Lakeville Special Ed: 'Don't Go to Lakeville' & Why a Board Member Is Sounding the Alarm

TLDR

Lakeville added 388 special education students over three years — staff additions haven't kept up
Board Director Kim Baker says parents in special-needs Facebook groups are now telling each other 'don't go to Lakeville'
Open positions are down dramatically (from ~80 to under 20) — but center-based teacher roles are still the hardest to fill
Superintendent Bowman: 'It's a budgeting problem. The limiting factor is financial.'
New restraint-free crisis intervention method (Ukeru) is already reducing restrictive procedures

The special education update at the May 26 Lakeville School Board meeting was supposed to be a celebration. Open positions are way down. New programs are working. A trauma-informed crisis intervention method called Ukeru is dramatically reducing restrictive procedures across three elementary schools.

Then Director Kim Baker — who has children with disabilities herself — said something that the meeting couldn't move past:

"I've seen the conversation shift over the past 10 years to where people used to come to this district for special education and now everyone's telling parents... don't go to Lakeville."

The rest of the conversation was about why.

The Scale of What Lakeville Special Education Actually Does

Director of Special Services Alexia Poppy-Finley walked the board through the numbers. As of May 20, 2026, Lakeville is serving:

112 students birth to age 3 (early intervention)
233 students ages 3-5 (ECSE)
948 elementary students
388 middle school students
457 high school students
43 transition students (ages 18-22) through the TESSA program at Intermediate District 917

Plus 33 students at five private schools within district boundaries, 20 at a Lakeville-based partial hospitalization program, and homeschool/homebound/homebased students.

The district runs center-based programs at multiple buildings — A+ (autism spectrum), ACES (more complex needs including AAC device users), MAP (emotional behavioral disability), and DCD (developmental cognitive disability). All Lakeville elementary schools now offer Federal Settings 1, 2, and 3 — meaning families can mostly stay at their home school regardless of how much special ed support their child needs.

Mostly. There's a gap at the middle school level for ACES programming that Director Baker flagged — students with the most complex needs may transition into A+ or DCD classrooms instead, which serve up to 12 students versus the ACES ratio of around 6.

The Numbers That Triggered the Concern

Over three years, the district added staff: 3 speech-language pathologists, 3 school psychologists, 5 special education teachers, 1 OT, and 1 nurse.

Over the same three years, special ed enrollment grew by what Director Baker calculated as 388 students.

"I'm looking at that increase going, I know I don't think we've added enough teachers to make up the amount of that increase," she said.

She pointed to neighboring District 196, which has formal policy caps on special education case loads — ACES capped at 6 students, A+ capped at 12, DCD at 6-8. When a classroom approaches the cap, the district either opens another room or adds a paraprofessional.

Lakeville doesn't have those caps in policy.

"Maybe the reason we have such problems filling that classroom is because there's too many students in there and not enough support," Director Baker said. "Then we go back to what's the quality of service that we're providing."

The Money Problem

Superintendent Bowman didn't push back on the facts. He pushed back on the math.

"It's a budgeting problem," he said. "The limiting factor is financial."

He said he's costed out 196-style caps before, both as the district's former CFO and now as superintendent. It's always a "big price tag." Lakeville has long prioritized elementary general-education class-size guidelines (which aren't in formal policy either, he noted), and adopting special-ed case-load caps would force trade-offs against that or against secondary class sizes.

He also flagged a post-COVID complication: districts are now competing with contracted staffing agencies for the same pool of licensed special-ed teachers. Wage pressure goes up, employee retention gets harder, and contractors sometimes win because they pay more.

Director Brian Thompson added a scaling question — could centralizing some center-based programs into fewer buildings (instead of running setting-1/2/3 in every building) free up enough capacity for smaller class sizes? Staff explained the priority is keeping kids at their home school whenever possible, and program location is partly driven by physical building features (bathroom access for ACES, for example) that not every school has.

What Director Baker Actually Asked For

Three specific things:

Current case-load ratios across the district by setting — the board needs the baseline before it can decide whether to set caps.
Open enrollment data — how many Lakeville-resident special ed students are open-enrolling OUT of the district. If a Lakeville student goes to another district for services, Lakeville pays that district. That's revenue leaving the building.
A real conversation about policy caps, not a one-line answer.

Nobody on the board pushed back. Superintendent Bowman said he'd do the costing work.

What's Already Working

The presentation wasn't all alarm bells. Real wins:

Open positions dropped from approximately 80 a year ago to under 20 currently — Lakeville's hiring has caught up dramatically.
Contractor backfills were used 48 times this year for unfilled positions; 19 contracts were ended (2 licensed, 17 non-licensed) over quality concerns. The district treats contractors as backfill, not permanent staff.
Ukeru — a trauma-informed, restraint-free crisis intervention model — is fully implemented at Orchard Lake, Lake Marian, and Oak Hills, funded through an OSHA grant. Restrictive procedures have been "significantly reduced." Director Baker, who has served on the state seclusion work group, confirmed Minnesota recognizes Ukeru as an effective restraint-reduction practice.
A new special-education-specific mentor position is being added next year on top of existing IDSS coaches and mentors, in coordination with teaching and learning.
53 new staff participated in the mentor/mentee program this year with 10 mentors leading the work.
Special Education Institute returns August 19 as a full PD day for incoming and returning special ed staff.

The Bottom Line

If you have a special-ed family in Lakeville, the question Director Baker raised is the question that matters: is the district staffed to serve your kid well, or are you part of a quiet exodus to neighboring districts?

The board didn't answer it on May 26. But the superintendent agreed to bring back data and costing. Whether that turns into actual policy — case-load caps written into the district's books, like 196 has — is the next chapter.

If you're a Lakeville parent who has open-enrolled OUT for special ed services, the district board would benefit from knowing why. Director Baker's argument is strongest with real numbers behind it.

Next school board meeting will likely include the second reading of Policy 606.5 on library materials — but the special ed staffing conversation is now formally open, and it's not closing soon.

FAQ

How many special ed students does Lakeville serve total? Adding up the categories shared at the May 26 meeting: 112 (birth-3) + 233 (ages 3-5) + 948 (elementary) + 388 (middle school) + 457 (high school) + 43 (transition) — roughly 2,180 students across the full birth-through-22 range, plus students in private schools, partial hospitalization, and homeschool/homebound situations.

What's Federal Setting 1, 2, 3, 4? It's a measure of how much of the school day a student spends in a special education setting. Setting 1-2 means 0-20% (mostly mainstream with pull-out support). Setting 3 means 61%+ (the day is mostly in a center-based program). Setting 4 means a separate school entirely — for Lakeville, that's Intermediate District 917.

What's Ukeru? A trauma-informed crisis intervention method that emphasizes de-escalation and avoids restrictive procedures (like physical restraint). Originated out east and is spreading through the Midwest. Lakeville got an OSHA grant to fund the specialized mats it requires.

Is the wait list really a year long? For placement into Intermediate District 917, yes — it can be up to a year. There are currently 14 Lakeville students on that wait list. While they wait, the district gets creative: extra paraprofessional support, sometimes a shortened school day (which Director Poppy-Finley said is not her preferred option).

How do I find out what's happening with my own kid's case load? Talk to your student's special education case manager or building special education coordinator. Director Baker is also asking for district-wide ratio data to be brought back to the board — that information should become public when it does.