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VESID’s Strategic Plan: Positive Trends

• For the fifth consecutive year, increasing numbers of preschool children and school-age students with disabilities are learning in integrated settings (i.e., settings which include nondisabled students). In 1998-99, 52.2 percent of preschool children were provided special education services in integrated settings, an increase of 7.1 percentage points over the previous year. The percent of school-age students with disabilities who spent 80 percent or more of their school day in general education classes increased from 43.2 percent to 44.7 percent. Also, the percent of school-age students educated in separate settings (i.e., attended by students with disabilities only) decreased from 9.1 percent in 1997-98 to 8.9 percent in 1998-99.
• In 1998-99, fewer school districts placed more than 15 percent of students with disabilities in separate educational settings (47) compared to the previous year (59)
• Compared to the previous two years, in 1998-99 there was a significant increase in the numbers of students with disabilities who took the Regents examinations in English, Mathematics Course I, Global Studies, U.S. History and Government and Biology.
• Compared to the previous year, there was an increase in the percent of average grade enrollment of students with disabilities in grades 9 through 12 who achieved a score of 55 or higher on each of the five Regents examinations.
• Over the three-year period from 1996-97 to 1998-99, there has been a steady increase in the number of special education students planning to attend postsecondary education, from 35 percent to 41 percent.
• Individuals with disabilities placed in jobs by VESID in State fiscal year 2000 represent $213 million in annualized first year earnings and $22.7 million in public assistance savings.

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