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Special Education is instruction designed for students with an identified learning disability. The process for determining which students are eligible for services and funding is determined by IDEA. (Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act). IDEA guarantees students with disabilities and their parents certain rights, and places specific responsibilities on people who organize and deliver special education services.

MSAD#27 has contracted services for physical therapy, educational evaluations, and counseling services. The District has a full-time occupational therapist and two speech language pathologists who serve all district schools. One part-time speech language pathologist provides academic and psycho-educational assessments for students referred for evaluation through the IEP process. Our district social workers and counselors in the guidance department provide counseling and assessment services, social skills development, boys and girls groups, and other programs designed for the development of school skills that enable students to be successful learners.

Special Education

Special education classrooms are distributed in each school building according to the numbers and needs of the students.

Individualized programming is provided for students in grades Kindergarten through grade eight in each elementary school.Valley Rivers Middle School (VRMS) has improved their program to include more specialized programs. Community High School (including students in grades 7-12) also has a Life Skills Program to help meet the individual needs of students. (Click link to learn more about Life Skills Program)

Fort Kent Community High School has adopted co-taught classrooms for many of our students. Our co-taught classrooms include a regular education and a special education teacher. The special education teacher works closely with the regular education teacher providing specialized differentiated lessons for students with special needs. The special education teacher ensures that the classroom lesson is taught in a different way so that the student with special needs can access the learning requirements, along with the other students in the classroom. Co-teaching provides an inclusive setting for special education students while ensuring that they are in the Least Restrictive Environment.

Our district’s special education staff is dedicated to providing high quality educational programming. We continue to be creative in designing programs that foster the belief in quality educational programming. All of our students take part in our local and state assessments and we do not have any students attending out of district programs. The staff needs to be commended for their effort in providing outstanding service to our students.

We also value and appreciate the support from all our parents, educational staff, administration, and school board members in meeting the needs of our special population of learners.

If you would like more information about the Special Education program in the District, please contact:

Jill Kelly, Special Education Director at (207) 834-3481