Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
Trump’s attempt to gut special education office has some conservative parents on edge
The 19th
The Trump administration’s decision to lay off most employees within the U.S. Department of Education’s special education office was described by the president this week as part of cuts to “Democrat programs that we were opposed to.” This was news to many conservative parents of disabled children, as well as disability policy experts. More than 7.3 million children in all 50 states rely on special education services, which are partially funded and enforced by the federal government. “Special education is a nonpartisan program. Special education services are provided to any student with a disability, regardless of political party,” said Maria Town, executive director of the nonpartisan American Association of People with Disabilities.
Trump layoffs in Education Department worry parents of disabled kids
The Hill
Parents of children with disabilities are growing increasingly worried as the Education Department shrinks and mechanisms for accountability seem harder to find. The department laid off nearly half of its workforce earlier this year, is moving to reduce disability services even further and has 95 percent of its employees currently furloughed due to the government shutdown. Parents say it’s getting harder to know who to contact for civil rights complaints and progress updates, and their fears are growing as Education Secretary Linda McMahon presses her calls for education to go back to the states while saying little about who will ensure oversight and compliance for the Individuals with Disabilities and Education Act (IDEA). “It’s not just the families that are left high and dry, it’s our school systems. The fact is that the federal government has a role in the provision of public education in this country, and when that’s just stripped out with no warning, no information and no assistance, it leaves everyone affected powerless. Schools are without guidance, and students are potentially — and families — without the protections that they’re guaranteed under the law,” said Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates.
Cuts at the Education Department Put Military Families’ Most Vulnerable Kids at Risk
Military.com
The recent Department of Education layoffs that have diminished the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services are likely to exacerbate challenges that military families already face. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s Workforce Acceleration & Recapitalization Initiative set out to address duplicative functions and “excessive bureaucracy” and introduce technological automation solutions for routine tasks. However, by restructuring the Department’s civilian workforce with abrupt reductions and no apparent public plans on how those residual programs will be maintained, critical classroom services, federal oversight and funding, and civil protections remain up in the air.
For this senator, Trump’s special education layoffs are personal
USA Today
For New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan, it felt personal watching more than 120 jobs tied to special education disappear during the U.S. government shutdown. President Donald Trump ordered massive layoffs across the federal workforce, which critics see as part of an effort to pressure Democrats like Hassan into voting to end the ongoing budget crisis that now stretches into its third week. The firings included roughly a fifth of the U.S. Department of Education – and nearly everyone in its special education division, per court documents and the agency’s union. That’s particularly painful to Hassan, a second-term lawmaker and former governor with a son, Ben, who was born almost four decades ago with cerebral palsy, a neurological condition that affects movement and posture. While in school, the senator’s son needed some of the very programs she says now have an uncertain fate without people to manage them. “This is a real blow to children and families all across the country,” Hassan told USA TODAY in an interview. “I don’t have constituents asking me to shut the door on kids with disabilities.”
Victory in the Tenth Circuit for Students with Intellectual Disabilities Seeking Individualized Educational Placements
In an important victory last week in Jacobs v. Salt Lake City School District, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit ruled in favor of the plaintiffs—two students with intellectual disabilities and the Disability Law Center— in their lawsuit challenging the manner in which the Salt Lake City School District educates and places students with intellectual disabilities. On behalf of themselves and other similarly situated students, the plaintiffs argue that by automatically placing students with intellectual disabilities in a small handful of specific schools, the school district fails to make individualized educational placement decisions and therefore violates the Individuals with Disabilities with Education Act (“IDEA”), the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act.
The Salt Lake City School District uses a “hub” system to consolidate educational services for students with intellectual disabilities. The Tenth Circuit explained that the school district categorizes students with intellectual disabilities “based solely on their IQs,” “does not ‘consider the individual needs of students in assigning them’” to programs, and does not meaningfully “consider whether intellectually disabled students could be placed in the ‘general education environment,’” but rather predetermines their placements.
Previously, the United States District Court for the District of Utah had dismissed this lawsuit, finding that the plaintiffs’ claims were “limited to seeking only to attend their neighborhood schools.” The Tenth Circuit disagreed and reversed that decision, finding that the plaintiffs could continue to press their claims under the IDEA, ADA, and Section 504, and remanded the case for further proceedings before the district court.
