K-12 Dive

The California Department of Education and the Los Angeles Unified School District will include religious private schools as potential placements for students with disabilities, according to a settlement agreement reached Monday between the school systems and a group of Jewish parents and schools. The agreement means public funding for special education could be used for tuition at religious schools. The parents and schools sued the state and district in 2023 because school systems wouldn’t consider Orthodox Jewish schools as potential school placements for students with disabilities, which they claimed was unconstitutional religious discrimination. The agreement is a “win for religious liberty,” the plaintiffs said, but public school advocates and those promoting the separation of church and state said it would expand the use of taxpayer-funded money for religious education.