SoapBox Edition | WCPSS proposed budget cuts: Dr. Emily King, Dr. Matt Zakreski, and Dr. Melanie McCabe

We all need to be paying attention to what WCPSS (the largest school district in NC and 15th largest in the US) does in this moment.

Today, Dr Emily King talks with myself and Dr. Matt Zakreski, all 3 psychologists who know schools and neurodivergent kids well. The impact of these proposed cuts goes beyond students receiving special education services and their teachers. It's going to affect everyone.

9/30/25

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Y'all ready? So we're ready. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 0:02

All right. Hey, everybody. We are showing up today to have a discussion as mental health professionals with backgrounds in education and supporting families to come together to discuss what we are concerned about. So if you're listening to this, you're probably finding it on one of my channels. I'm Dr. Emily King. I am a child psychologist and former school psych who talks a lot with teachers and families about neurodivergent learners, autism, ADHD, and price exceptionality. I am here with Dr. Matt Sakresky and Dr. Melanie McCaid. And I'm going to let them introduce themselves real quick, and then we are going to frame this discussion of what we're going to talk about today, which is mainly kicking off the concern we have about the proposed budget cuts to special education in Wake County in North Carolina. However, there's a bigger context to this, of course. So, Dr. Mel, let everybody know who you are.

SPEAKER_01 0:53

Hey, I am a school psychologist by training who went into private practice. And now I work with kiddos with really big behaviors. And I support parents in figuring out how to support those behaviors at home. And so this concept is near and dear to my heart because it is really impacting the families at home. And so many kids try to keep it all together all day long. And it comes out at home. So I am glad to be here and part of this conversation. Thank you, Emily.

unknown 1:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:16

So I'm Dr. Matt Sabreski. Everybody calls me Dr. Matt, and I'm living the life of a clinical psychologist and neurodiversity expert, does a lot of interfacing with schools. I often joke that I'm not a teacher, but I have to speak teacher to do my job. And I though I'm from New Jersey, I went to Wade Forest and have a deep love and respect for educators in North Carolina. So when Dr. Wren brought this to my attention, I said, absolutely gotta show up for my North Carolina folks.

SPEAKER_02 1:44

That's right. And so I am a graduate of Wake Public Schools. I grew up in Raleigh. My two sons, who are both neurodivergent, are current students in Wake County. One is a senior who has had an IEP since preschool, and one is in sixth grade with 504. So I have been to tons and tons of meetings as a school psychologist, as a private psychologist, and as a parent. And the things that read online when some of these budget cuts come out, I think we have a lens into oh, like how this would be like actually in the classroom. And we want to share with parents what our initial thoughts are on some of that. So I just want to read the email that Wake County sent out last week. I'm not gonna read the whole thing, but I'm gonna let you get a gist of it. If you are not a Wake County parent, you would not have received this email. So that's why I want to share it. So on March 17th, the superintendent sent us an email that said as part of the development of the superintendent's proposed budget cuts for the 2026-27 school year, the district must reduce special education expenditures by approximately $18 million. To help address this gap, adjustments will be made to the special education staffing ratios for next school year. All ratios will remain within or below state recommended guidelines. Okay. While these changes are expected to reach the number of special education teaching positions, we have now heard around 130 teaching positions across the district. Our goal is to continue providing required services and supports to students. Yes, because they have to, because it's the law. So these changes will apply only to the 26-27 school year and will not affect staffing during this current school year. Okay, so they go on to say they're committed to being transparent. Good, because we'd like to talk about it. And that the next time going to talk about it, this email was written as at the school board meeting on April 7th. But we now know that there will be a special meeting called tomorrow night on March 24th. And so we're gonna link that information at the end of this chat. So, Matt, I want to start with you because what I've read, they're being very transparent so far. We need more information tomorrow, but they're being transparent about the fact that these cuts are not going to affect what we call regional programs in Wake County or self-contained classrooms. However, as we know, most of our neurodivergent learners who have average to above average intelligence are in the general curriculum classrooms, many times being taught by general education teachers. They often will have resource teachers who are educators taught to push in or pull out of classes. So tell me a little bit about your gut reaction to this when it comes to neurodivergent learners in those general education classes when there's even a slight reduction in services.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Oh, I mean, I I think if I gave you, we would need the bleep button. Sure. Right. But professionally speaking, it's just it's about the worst email you can receive. You know, because under the best case scenario, we're gonna have a talent drain from Wake County. Because if I'm a teacher and my position is gonna cut, I'm gonna go to pick district in North Carolina, right? You could go with your Georgia or Virginia, and relationships for neurodivergent kiddos are so important. Really, is the two things that predict success for neurodivergent learners are the educational environment and the relationship with the adult. And we are taking at least one of them and cutting them off at the knees. So you're having that brain drain. And then this piece of this is uh it's funny, they call it transparency, I call it sort of a slap in the face. We don't expect a reduction in services. Cool, so you're gonna ask the teachers that remain to do more with less money.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 5:26

