Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
ED FY 2026 Budget Would Eliminate IDEA’s National Activities, Asks Congress to Amend the Law
Last Friday, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) released its Fiscal Year (FY) 2026 budget detail that includes major cuts and changes to education programs, including the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Described as “streamlining” and “giving power back to the states,” the FY 2026 budget proposes that Congress eliminate all of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) Part D National Activities currently overseen by the Office of Special Education. As proposed, those program funds would be wrapped into the Part B grants to states (ages 6-21) and would also combine IDEA Part B 619 preschool grants (ages 3-5) into Part B state grants. Part D programs are authorized and required by law to provide essential supports, including parent training and information centers, personnel preparation, technical assistance centers (e.g.. PBIS, significant disproportionality, inclusive classrooms), training for new special educators and general educators, assistive technology/accessibility supports, and more. Because current law does not allow this flexibility -and in fact requires specific activities to be funded and overseen by the Secretary of Education under IDEA Part B 619 and Part D- ED has requested Congress to provide “new appropriations language that would allow States to reserve additional funds for activities previously administered by the Department under the National Activities and Preschool Grant programs” without explaining whether and how the existing Part B 619 and Part D requirements would be altered. COPAA is extremely concerned about the proposal and will continue to recommend to Congress that no changes be made to IDEA through the appropriations process or otherwise at this time.
Budget Reconciliation Bill Passes the House
Prior to the Memorial Day recess, the House of Representatives narrowly passed H.R. 1, the budget reconciliation bill- by a vote of 214 to 215. Running more than 1,000 pages, the multitrillion-dollar tax and spending package (in summary): extends the tax cuts provided for businesses in 2017, steers more money to the military and border security, temporarily raises the child tax credit to $2500 (for eligible families to 2028), raises the state and local taxes cap (SALT) to $40,000 (with income limit), adds a new federal education voucher provision ($20 billion over 4 years) which COPAA opposes, and adds a new one-time federally subsidized savings account of $1,000 for children (with eligibility limits). To pay for the package, the bill slashes $1 trillion from Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Programs (SNAP) -significantly altering eligibility requirements for both programs- and finds $350 million via education programs by limiting Pell Grant eligibility, eliminating subsidized school loans, abolishing loan repayment deferment for unemployment and/or economic hardship, and eliminating tax credits for certain green initiatives. HR1 also includes a provision that would restrict federal judges from holding government officials in contempt when they violate a court order. The legislation now heads to the Senate, where it is expected to face significant challenges and revisions. Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) is aiming to finalize the bill before the 4th of July recess.
COPAA opposes HR 1 due to the addition of the tax credit-to-education voucher provision, harmful cuts to Medicaid, and the changes in Pell grant eligibility, which harm access to college for more than 45 percent of the 3.5 million adults with disabilities utilizing the program.
ACT NOW: Tell the US Senate to OPPOSE HR 1 or SIMILAR SENATE BILL
Judge Blocks EO to Shutter ED, Orders Fired Employees to be Reinstated
On May 29, 2025, District Judge Myong Joun blocked an Executive Order (EO) issued by the White House to close the U.S. Department of Education (Department) and ruled that the Administration must reinstate hundreds of employees who had been previously fired. Myong’s ruling is a preliminary injunction, which means it will remain in force until the case is resolved or a higher court overturns it. The injunction, which was requested by two school districts in Massachusetts, the American Federation of Teachers, and 21 Democratic state attorneys general, states that the reduction in force (RIF) issued at the Department [as by Secretary McMahon] led to a “de facto elimination of the agency, interfered with essential services, and did not lead to the agency efficiencies claimed by the Department.” Instead, Myong ruled that the plaintiffs “have provided an in-depth look into how the massive reduction in staff has made it effectively impossible for the Department to carry out its statutorily mandated functions.” In response to a media inquiry, Madi Biedermann, the Department’s Deputy Assistant Secretary for Communications, responded that they “will immediately challenge this on an emergency basis.”
OCR opens race, disability discrimination probe into Wisconsin district
K-12 Dive
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating a Wisconsin school district over allegations that it discriminated against a White elementary school student with dyslexia on the basis of race, according to a statement from the agency Wednesday. The investigation is based on a complaint made earlier this year claiming that the Green Bay Area Public School District prioritizes special education services based on racial “priority groups,” which the student at the center of the complaint did not fall into. That complaint also alleges the district discriminated against the student on the basis of disability and did not provide timely and adequate special education services. The investigation into the Green Bay Area school system is one of several K-12 race discrimination reviews the Education Department has opened since President Donald Trump took office that appear to scrutinize school policies and practices intended to support racial equity.
