Federal Legislation & News
in Special Education
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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 massive cuts. If Congress cuts Medicaid, millions of infants, toddlers, and school-age children will lose access to the health insurance that pays for the vital services they need. Nearly all States use Medicaid to finance Part C early intervention services for children ages 0-3 who qualify for both programs and on average, about half of children served in Part C are enrolled in Medicaid. The cuts to Medicaid also threaten access to services for millions of qualifying children with disabilities who rely on Medicaid for therapies, services, technology, and other supports in PreK-12 schools.
Tell Congress to support Medicaid and protect students with disabilities.
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 time when many students with disabilities were denied an education.”
Denise Marshall is CEO of the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA), an organizational signatory of the letter. Marshall told Truthout that COPAA and the National Center for Youth Law have filed a federal lawsuit to restore OCR’s investigative functions. “OCR has investigated a lot of egregious situations for kids who’ve been restrained, isolated, or forced out of school,” Marshall said. “This administration does not hide its hostility to people of color, people with gender identities that it doesn’t like, and the disabled. In many cases, people who’d filed complaints with OCR have discovered that investigations have been halted. It’s why we filed a lawsuit. OCR had been investigating cases and holding districts accountable.”
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 recently lost more than 40% of its staff after the Trump administration launched a massive downsizing of the department. Now, Cupp and other parents say their civil rights complaints aren’t being investigated. Last week, Cupp joined a lawsuit that aims to force the federal government to act on complaints like hers. The lawsuit claims the layoffs have undermined OCR’s “ability to fulfill its statutory and regulatory mandate to enforce civil rights laws in schools.” “I just can’t fathom that anybody would cut something so vital,” says Cupp, a devout Christian. She says she voted for President Trump and thought he shared her beliefs. “But I can’t understand why they’re doing what they’re doing, because that is not what God would intend.”
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 people with developmental disabilities—including autistic people, about whom Kennedy also spreads harmful disinformation. The budget document is a proposal, pending official release and eventually congressional approval; it’s also unclear whether suggested cuts originate with Kennedy’s HHS or Project 2025 architect Russell Vought’s Office of Management and Budget. Federal funding for nongovernmental organizations to provide legal and advocacy services to people with developmental disabilities started in 1978 with the Developmentally Disabled Assistance and Bill of Rights Act. There are now 57 protection and advocacy agencies—one in every state, every territory, and in Washington, DC—that work to enforce the rights of people with developmental disabilities, those with mental health conditions, and other disabilities. The agencies, known as P&As, are overseen by HHS’s Administration for Community Living—which is being dismantled.
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. Some of the bills recommend transferring special education oversight and grants to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, folding civil rights enforcement into the U.S. Department of Justice, and moving student loan programs to the U.S. Department of Treasury. Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have filed their own measures to prevent the Education Department shutdown and express support for the federal role in education.
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 problem is exacerbated by rigid staffing formulas used by the Department of Defense Education Activity, or DODEA, which operates the school system. Those formulas, the report said, rely on student headcounts rather than the hours required to adequately serve students, often underestimating staffing needs. The GAO found delays in the delivery of special education services at 44 of DODEA’s 114 overseas schools during the 2022–23 school year. In six of those cases, more than a year passed before services were restored. Both parents and providers told investigators that delays and disruptions in services often harmed students’ academic progress.