The judge overseeing the long-running battle over a voter-approved tax increase for education officially buried it this week, setting the stage for possible action on raising the spending limit for public schools.

However, there is little appetite among lawmakers to come back to the Capitol to tackle the spending cap. Unless they do, schools can’t spend much of the historic increase in K-12 funding that lawmakers approved just one month ago.

If that disinterest holds, Arizona’s district schools could face deep cuts early next spring to ensure their collective spending is beneath a constitutional spending cap. It would repeat the cliffhanger that happened early this year, as lawmakers waited until days before a March 1 deadline to waive what is known as the “aggregate expenditure limit.”

Chuck Essigs, director of governmental relations for the Arizona Association of School Budget Officials, said early projections show the cuts could amount to $1.5

In response to pandemic disruptions, New York City officials required every school to offer special education services last year outside regular hours to any family who wanted them.

But that won’t be the case this coming school year, education officials said. Instead, the education department is vowing to determine what extra instruction or therapies children may need on an “individual basis” — decisions that will be left to the teams that set students’ individualized education programs, also known as IEPs.

Extra small group instruction or “related services” such as physical and occupational therapy, may be provided after school, on Saturdays, during the school day, or through a vouchers for students the city determines need extra help, officials said. The city is also expanding a new program for students with significant sensory issues, which has been popular with some parents. It will launch at 70 sites this fall, up from