Special Education
Laws & News
Across the States
PA: Philadelphia will end separate support program for some special education students
Chalkbeat
The Philadelphia school district plans to wind down a special education program that separates some students with additional learning needs into their own classrooms. The program, called Intensive Learning Support (ILS), is meant to help students who are significantly behind their peers academically. Classes are generally small, with fewer than 20 students, and include special education interventions along with general curriculum instruction. The district declined to share how many students were in the program this school year. But the district plans to end the program at the end of this school year to educate more special education students alongside their peers, said Nathalie Nérée, the district’s chief of special education and diverse learners. Many ILS students will be placed into general education classrooms, which can have more than 30 students, and will get additional services throughout the school day, she said. “We look at student data, we look at their growth. For the growth of students in intensive learning support, it was minimal to none,” said Nérée. The move, Nérée said, is part of her effort to end Philly’s practice of educating a large share of special education students separately from their peers.
PA: PA districts receive thousands in state grants to encourage special ed careers
pennlive.com
The Pennsylvania Department of Education will award grants to 26 schools to encourage students interested in careers in special education. Education Secretary Carrie Rowe announced the awards as part of the Developing Future Special Educators program. The Shapiro administration awarded more than $1.4 million to 77 school groups in 2024. “Career education programs help students make informed decisions about the next step — whether that’s college, a job, the military or an apprenticeship,” Rowe said. “For students who see themselves leading their own classrooms one day, the Developing Future Special Educators program helps them take that step with confidence.” Schools received grants of up to $20,000 each. They will provide more than 800 high school students with early exposure to careers as special education teachers and opportunities to earn college credits before high school graduation.
CA: What Newsom’s proposed budget means for education in California
Los Angeles Times
Public school districts were winners in Gov. Gavin Newsom’s revised budget proposal for next year, with boosted funding that includes $2.4 billion in ongoing increases for services to students with disabilities, money that education officials have said is badly needed as the number of children who need extra help grows. Newsom, who overcame dyslexia as a child, called the increase for students with disabilities “the largest investment in special education in California’s history,” adding, “I don’t know that many other states can lay claim to this kind of investment, maybe in American history.”
FL: Jay Collins bashes Byron Donalds on individual learning plans for everyone
Florida Phoenix
Florida Lt. Gov. Jay Collins unveiled his education agenda on Monday, which includes a rebuke of a proposal by one of his opponents in the Republican race for governor — U.S. Rep. Byron Donalds. In April, Donalds said in a speech in Miami that he wants to “see that every child in the state has an individual learning plan, so we can chart their trajectory towards mastery by the time they graduate high school,” according to the Miami Herald. Individual learning plans, or individualized education plans (IEPs), are traditionally used for students with special needs. An IEP is a written plan for the special education of students with disabilities. Speaking before dozens of supporters during a press conference in Tampa Monday, Collins said: “An IEP for everybody is not a good idea.” “I understand the talking points, but when you get down to the facts of the matter, this plan shifts everything in a negative way,” he said. “It’s an enormous cost. Massive bureaucracy. Defeats the purpose of IEPs.”
GA: Complaints grow over special education services in Georgia schools
WHSV
A growing number of Georgia parents allege their school districts are violating the law by failing to provide required special education services, according to an Atlanta News First investigation. Georgia Department of Education records show formal complaints against school districts have more than doubled in recent years, from 156 in 2021 to 318 last year. In fiscal year 2025, the state found that districts were out of compliance 190 times. The surge in complaints reflects several concerning trends identified by the Georgia Department of Education’s dispute resolution division. A 2025 presentation produced by the division showed more complaints are being filed by current school staff; more complaints are being filed in districts that historically had few complaints; and more complaints involve multiple students, indicating systemic issues.
NH: School Board revises special education reconfiguration after community pushback
Nashua Ink Link
We know what happens when the mentality of a society is that people who talk different, or walk different, or process different, get sent to a different place or treated differently,” said Amy Wheeler Teas, a parent of three, two of which are intensive needs students in the Nashua School District. “We’ve seen what happens and New Hampshire has made that promise to us that our disabled folks are going to be part of the community.” Teas was one of many parents, educators, and community members who came to the Board of Education (BoE) meeting on Monday night to speak against the district’s proposed reconfiguration of the elementary special education programs.
NY: Mamdani becomes latest mayor hoping to fix NYC’s special education system
Gothamist
As he tries to solve New York City’s budget crisis, Mayor Zohran Mamdani is following in his predecessors’ footsteps by vowing to rein in the practice of taxpayers covering the cost of private tuition for students with disabilities. Under federal law, students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate public education. In cases where families can prove school districts are unable to provide the necessary services, they can be reimbursed for private school tuition or providers. Mamdani said city spending on these cases, known as due process claims, is projected to rise to $1.5 billion this year. Now, like mayors before him, Mamdani is promising to serve more of these students within the public school system. “It is time to actually deliver them the kind of education that would mean their families don’t have to consider going to a private school system to receive them,” Mamdani said Tuesday during his executive budget presentation.
NY: State finds school district held 5 students in wooden boxes
MSN
A public school district in northern New York broke state education regulations at least six times when it chose to confine students with disabilities in padded, wooden boxes in the classroom, an investigation by the New York State Education Department found. The state ordered the Salmon River Central School District to change its policies and special education practices by this fall and to submit paperwork demonstrating its compliance. State investigators found five students with disabilities were placed in the large boxes “with the door held shut,” an act that constitutes seclusion, a practice banned by education regulations in New York. The release of the state report is the latest development in a months-long saga that resulted in criminal investigations, the introduction of new legislation, condemnation from the governor, and the departures of multiple school administrators in the district since mid-December, when photos of one of the crates emerged on Facebook.
The state’s conclusions differ from the findings released by an attorney hired by the school district to review the use of the boxes. That attorney determined the boxes had been used this school year on two students who usually chose to go into the boxes and stay there.
NY orders broad reform of public school that held Native children with disabilities in wooden boxes
NPR
Rumors spread on social media over the winter: School kids with disabilities in the Salmon River Central School District, including Akwesasne Mohawk children, were being confined by special education teachers in wooden boxes. Sarah Konwahahawi Herne was devastated. “It was so unfathomable that our children were seeing these boxes and hearing children screaming in these boxes,” said Herne, a parent and a member of the tribal community. “I cried, I threw up, and I immediately grabbed my laptop and said, What are we going to do?” Local school officials later confirmed that at least two boxes had been built and used by staff in November and December of 2025. That disclosure sent more shockwaves through this region of small Upstate New York towns just south of the U.S.-Canada border, which includes the sprawling St. Regis Mohawk Reservation. Officials with New York state’s education department have now quietly issued an official order requiring sweeping reforms in the district. According to the report obtained by NPR, the state’s investigation found that at least five elementary-age students with disabilities were confined in a “wooden box for a timeout.”
TX: Dozens of parents speak out against Houston ISD’s special education changes
Houston Public Media
Dozens of parents, teachers, and students spoke out against Houston ISD’s move to centralize special education services at the district’s school board meeting Thursday night. The plan, announced last week after several news outlets, including Houston Public Media, reported on the proposed changes, taps some schools as special education hubs and would move thousands of students in special education to 150 campuses in order to access their classes and programs. The move prompted the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights to open an investigation into HISD for potentially violating the rights of students with disabilities. The district defended its forthcoming changes and, for now, is still moving forward with the plans despite the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights opening a federal investigation into the district over the changes. The investigation, opened just two days after the district announced its changes, seeks to learn if the updates to special education violate the rights of students with disabilities.