Lawmakers, judge push back on Education Department’s gutting, citing inefficiency
K-12 Dive
The Trump administration’s decision to gut federal programs administered by the U.S. Department of Education and lay off half of the agency’s staff in an attempt to increase its efficiency has been met with resistance from lawmakers and, most recently, a federal judge whose court order brought efforts to close the department to an abrupt halt. In an update required by a May 22 court order, the Education Department posted on its website that it has notified its employees of the court-ordered reversal of the reduction in force that left the agency with only about 2,183 out of 4,133 employees. The department on May 27 acknowledged its being compelled by the order in State of New York v. McMahon “to restore the Department to the status quo such that it is able to carry out its statutory functions.”
Federal Judge Blocks the Dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education
On May 22, 2025, the plaintiffs in the federal case New York v. McMahon won an important preliminary victory, in which the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts granted a preliminary injunction that blocks the sweeping changes recently ordered by President Trump aimed at dismantling the U.S. Department of Education. This preliminary injunction will be in effect during the litigation of this case until the court reaches a decision on the merits and determines whether the Executive Branch acted unlawfully in its attempts to shut down the Department.
The Department cannot be shut down without Congressional approval, and the court determined that the Executive Branch’s “true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department” without that approval from Congress.
The court ordered that the Executive Branch cannot carry out the announced reduction-in-force (RIF) that would reduce the Department’s staff by half, cannot carry out President Trump’s March 20, 2025 executive order instructing Secretary Linda McMahon to take all steps to close down the Department, and cannot carry out President Trump’s March 21, 2025 directive to transfer special education functions out of the Department. The court’s order requires that all federal employees of the Department who were terminated as part of the RIF be reinstated and requires the Department to resume the “status quo” of its statutory functions.
The court highlighted the “core obligation” of the Department to support students with disabilities and their parents, as well as the schools and teachers who educate those students. The order made note of the Department’s support for research, pilot programs, personnel and technology development, and parent training and information centers, or PTIs. The court also explained the “vital role” played by the Office for Civil Rights within the Department for enforcing civil rights laws in schools, allowing students to file complaints without the need to file suit in court or to pay for litigation costs.
A spokesperson for the Department has stated that the administration plans to challenge the court’s decision. The plaintiffs in this case include several states, school districts, and labor unions. including the American Federation of Teachers. This case has been consolidated from two separate cases, including Somerville Public Schools v. Trump
Judge blocks Trump’s moves to gut Education Department
Chalkbeat
A federal judge on Thursday issued a preliminary injunction blocking President Donald Trump’s executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education and said the agency must reinstate the employees who were fired as part of mass layoffs. After U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced the agency’s plans in March to slash its workforce by roughly half, she called it a first step in getting rid of the agency. Trump followed days later with his executive order aiming to eliminate the department, a move he has long wanted. But only Congress can actually eliminate the department, and the administration’s attempt at getting around that influenced U.S. District Judge Myong Joun’s Thursday ruling. The Trump administration argued that they implemented agency layoffs to improve “efficiency” and “accountability,” the Massachusetts judge wrote, but then said: “The record abundantly reveals that [the administration’s] true intention is to effectively dismantle the Department without an authorizing statute.”
How Trump’s policies are already upending special education
Education Week
Jennifer Donelli has served since 2020 as executive director of Parents Reaching Out, a nonprofit organization designated and partially funded by the federal government since the early 1980s as New Mexico’s “parent training and information center” for special education. Every state, by law, has at least one. Donelli estimates she and her team of four full-time and six part-time staffers help hundreds of families a year: answering questions on the phone, shipping resources to their homes, even driving hours for home visits. But since President Donald Trump took office, Donelli’s job has gotten tougher. Some Hispanic families—including U.S. citizens and undocumented immigrants—fear that sharing details about their circumstances could put them at heightened risk of deportation. Meanwhile, a routine application for the federal government to reauthorize the organization’s longstanding annual grant of $250,000 has become a months-long ordeal with no end in sight.
Trump cuts may end oversight of Illinois special ed school
Chicago Tribune
A short video taken inside an Illinois school captured troubling behavior: A teacher gripping a 6-year-old boy with autism by the ankle and dragging him down the hallway on his back. The early April incident would’ve been upsetting in any school, but it happened at the Garrison School, part of a special education district where at one time students were arrested at the highest rate of any district in the country. The teacher was charged with battery weeks later after pressure from the student’s parents. It’s been about eight months since the U.S. Department of Education directed Garrison to change the way it responded to the behavior of students with disabilities. But the department’s Office for Civil Rights regional office in Chicago, which was responsible for Illinois and five other states, was one of seven abolished by President Donald Trump’s administration in March; the offices were closed and their entire staff was fired. The future of oversight at Four Rivers, in west-central Illinois, is now uncertain.
