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Like the general education accountability and assistance system for all students, Special Education Determination is the accountability and assistance system for special education. Making Money Matter (M3) is one part of the Department's overall technical assistance (TA) and differentiated support system to districts identified through the Local Education Agencies' (LEA) Special Education Determinations' new Annual Special Education Determination Matrix .
For the first year of TA participation, your district's work will focus on the process of creating a strategic plan for improving the outcomes of students with IEPs and will result in a high-quality action plan for implementation; your district will not be addressing M3, as such, until the next fiscal year.
While your district's participation in TA was triggered by its special education determination level and is strongly correlated to students' academic achievement on MCAS, your district is required to engage in self-assessment and planning processes that are broad in scope including multiple indicators of successful outcomes for students with IEPs. For this reason, the Department recommends immediately reviewing results from your district's most recent Public School Monitoring's (PSM) TFM, and reviewing district performance in relation to the indicators specified in the Massachusetts State Performance Plan and Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR).
Because outcomes for students with IEPs are dependent upon student access to the Massachusetts Curriculum Frameworks and participation in the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE), your district's TA planning process and work should prioritize leveraging your district's general education and special education systems' strengths, and collaboration between your district's general education and special education administrators and educators. DESE expects that all district administrators (general and special) will collaborate to identify overlapping strategic objectives and initiatives in order to best use district resources for all students.
Your district's TA-supported planning process and work should align with and enhance general improvement planning that is currently occurring in your district for all students (e.g., SOA Plan); however, the TA work must target the outcomes of students with IEPs, the effectiveness of local special education services, and improving the application of the district standards and indicators to special education systems.
Once eligible for M3, the direction of funds is not immediate. Instead, a district's participation in M3 redirection of funds occurs in year-two and -three — after an action plan is developed during the first year of TA.
Districts participating in M3 are directed to use at least 2% of the funds made available under the IDEA Part B special education entitlement grant, known as Fund Codes (FC) 240/262, for the improvement of performance issues identified by the Determination Matrix. All funds used for M3 must be allowable expenses under the federal Individuals with Disabilities (IDEA). See Fund Use for additional parameters and examples of M3 fund use.
M3 participation only extends longer than year three if a district's next "Year 1" Determination status continues to be NI or NSI. At least every three years, districts continuing their participation are expected to engage in a re-assessment cycle, focusing data team efforts on mid-course assessment of achievement and opportunity gaps for students with IEPs, identifying the root causes for those gaps, and making mid-course corrections to their action plan as needed.
Due to a new matrix being implemented for the 2024-2025 Determinations, M3 participation for FY2026 is limited to those districts that had a 2023-2024 Determination of Needs Intervention (NI) and also have an NI status for the 2024-2025 Determinations. Note: For all other districts with a 2024-2025 Determination of NI, M3 participation will return to a three-year cycle.
FY2026 & FY2027 M3 Participation
In the GEM$ M3 Section, participating districts identify the total amount of funds (at least 2%) being directed in the Fund Codes 240/262 application. Districts also identify programmatic information including:
Districts are strongly encouraged to blend and braid funds, toward achieving the wider goals and practices for improved performance for students with IEPs that are coherent with district priorities for improving achievement for all students. If your district is blending and/or braiding funds from other sources for any M3 "tagged" object codes in the GEM$ Budget Section, your budget detail narrative should include information about how a general district priority shares the overall cost between multiple funding sources, i.e., IDEA funding vs. other funding sources.
Fund Use
Last Updated: August 11, 2025