When I was 17 years old, I worked at an ice cream store, and we usually had four people on on Friday and Saturday nights in the summer, and one night the guy who owned the place sent everybody home but me. I said, But what am I supposed to do? He's like, Well, you just make the ice cream. So I was out of break for seven hours, 5 p.m. till midnight. And then when the finally I shut the door, I burst into tears, sat there on the floor of this ice cream shop crying. Because as a solo person running all that by myself, I didn't pee for seven hours, you know. And we know teachers don't pee as a rule anyway, right? So it this just feels like another way to ask teachers to do more with less. And it's just heartbreaking.

SPEAKER_02 6:09

Yeah. And when we have teachers who are burned, it matter how talented and wonderful they are. They're humans, right? And Dr. Mel, I want to ask you about what your gut reaction when it comes to like big behaviors in the classroom, when they're gonna do the same services, because by law they have to, with fewer people. So, what was your gut reaction to thinking about big behaviors in the classroom when we have fewer co-regulators for these kids now?

SPEAKER_01 6:39

Right, right. So teachers keeping their calm and being able to show up at 100% is absolutely vital for how these kids are able to get through the day, right? So kids in the classroom rely on adults to keep their calm. A lot of these kids are doing check-ins with teachers and staff who are taking a couple extra minutes from their lunch to go check in on another kiddo. And when kids don't have that support and they lose that support, they are having to hold all of that inside until later on in the day, or it oozes out, or heaven forbid, it comes out in an explosion. And so I actually anticipate an increase in problematic behaviors in the classroom for a number of the kids that I work with, meaning more phone calls home, which is again more stress on the teacher in the school system, and then also more stress on the system in the school. Something that I feel like we're not talking about and really exploring too is the, you know, we know that mental health is inner thought across the nation and in Wake County schools. We also know that kiddos who are identified through special education services have a higher incidence of thoughts of suicide. And so I know a lot of us are not talking about it. We're scared to talk about it. It's scary to think about as a parent who has a kid in a Wake County middle school. I have actually two, I have twins. And, you know, we know that these behaviors and these things impact one another. So right now, roughly one in five adolescent is considering suicide seriously. And if we expect negative behaviors to go up and negative emotions to go up and supports to go down, I don't see this ending in a good way.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Right.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

It's scary.

SPEAKER_02 8:13

It's scary and it's heartbreaking. And I want to back to why everyone should care, not just teachers, not just parents of kids who have an IEP. And and I'm gonna get on a little sweatbox here where the money, how we've gotten to this, why the money is going other places and not to the places where we feel scared and know we need support. So uh Wake County is the largest public school district, and it is the 15th largest district in the country. It's a massive district, about 160,000 kids. It's rapidly growing because people move to this area for lots of tech jobs. We have issues with loopholes and property taxes. We have issues with not funding the Leandro case, if you want to read up on that, which has been going on a long time. Get a cup of coffee and park at your computer and do a deep dive on Google. We obviously have issues if you've been following it, where we have not passed a budget. So we're running on numbers in a new reality, which the math ain't mathing, right? And so I, from my perspective, over I would say the last 10 years at least, have already slowly seen the reduction in services. My senior was in programs in kindergarten and first grade that don't exist anymore. My senior got services that the same type of profile that I might work with younger is not getting because the people, the positions, the money is not there. And so the final kicker is that we are funding private vouchers. So as a taxpayer, I don't care if you don't have children. If you send your children to private school, your tax dollars are paying for private school for children whose family can already afford private school. And then if you live in a rural part of the state, your tax dollars are funding private school for kids in Wake and Mecklenburg County, because you don't even have those schools in your area. So please read more about this. We'll post lots of links, but this is a perfect storm of what's happening. And the reason we're all so vocal about it, we've been vocal about it, but why we're like, clear my schedule, get me on the podcast to talk about it is because these kids, definitely they're teachers, but these kids don't have the ability to just suck it up and learn in a bigger group. If we took independent learners like older kids or neurotypical kids, they might be able to learn in a bigger group if we had to reduce class size because of teacher minimizing teachers' positions. These kids need more people, they need more adults in the room. We are creating an unsafe environment, not just an environment where kids can't learn, but an unsafe environment. So I'd like to hear a little bit more, Dr. Matt, about what do you feel like the supported system right now is getting right, if anything? And what are we gonna lose? Like what's at risk? What are we at risk? We know what Dr. Mel just said, but what are we, what are the long-term risks here? And are we getting anything right that we need people, parents, citizens, to be like, no, do more of this.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