Notably, the Tenth Circuit also found that the district court erred in dismissing the plaintiff’s 504 claim for failure to exhaust administrative remedies, noting that it would have been futile for the plaintiff students to have attempted to exhaust with respect to their 504 claims during their IDEA due process proceedings, as the hearing officers would have dismissed those claims for lack of jurisdiction.
Broad Coalition of Disability, Civil Rights, and Education Organizations Call for Reversal of Layoffs at Department of Education
Today, COPAA and more than 385 local, state, and national organizations joined together to call for a reversal of the layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education that impact all offices responsible for supporting children with disabilities, their families, and their schools. This year marks the 50th anniversary of IDEA, a law that has enjoyed strong bipartisan support for five decades. Rather than celebrating progress, we face a crisis: the dismantling of the very infrastructure Congress created to ensure children with disabilities could reach their full potential, potentially catapulting them back to a time of segregation and refusal to provide educational opportunities.
Unjust Firings at ED Harms Students with Disabilities
WASHINGTON, DC – In response to the most recent cuts made by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) that eliminate hundreds of jobs within the agency, COPAA CEO Denise Marshall made the following statement:
On Friday, the Department of Education eliminated hundreds of jobs through an illegal Reduction in Force (RIF). As we understand it, these RIFS affect all but a few staff and will harm students with disabilities. The action sends the message that our children are not valued and unfairly creates confusion and chaos in our schools.
The cuts have gutted key offices—including the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), which are responsible to administer funding and oversee the implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).
The RIF circumvents the will of Congress and dismantles 50 years of precedent upholding the rights of students with disabilities.
Decimating the Department of Education disrespects and ignores the requirements of the law. IDEA, a federal statute, requires the Secretary of Education to lead, direct, and oversee federal activities that are permanently codified into law. Members of Congress -from both sides of the aisle- agreed on this because they understand that our children, their families, and the educators that support them should not be bandied about with the political winds of one party or another.
We call upon Congress to protect our kids and put the pressure on the administration to reinstate staff at the Department of Education.
Protect Children with Disabilities & IDEA: Tell Congress to Pressure ED to Reinstate Staff TAKE ACTION
Ed Department lays off nearly all special education staff
Disability Scoop
Layoffs at the U.S. Department of Education will leave no more than a handful of staffers in the agency’s special education office, jeopardizing oversight of the nation’s programs for students with disabilities, advocates say. The Trump administration is following through on a White House pledge to lay off federal workers as the government shutdown drags on. While officials at the Education Department are mum on the changes, court documents show that about 466 employees at the agency are affected by the reduction in force, or RIF, and disability advocates said they suspect that the figure is an undercount.
IDEA requires the Secretary of Education to “lead, direct, oversee federal activities that are permanently codified into law,” said Denise Marshall, CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, or COPAA, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of students with disabilities and their families. “Decimating the Department of Education disrespects and ignores the requirements of the law,” Marshall said.
How will Education Dept. layoffs affect special ed, 504 plans, IEPs?
USA Today
Families and educators across the country were plunged into a state of uncertainty over the weekend after the federal Education Department laid off practically every staffer in the government’s special education division. Nearly the entire Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, was let go, according to agency workers and their union. Employees in the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, many of whom work to protect students with disabilities from discrimination, were also laid off, the union said. The impacted divisions included offices in the District of Columbia, Seattle, and Atlanta.
Trump’s new layoffs hurt disabled kids
Mother Jones
Last Friday, all but two senior staff members in the federal Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) received reduction-in-force notices, according to reporting from K-12 Drive. It was part of a scourge of layoffs. 460 people across the Department of Education received RIF notices. That is roughly one in five workers in the agency. But OSEP’s evisceration is particularly harmful. One of the major responsibilities of OSEP is to distribute funding connected to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). This accounts for the money needed for the roughly 7.5 million disabled students on Individualized Education Plans, also known as IEPs.
Trump lays off employees in department funding special education
NPR
President Trump has talked repeatedly about wanting to return education to the states and that dismantling the Education Department is part of that plan. Eliminating these staff members does not, at this point, cut special education funding to states. But one state director of special education, who spoke with NPR on the condition of anonymity out of concern the government would retaliate against that state, said they worry about the implications for students and families. “I’m fearful. I think it’s good for states to know there’s federal oversight and that they’ll be held accountable,” the official said. “The concept of leaving special education up to states sounds great, but it’s scary. What happens if one state decides to interpret the law one way, but another state disagrees and interprets it differently?” Multiple sources also questioned the legality of the cuts to OSERS. Federal law requires that there be an Office of Special Education Programs — within the U.S. Department of Education — to manage and oversee special education funding and programs. As such, these sources said, effectively closing the office by firing its staff should require an act of Congress.
