ages 18 to 22.

He walked through the numbers school by school. The three autism classrooms at West Parish Elementary, which use one to one or two to one staffing, have seven, eight and eight students where about five is the goal. The two intensive preschool classrooms have 14 children where five or six is the goal. "They're bursting at the seams," he said. The language based program at O'Maley has 18 students in grades 6 to 8, and nothing waits for them at Gloucester High. "It's white there on purpose because we don't have it. It's a gap," he said of the blank box on his chart.

Space is a problem too. "There's also no space at East Vets," he said, and West Parish "doesn't have any space, let alone parking." Some paraprofessional jobs are still unfilled. He said the district built its programs "in two years with a million plus dollar budget cut."

A member asked how the district can shrink the numbers when the children in the autism classrooms clearly need that level of help. Jarvis said the answer is stronger reading instruction and support in the regular classroom for the larger group of students with milder needs, not pulling the most intensive students out of their programs. He said about half of special education evaluations start with a parent's request and half with the school's.

Out of district: fewer students, higher bills

Jarvis showed a three year table of students placed in schools outside the district. The source lines on the slide were the state's circuit breaker tuition tracking and the district's out of district monitoring.

Source: Gloucester Public Schools special education update, Oct. 28, 2026, from the slide shown to the committee. Tuition only; staff costs for the district's own programs are not included. Residential placements are the costliest, and the state's circuit breaker program reimburses the district for part of the cost above a threshold.

"Every year the tuition goes up," Jarvis said. The regional education collaborative the district uses "just brought up 11 percent for the same services," he said. The district's out of district coordinator, Rachel Clemenzi, has brought eight students back into Gloucester programs by working with families, he said.

The district also went through its state special education review this year, a check the state does every three years. "In short, we didn't have any findings for special education," Jarvis said. The one finding was that the new bullying prevention plan had not been shared with all staff; that training was done at the start of the school year except for one person.

Going forward, he said, the district wants to add inclusion capacity in English and math within the existing budget, train staff with a clinical lens, keep checking whether out of district students are ready to return, and tighten the student support team process that decides who gets evaluated. One member asked what protects the other 20 or so children in a class when supports are thin; Jarvis said the team process is meant to move a student when a placement is not working for anyone.

Biotechnology Academy pilot

John Doyle, senior director of the Gloucester Biotechnology Academy, said the free nine month program has trained 132 Gloucester residents in its 10 years, 99 of whom graduated. Students spend six months at the bench in the academy's Blackburn Center labs, more than 500 hours, then go to a paid co op of three to six months at a biotech company. About 55 to 60 percent are hired straight out of their co op. Students who qualify get a $1,000 a month stipend, and the program is tuition free; a bit more than half its money is private philanthropy, with state and federal grants making up the rest.

Starting in January, three to five Gloucester High seniors will enroll at the academy while still in school, earn credit for the time, and go on to a co op, Doyle said, with the goal of graduating with a diploma, a biotech certificate and a job. Every O'Maley eighth grader already visits the academy each year. Applications for the September class open in January.

Operating rules go back to the subcommittee

Laura Wiessen, who chairs the Program Subcommittee, presented a rewrite of the committee's operating protocols, last updated in 2019. Members went through it line by line for about 50 minutes and agreed on changes without a vote. The opening sentence will say the committee's job is oversight and support of the administration, not meeting children's needs itself. Meeting notices will cite the state Open Meeting Law instead of a flat 48 hours. Meetings are expected to end within two and a half hours "whenever possible." No policy or business item will be voted on the night it is first introduced unless the committee decides otherwise.

The longest argument was over a line that members "will abide by" the district's norms of collaboration, the ground rules staff use in their own meetings. One member objected that the committee never voted on those norms and should not be bound by them. Others said the committee should hold itself to the same standard it holds staff. Superintendent Amy Pasquarello said the district's own committees work from the norms. The members settled on "rely on." They also struck a line saying it is not the committee's role to resolve individual problems, after a member read from the city charter, which gives the committee the power to investigate the schools, and removed a phrase that members must represent the committee's votes "regardless of their personal position," which some called antagonistic. Wiessen said she will make the changes and bring the draft back.

Also at the meeting

• Two residents spoke at public comment: one asked the schools to pursue maritime trades training at an idle city owned waterfront property, and one thanked the district for fixing the meeting room audio.
• Gloucester High's student council reported a mock election on Oct. 27 in which 573 students voted, with short videos on each ballot question made by the social studies department.
• Elementary band enrollment is a record 70 fourth graders and 43 fifth graders. The field hockey team is undefeated and a junior broke the school's single season scoring record with 25 goals.
• A member asked for a future presentation on building safety and staffing, a report on field trips canceled for lack of buses, and that the Building and Finance Subcommittee look at a bus patrol program after a recent incident with a student getting off a bus.
• Coming up: the fall coffee house Nov. 5 at 7 p.m. in the GHS cafeteria, and a free JazzReach concert Nov. 11 at 7 p.m. in the GHS auditorium.

What was decided

• Consent agenda as presented, including minutes of Oct. 7, Oct. 8 and Oct. 14, warrants, transfers and a $1,200 gift card donation to the preschool teachers: voice vote, all in favor, from the meeting video.
• Updated operating protocols: no vote. The draft goes back to the Program Subcommittee with the changes discussed.

What happens next

• Wednesday, Nov. 4, 6 p.m.: next School Committee meeting, GHS library.
• Monday, Nov. 9, 5 p.m.: Building and Finance Subcommittee.
• Wednesday, Nov. 18: special education outcomes and MCAS results, Jarvis said.
• The operating protocols return at a later meeting for a vote.

Where to find the records

• Agenda for the Oct. 28 meeting.
• October 2026 Past Meetings, where the city posts the Zoom recording.
• School Committee page, with members, packets and minutes when posted.

Earlier coverage: Gloucester School Committee Wednesday: a vote on its own operating rules (Oct. 25), the agenda for this meeting; and Gloucester schools' special ed cushion to hit record low: $348,382 (Oct. 16), the circuit breaker money and the Oct. 14 meeting.

How we did this: Cape Ann Current watched the meeting online on the city's recording. Votes are as heard on the recording and are labeled from the meeting video until the committee's minutes confirm them. These are our meeting notes, not the committee's minutes.