What families need to know: Special education law with Attorney Matt Cohen
NPR Illinois
Matt Cohen is an attorney and founder of Matt Cohen & Associates. He specializes in special education, disability rights, and human services law. He spoke to Community Voices about the history of special education laws in Illinois, challenges that schools and families face, and gives his opinion on how the dismantlement of the Department of Education would affect education and kids with disabilities. Matt also gives advice on how families of children with special needs should navigate the school system.
Note: Matt Cohen is a COPAA Board member.
Most states don’t require school emergency plans for disabled students. They feel left behind and at risk.
CBS News
Niamh Winright’s worst nightmare began with a loud bang. Then came the sound of shattering glass and the piercing echoes of gunfire. Reality set in. She was caught in the middle of a school shooting. On the morning of Oct. 24, 2022, panic swept through the joint campus of the Central Visual and Performing Arts High School and the Collegiate School of Medicine and Bioscience in St. Louis, Missouri. The 911 calls began pouring in as a gunman entered the building. “I saw a gentleman with a rifle shoot at the door and go in,” one caller told dispatchers. “I don’t want to die. Please. Please,” said one student in another frantic 911 call. Winright, who lives with autoimmune rheumatoid arthritis and uses a cane, suddenly found herself crammed into a corner with her classmates. Her cane was knocked away during the scramble for safety.
UW-La Crosse program for students with disabilities loses critical federal grant
WPR
After 40 years of federal support, a University of Wisconsin-La Crosse program training teachers to provide physical education for students with disabilities will no longer receive a critical grant. Future educators in the Adapted Physical Education program learn to work with students with physical and developmental disabilities by providing on-campus instruction for La Crosse-area families and through partnerships with local schools. For decades, the program has competed for a personnel development grant through the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education programs, according to associate professor Brock McMullen, the program’s director. He said UW-La Crosse supports around 30 graduate students over the course of the five-year grant. The program was last awarded $1.25 million in 2020. McMullen said the university had sent in its application for the next round of funding last December. But in April, he was notified that the U.S. Department of Education was canceling the grant program for good because it did not “fit with the administration’s priorities.”
Specialized charter schools need to ensure inclusive practices, report says
K-12 Dive
While specialized charter schools may offer unique learning programs tailored for a specific disability, school leaders and management organizations should ensure they are following nondiscrimination laws and are giving students inclusive opportunities, CLE advises. The center found that there were 154 specialized charter schools with a total of 20,044 students. These schools have a special education focus or have at least 50% of their population identifying as students with disabilities. While specialized charter schools only represent 3% of all charters nationwide, they can “create tension with long-standing goals to provide students with disabilities access to inclusive learning environments alongside non-disabled peers,” a May 12 statement from CLE said.
House Budget Reconciliation Bill Cuts Medicaid, Adds Education Voucher
The Republicans have finalized a Budget Reconciliation bill that is designed to pay for nearly $1 trillion in tax credits for businesses and to add new tax relief for some taxpayers. Together, three House Committees produced cuts to existing mandatory spending programs to pay for the final package. Specifically, $350 billion will come from education by changing student loan program rules, limiting access to Pell Grants for low-income students (including students with disabilities), ending interest subsidies for undergraduates while they are in school, revamping loan repayment plans, and rolling back a range of accountability regulations. The biggest ‘pay-for’ will come from Medicaid, which has been cut by more than $800 billion. Other cuts were made to the nation’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and to clean energy programs. The final bill would also add $20 billion in new funding that would provide tax credits to individuals who donate to “a scholarship-granting organization,” which then provides up to $5000 annually through a ‘funded’ voucher to use for tuition, books, online education, and more. Families making more than three hundred percent of the local gross median income do not qualify. While language was added to this provision, which references students with disabilities and access to “equitable services” (which is a provision of current law), the bill does not add any new protections for children with disabilities who may qualify and seek to attend a private school. As written, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 7.6 million people will be cut from Medicaid, which also adds new work requirements, ends eligibility and enrollment rules for dually eligible individuals who already qualify due to disability, freezes payments to states for certain types of care (including some home based services), mandates cost-sharing on enrollees with very low incomes and more. COPAA, along with disability and education advocates, have opposed the bill due to the drastic cuts to Medicaid as well as the addition of the education voucher mechanism.
ACT NOW: Congress is expected to vote THIS WEEK on the budget reconciliation bill. Please TAKE ACTION TODAY. Tell Congress to protect students with disabilities and reject the House Budget Reconciliation bill.
ED Publishes IDEA Policy Guidance from January 2024-2025
The U.S. Department of Education has updated the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) searchable database to include Dear Colleague letters, policy guidance, and selected fact sheets for the calendar year 2024. Guidance includes topics such as inclusive educational practices, secondary and post-secondary transition, special education personnel retention, exclusionary discipline, using functional behavioral assessments to create supportive learning environments, a voluntary self-assessment to support military connected children with disabilities, early hearing detection and intervention, physical education and adaptive physical education, and improving access to assistive technology devices for children with disabilities.