Trump funding cuts hit particularly hard for deaf and blind children
Education Week
April Wilson is responsible for teaching 36 students this school year—not squeezed into a single classroom, but spread among 19 school buildings in 12 districts across rural southern Illinois. For her job as one of only two itinerant teachers of the visually impaired, or VI, in all of Illinois, Wilson drives as many as 1,400 miles a month. Not only does she provide instruction for blind students from ages 3 to 21, she has to supply special equipment for them, too—and make sure they, and their teachers, know how to use it.
But the future of her professional development is in jeopardy. On Sept. 5, after business hours on a Friday, the U.S. Department of Education abruptly announced it was discontinuing the federal grant paying for Wilson’s program, along with more than 30 other ongoing grants related to special education totaling nearly $30 million over the next three years.
School Districts That Pursue Awards of Attorneys’ Fees against Plaintiff Parents and Their Attorneys in IDEA Cases Obtain Fees in Only Small Percentage of Cases
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (“IDEA”) authorizes courts, at their discretion, to “award reasonable attorneys’ fees… to a prevailing party who is the parent of a child with a disability” in legal actions brought pursuant to the Act. 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(I). If a parent prevails on an IDEA claim at the due process administrative hearing level or in court, they can be reimbursed for their attorney’s fees.
The IDEA also includes provisions that allow defendant school districts to be reimbursed for their attorneys’ fees—but only in limited cases. A court can award attorneys’ fees “. . . against the attorney of a parent who files a complaint or subsequent cause of action that is frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation, or . . . who continued to litigate after the litigation clearly became frivolous, unreasonable, or without foundation; or . . . against the attorney of a parent, or against the parent, if the parent’s complaint or subsequent cause of action was presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, to cause unnecessary delay, or to needlessly increase the cost of litigation.” 20 U.S.C. § 1415(i)(3)(B)(i)(II)–(III).
Professor Perry Zirkel, University Professor Emeritus of Education and Law at Lehigh University, has authored a new article, “Attorneys’ Fees Claims Against Plaintiff Parents and Their Attorneys under the IDEA: The Most Recent Court Rulings,” in which he shares his findings that “the frequency of defendant-district filings for attorney’s fees has dropped significantly in the most recent decade” and that “the odds in favor of districts obtaining at least partial attorneys’ fees awards are consistently low.” Specifically, school districts received “at least a partial attorneys’ fees award in less than 15% of their claims.”
COPAA and CASE Issue Principles in Support of Students with Disabilities, Individuals and Organizations Encouraged to Sign
COPAA and the Council of Administrators of Special Education (CASE) have announced an opportunity for individuals, national, state, and local organizations to join together and affirm a shared commitment to ensuring that children and youth with disabilities receive the education and support fundamental to their growth and development. The principles underscore the dedication to working together and will be shared with policymakers and the media later this month. Please review the seven principles and sign with COPAA and advocates from across the U.S. by Friday, October 17, 2025.
Senate at an Impasse on Fiscal Year 2026; Federal Government in Partial Shutdown
The federal government continues to function under a partial shutdown after Congress failed to advance a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that would serve as a stopgap while debate continues on discretionary funding for Fiscal Year (FY) 2026. Typically, these impasses, where the minority party in the Senate seeks to use its limited leverage to advance its own priorities, result in a negotiated bill where a few concessions are made. However, at this writing, there continues to be no workable deal between Republicans and Democrats. House Speaker Johnson (R-LA) did indicate on Monday that he had met with Senate Appropriations Vice Chair Patty Murray (D-WA) to discuss bills moving successfully through conference committee “after the initial clean CR is passed.” This has been interpreted by the press to mean that Republicans are holding firm and will not make concessions in the pending deal to address healthcare and other issues on the Democrats’ priority list. Under the shutdown and in the short term, all mandatory programs such as social security, Medicaid, and Medicare, law enforcement activities, and other functions deemed essential by the Administration continue to operate. Federal aid for certain grants that are already underway and formula funds such as Title I and IDEA will continue to flow, but without federal agency staff available to troubleshoot any challenges that may arise. Every agency has a contingency plan in place for the shutdown. You can view the U.S. Department of Education’s plan and find other agency plans on their respective sites.