I mean, the thing we're getting right is that the people drawn to this, the special education field, working with our neurodivergent kiddos. I mean, as a rule, they are phenomenal machines. Yeah, they made so much happen with such little support, such little understanding. I mean, I stand in awe of the teachers who do this work, right? I get we, the three of us get to do this with a lot of resources and time, and we get to charge whatever the heck we want. That's amazing. So we can do a lot of things. And then you watch these teachers in a public school in Wake County making $40,000 a year who are just as damn good as us with our fancy doctor degrees, right? The the risk here is is multifaceted, but let's let's focus on one part. So any who's parented a kid has been in a day where you are stuck in a negative feedback loop, right? Your kid's in a mood. You have a 12-year-old, and 12-year-olds are basically feral, and you know, your kid's acting as if you're snipping at them. So your kid escalates because you're snipping at them, and then you escalate because they're escalating, and they escalate because you're escalating because they're escalating, and then you're screaming at each other over who's gonna pour the glass of milk, and you realize how did I get here as a parent? Or sometimes as a psychologist, you know, and but what remedies those situations is often another adult coming into the space, right? You know, your partner, your aunts, your mom, whatever it is, right? And now we're taking those adults away. So we're asking the you know, Dr. Mel said, the co-regulators, right? There are fewer co-regulators, which means more behaviors gonna get missed, more behavior is gonna escalate. And so we're when we're trying to intervene with an escalated kid, that's harder. It's less likely to be successful. That kid's gonna be more likely to get kicked out of the classroom, which disrupts the whole other space in that kid's learning, right? So, you know, I mean, you know, it's it's like trying to do a you know, a child's birthday party by yourself, or doing a child's birthday party when the other parents stick around to like help keep the velociraptors in the cage, right? And it's and what what we really run into here, I think the right term for it is survivorship bias. Because some teachers can do this and some kids do okay. Maybe they mask, maybe they dissociate, whatever it is, but they survive. And we say, so look, Miss Hawkins can do it. Why can't you do it, teachers A, B, C, D, E, F, G? Well, that's the thing. It's like if 11 teachers are failing and one is succeeding, or 50 kids are struggling and one kid's doing fine, we need to pay attention to the majority, not the minority that proves the rule, right? And this is the world we're stepping into.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

Exactly. And I want to also ask you, Dr. Mel, what do you see as the impact on kids who don't have IEPs in 504s? You know, we know the impact on teachers, we know the impact on our kids, and that's whose I mean mama bear gut reaction. I feel like we all feel like mama papa bear for our clients too, right? Yeah. But if you're listening and you don't have a child in public school, or you have a child without any support, and you're like, oh, well, this isn't gonna affect my kid. My kid doesn't receive special education services. What would you say to that, Dr. Mel?

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I'm so glad you asked that. I was in a Wake County school giving a talk about a week ago. I go give talks in in schools and to different organizations too, very similarly to Dr. Matt and uh Dr. Emily. You know, one thing we haven't talked about, I want to talk about the magnitude of kids this is impacting. So, right now in this school year, and we expect this number to go up next year, we have 21,000 kids that are getting services through special education. If you don't know, that's about the number of people that can fit in Lenovo Stadium. So if you're watching a hurricanes game, if that stadium is full, that's still not as many kids as are going to get impacted next year in Wake County. Kids who are not receiving services are in school with these kiddos. They are their neighbors. They are absolutely going to experience the behaviors that are happening in the classroom. Whether it's that kid dysregulating, that might look like a chair getting thrown, it might look like crying, it might look like a final getting torn up or somebody throwing up on their EOGs. It happens every year, y'all. I've seen it happen when I was in school. Sure it is. You know, that's their neighbors. That's absolutely going to be an impacting their learning environment. And if it doesn't come out that way, I think there's a very real chance it's going to come out in teacher behaviors. Honestly, teachers are humans, right? Every single parent that's listening to this has had an F Day as a teacher, right? If you saw me in Target last week, you would have seen me having an F day. And our kids, all of them, feel that, right? They they get to read the environment, they feel it. So that can look at like their favorite teacher yelling at them. Not because they're a bad person, but because they've lost their cool. And we compound that day after day, teacher after teacher, because they don't just see one teacher. That makes school a less fun environment. That that shifts the entire dynamic of the school day.

