Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled
Program Information
General Information
The Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled is a statewide public school system serving Missouri students with severe disabilities. Established by state law in 1959, the State Schools serve children and youth between the ages of 5 and 21. They are administered by 
the State Board of Education, through the Division of Special Education. The school system is supported primarily by funds appropriated each year by the Missouri Legislature.
The central offices for the superintendent of the State Schools, along with other supervisory staff, are headquartered in Jefferson City. Area offices are located in Sedalia, St. Louis and Springfield. Area directors work with the State Schools located in their service areas.
The Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled serve students with severe disabilities throughout the state. Students are referred to the State Schools when a local school district is unable to meet a student's educational needs and have developed justification reflecting that placement in a separate school is the least restrictive education environment to meet the student's identified needs.
Who Is Served?
All students enrolled in the State Schools have significant cognitive deficits as defined by Regulation XI of the Missouri State Plan for Special Education: Regulations Implementing Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.. Many of the students also have other disabilities challenging their ability to receive appropriate education and related services in their local district program.
Instructional Staff
The State Schools employ classroom teachers who are certified to teach students with severe disabilities. Each classroom has at least one full-time aide assigned to assist the teacher and students. The program strives for an adult-to-student ratio of one-to-three. 
On staff physical education teachers and speech and language therapists may work in one school or travel to multiple schools, depending on their size. Occupational, physical, and some speech therapists provide therapy on a contractual basis, depending on the needs of each school.
Most schools have a full-time registered nurse. A few smaller schools have nursing services provided on a scheduled basis.
Supervisors for instruction work with State Schools personnel to plan and improve the instructional program and also provide Outreach Services to local school districts.
Facilities
The State Schools buildings have been specifically designed and built to accommodate the students and their instructional programs. These facilities range in size from small to large school settings depending upon the number of students served. A school is administered by either a full-time principal or a ''teacher in charge,'' as appropriate for the number of classrooms at the school.
A six-hour instructional program is provided each day; there are no residential services. The majority of State Schools students live with their natural or foster parents and are transported by bus to and from school each day at no charge.
Curriculum
The curriculum is an organized framework, based upon established graduate goals, that delineates the knowledge that is frequently demanded in the student’s home, community or workplace. The underlying premise of the curriculum targets knowledge standards for students with significant disabilities to participate, as much as possible, in basic daily life activities. Students learn to use these fundamental skills in all environments through embedded curriculum-based instruction and skill generalization occurs with instruction in multiple teaching environments. The knowledge standards listed in the curriculum are not an end to themselves, but guide teachers to assist in identifying individual educational priorities. The identified curricular goals are determined through the IEP process.
Curriculum-based assessments occur by weekly appraisal of student performance and recording that data into learning pictures. Teachers evaluate instructional interventions to improve or maintain student proficiency. The five essential elements suggested by Graham, Harris, and Reid (1990) for curriculum assessment are followed when implementing the curriculum:
- Targeting skills within the curriculum, through a staffing process, and projecting the expected student mastery level by the next annual IEP. The IEP team, along with the performance criteria, identifies specific IEP goals and benchmarks necessary to achieve the curriculum goal.
- Evaluating how the student performs prior to teaching (baseline) to determine where in the teaching progression to begin instruction.
- Identifying the most effective teaching methods to achieve the expected learning outcome.
- Collecting weekly student performance data and converting the raw data into learning pictures to evaluate the effectiveness of instruction. The degree of student learning is then measured against the baseline data.
- Modifying the Individualized Education Program (IEP). Teachers continually monitor the student’s learning rate to strive to achieve all IEP goals by the next Annual IEP.
The curriculum is embedded into all teaching of IEP-based skills. Students are assessed with direct reference to the curricula that they are expected to learn. The teacher can appraise each student’s performance and determine which specific skills need to be taught, maintained, or passed over due to mastery performance (Shinn & Habedank, 1992).
The curriculum, along with the teaching strategies, is adjusted to increase the attainment of the curricular standards. Any curricular goals for a student with developmental disabilities must define the knowledge and skills necessary for interindependence and quality of life (Hilton & Ringlaben, 1998).
For more information about Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled, contact:
Superintendent
Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled
Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
P.O. Box 480
Jefferson City, Missouri 65102-0480
Phone 573-751-4427· Fax 573-751-0276
RELAY Missouri (TDD) 800-735-2966
2.5% of the financial support for the Missouri Schools for the Severely Disabled program is received from IDEA and other federal funding sources.
The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education complies with the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Civil Rights Act of 1991, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended, and the Americans with Disabilities Act. Services are provided without regard to race, color, national origin, sex or physical or mental disability.
Artwork reprinted by permission of Martha Perske from PERSKE: PENCIL PORTRAITS 1971-1990 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998)