The $400 million of federal stimulus money that Washington schools will receive over the next two years is a mixed blessing for the Issaquah School District, and will serve as a stop gap rather than fund any significant improvements.

That is the message from the school district’s Chief of Finance and Operations Jake Kuper, who said recently that the district would receive $3 million dollars for funding special education programs and training.

The district is one of just a handful that will not receive any of the $180 million for “Title 1” funding, which provides financial assistance to schools with high percentages of children from low income families.

These funds are allocated based primarily on census poverty estimates.

The Lake Washington School District will receive $1.1 million in Title 1 funds, in addition to $4.9 million in special education funding.

Kuper said that existing legislation made it very clear how the special education funds could be spent, and echoed the sentiments of many district officials in saying that it was problematic to be adding to the special education budget while at the same time cutting funds to other programs.

The two districts are currently in the process of shedding more than $7 million for their budget for the next year, following significant cuts at the state level.

The Legislature cut $600 million state wide from Initiative 728 funding, which was approved by the voters in 2000, to hire more teachers and so reduce class sizes.

“Some might think of the stimulus money as being a big windfall for the district, but really it is just helping keep us afloat,” Kuper said.

“For the first half of the year, this money will go into backfill the loss of the state funding.”

This year this district will use $750,000 of the funds to backfill the loss of state funds for special education. The remaining amount will be used for professional development, contractual services, and materials.

Kuper also said that by accepting the $3 million of federal money, the district would make itself ineligible to receive $1-1.5 million of “Safety Net” grants each year.

The Issaquah School District has been advised not to use the money to fund ongoing staff positions, as it will likely disappear beyond 2010.

Director of Communications Sara Niegowski said “we are not going to see a big increase in special education services.”

“What we will see is more special education training for all teachers. This is good news for enhancing special education. There is always more we can do for special education.”

There are 1500 students in the Issaquah School District in special education programs, of a total of 16,000 students.

In an interview with The Seattle Times on Sunday, Lake Washington School District superintendent Chip Kimball said that the funding would see his district having to expand teacher training for special-needs students while cutting back on math and science teacher-training programs.

Kimball said that this would send a message that special-education programs were more important than math and science.

“Well, our local community may say math and science are equally important programs,” Kimball said.

“If we had those same dollars unrestricted, we would have spent them differently, I imagine.”

The Issaquah and Lake Washington districts are also currently embroiled in a legal battle with the state government over special education funding.

They are members of the School Districts Alliance for Adequate Funding of Special Education, a group of more than 70 schools which in 2004 filed a lawsuit against the state for failing to adequately fund special education programs.

The law requires that individualized programs are made available to students in special education programs.

The alliance is arguing that the states failure to provide the money that they need to meet the requirements of the law, regarding special education programs, is illegal.