SPEAKER_02 16:31

Yeah, and just the sheer amount of legal paperwork that teachers need to do for IEP meetings and 504 meetings that are demanded by law, those things cannot change. So they're going to get prioritized in teacher time and they're going to take those teachers out of the classroom, increase the amount of substitutes, increase the amount of, you know, like unpredictability, which who struggles to learn when things aren't predictable? Everyone, but definitely our autistic learners, you know. So we already, I already work with kids every day who had an off day because they had a substitute, or had an off day because there wasn't a teacher. And the only decision that the principal could make was to combine two science classes, and now you have 45 children and one teacher in your science class for that period, because that was all there was to do. So I hope in this short amount of time, we have made some passionate points that are making you think a little more, research some things. We are gonna post this video in lots of different places. So hopefully, if you follow any of us on multiple platforms, you will see it, hear it, share it. There is a meeting at Wake County tomorrow night that you can view on YouTube. And I will post a link to that information as well. Right now, I think everyone's in the phase of getting loud, providing feedback. You can look up your school board member if you wake in, if you live in Wake County and email them directly. They are doing their best, as they should, as is their job, to reply to everyone or at least take into account that information. And then if you're a teacher listening to this, I'm passionate about speaking up for you because I know you're busy and tired. But if you're a teacher and you have the capacity to speak up and say, this is what my day will look like if these cuts are passed, then please do that as well. So any final thoughts, Dr. Matt?

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So I mean, we are gonna get loud, right? And I love this Lenovo stadium example. And if you are a parent who doesn't have a special needs kit, right? Okay, so then instead of those 20,000 kids not getting services, then imagine those 20,000 kids are homeless. All of those homes have been blinked out like Thanosnap. Like, what is the point of having a society if we do not take care of the people that need to be taken care of? That's why we have this, right? It's not survival of the fittest, it's survival of everyone, right? And I just I you know, we have to stand for those who cannot stand for themselves. That's the point of all this. And I will say that one thing, because you know, money's tight, we know that. One thing that we were successful with when I lived and worked in Pennsylvania is we, you know, okay, you need to take money out of the budget for whatever reason. Okay, we found out that in every school in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, and I believe I don't remember the exact number, I think it was 104 schools, that's the number that sticks in my head. Every single one of those schools was getting brand new home in a way sports uniforms for that school year. I mean, that was hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I got to sand in a school board meeting and asked some of the kids, and it was like, do y'all mind playing the same uniforms in field hockey next year? And even new uniforms. Why are you doing this? And then the assisted baseball coach yelled at me and I was like, Oh, that's funny. I just pulled up because this is public record, that you get paid $68,000 a year to be the assistant coach of the baseball team. So maybe you should sit down there, Chief. So I'm not saying sports shouldn't get money, right? Not saying that, but there is money in the budget. But things like sports and administration, schools are becoming very top-heavy administratively wise. Like there is money to be moved around, but let's not take it from the kids who need it most. Let's take it from you know, does the principal need three assists or not? Right? There's money to be moved around. I'm just tired of our kids being the only ones who are ever asked to give. And there are many people in the system who have more to give, largely because they're never asked.

SPEAKER_02 20:38

And they have more capacity to give. The risks aren't as high. So, yeah, Dr. Mel, what are your final thoughts?

SPEAKER_01 20:44

This isn't impacting just a handful of kids. This is impacting every single child and every single family in Wake County. It's impacting the environment our kids are going to school in. And we can't ask a plant to thrive in soil that is not maintained.

SPEAKER_02 21:00

Exactly. So I hope this has been helpful. We wanted to keep it brief because we know everyone is busy and moving on to the next thing. But this week is important with the meeting tomorrow night, and then the next meeting where the actual budget will be seen, because this is something that's proposed that, you know, when Dr. Matt's talking about moving money around, we don't know what the rest of the budget looks like. That I believe is April 7th. And we have to remember that, I mean, your voice will matter. You know, if we push back enough, it will matter. And this is just one county, but it's a big county. And as a North Carolina native of having extended family and very rural parts of the state, I can only imagine what's going on in those smaller parts of the state that absolutely don't have the infrastructure for advocacy that Wick County does. So I think we have a chance here to be a model for pushing back on this. And I hope that this is inspired. A few people listening to do that. Thank you both so much for taking time to come on live. And we will just share this everywhere.

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Looking forward to everywhere. Everywhere. Thank you, Doctor Emily. Thank you, Dr. Matt.

SPEAKER_02 22:14

Have a great day. Thanks, Tom.