USA Today Amy Cupp was alarmed when her sixth-grade daughter came home from school with bruises in the shape of fingerprints. School staff had locked the girl in a room while trying to restrain her in November 2024, said Cupp, a social worker in rural Indiana. Her...
Federal
Support Medicaid, Protect Children with Disabilities
When Congress returns next week, the House and Senate will dive headlong into negotiations to develop the budget reconciliation package intended to support corporate tax cuts. To pay for the tax extensions, some Congressional Republicans have targeted Medicaid for...
As Trump guts support for disabled students, their families are fighting back
Truthout A letter to Congress, signed by 15 disability rights groups, made clear that removing federal oversight of critical civil rights laws like IDEA “leaves students vulnerable to the variation in state implementation and threatens to bring us back to a...
Parents say federal cuts have slowed civil rights investigations
NPR Amy Cupp says that after weeks of trying to get G's school to change the way it handled her daughter's behavior, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, which investigates discrimination in schools. That office...
HHS plans to cut funds used to investigate abuse at group homes
Mother Jones On Wednesday, a leaked draft Health and Human Services budget document revealed, among other sweeping cuts to health- and disability-related services, that Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s department plans to defund protection and advocacy services for...
Bills in Congress detail path to closing the Education Department
K-12 Dive Several Republican-led bills introduced in Congress this year propose how to divide up the U.S. Department of Education’s responsibilities among other federal agencies — and thereby carry out President Donald Trump’s plan to eliminate the 45-year-old agency....
Special needs students are underserved in DODEA schools, watchdog report finds
Stars and Stripes Some special needs students attending Defense Department schools are being underserved due to staffing shortages and high turnover among special education personnel, the U.S. Government Accountability Office said in a report released Thursday. The...
Amici File Brief in the 5th Circuit in Support of Parent’s Win in U.S. District Court
COPAA and The Texas Organization of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (TOPAA) filed an amicus brief in the 5th Circuit in North East ISD v. I.M. on Friday, April 11, 2025. IDEA mandates that children with disabilities receive a FAPE tailored to their unique academic...
Students, additional parents join lawsuit challenging Department of Education’s abandoning of civil rights investigations
On April 10, 2025 multiple parents and students, including COPAA members, from various states across the country have joined a federal lawsuit that seeks to restore the functions of the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and reverse recent...
