Special Education
Laws & News
Across the States
NJ: New Jersey students in special education stuck in separate classrooms
Hechinger Report
Under federal law, students with disabilities — who once faced widespread, outright exclusion from public schools — have a right to learn alongside peers without disabilities “to the maximum extent” possible. That includes the right to get accommodations and help, like aides, to allow them to stay in the general education classroom. Schools must report crucial benchmarks, including how many students with disabilities are learning in the general education classroom over 80 percent of the time. More than anywhere else in the country, New Jersey students with disabilities fail to reach this threshold, according to federal data. Instead, they spend significant portions of the school day in separate classrooms where parents say they have little to no access to the general curriculum — a practice that can violate their civil rights under federal law.
NY: NYC DOE accused of failing students with special needs, but sometimes not even a court order can help
CBS New York
Harriet Baravick’s son Max has cerebral palsy and uses a wheelchair to get around, but she says just this week, she’s received phone calls from a DOE-contracted bus company reporting issues. “‘I’m sorry, there’s no bus today. You’ll have to pick your child up,'” she said. “Yesterday morning, it was, ‘Sorry, the bus broke down.'” Sometimes, she’s not even sure how her son will get home from school. Transportation is one of several services that the city’s DOE is mandated to provide students with special needs in the city. Whether they go to public schools or not, it’s state law. When the system fails to do so, parents may file for an impartial hearing, which can result in a court order giving the DOE 35 days to right the wrong.
But according to the organization Advocates for Children, the DOE adheres to the court order less than 10% of the time. “It has guaranteed that it will provide these services to the students to both the state and the federal government, and it simply does not and cannot do so,” said Jesse Cole Cutler, a lawyer who estimates he’s represented 3,000 families in these hearings.
OR: Trump administration cuts funding to Oregon disability programs
OPB
The U.S. Department of Education is ending grants to programs across Oregon that support students with disabilities, citing practices related to diversity, equity and inclusion. The cuts could make it harder for disabled students and their families to access help, especially in some of Oregon’s poorest rural communities. The Trump administration cut funds for a statewide program that supports deaf and blind students in districts from Portland to Southern Oregon. It moved to end a grant to Western Oregon University for its DeafBlind Interpreting National Training and Resource Center, pointing to its equity policies and writing in an Aug. 27 memo that the administration “has determined that continuation of the project is not in the best interest of the Federal Government.” The Central Oregon Disability Support Network, which serves more than 4,000 families, also saw its funding cut because of a “conflict with the Department’s policy of prioritizing merit, fairness, and excellence in education,” according to a memo the nonprofit received. The funding was earmarked for helping students with disabilities and their families navigate special education programs.
WI: Madison West students with disabilities invited to be part of swim team
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Two Madison West students with disabilities have been invited to participate with the school’s swimming team after their parents expressed concern that they’d be excluded in 2025. The athletes, who intended to compete as exhibition swimmers and not as part of traditional competition, were initially told the team did not have openings, but the school reversed that stance as of the evening of Sept. 12. Asha Shukla, a senior with Down Syndrome, and Aurelia Bergstrom, a freshman with a low incidence neurogenetic disorder of unknown causes that falls under the category of Syndrome Without A Name (SWAN), were both told they would need to try out to earn their spot on the team on account of a large volume of interested swimmers.
CA: Santa Rosa mom fights school district for place for daughter with rare seizure disorder
When Santa Rosa students returned to their schools from summer break on Aug. 13, seventh grader Brooke Adams did not join her peers. Brooke has a rare form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome. The genetic mutation can cause long-lasting seizures either randomly or brought on by an increase in body temperature, often due to outside heat. To mitigate these seizures, Brooke takes cannabis daily, and when she seizes, as administered by a nurse who spends the school day with her. Assuring that care on school grounds has not been easy. Brooke’s mother, Jana Adams, fought tirelessly in 2018 against Rincon Valley Union’s request to transfer Brooke to homeschooling after district officials denied the family the storage and use of her medicine on school grounds. She won that battle after six weeks, and Brooke returned to school with her medicine. Now, Adams has another fight on her hands: keeping her 12-year-old daughter in the district at a school she was accepted to six months ago, then barred from attending weeks before classes resumed.
CT: CT special education funding got a $70M bump. Is it enough?
CT Mirror
Lisa Balzano’s recent visit to a Fairfield high school left her floored by one sight in particular: a supply room stocked with almost anything a teacher would need. “She opened this room with supplies, and I almost fell over,” Balzano recalled. “I said, ‘What’s this?’” Balzano is a special education teacher at Bridgeport Military Academy, where she buys her own tissues, pens, pencils, markers and more. Anything she needs, she purchases — except for paper. Teachers are allocated two reams a month. “That was a year or two ago, and it’s still embedded in my brain how it was just Fairfield,” Balzano said. “It’s 10 minutes from where I live, and it’s just completely different.”
IN: Parents of special needs students in Indiana fight for their education
Farmer’s Advance
When Jackie Busch’s adopted son Makenley began attending high school in Hendricks County, she was confident he would succeed despite the brain abnormality and cerebral palsy that physically challenged him. And for the next few years, the only things she heard from Makenley’s teachers at Danville Community High School were praise for her talented son and reassurances about his progress in school. So as she helped her son prepare for graduation, Busch was shocked to realize that Makenley lacked basic knowledge that she’d expected him to know such as spelling her last name and the number of their street address. A neuropsych evaluation at Indiana University confirmed that Makenley had a borderline intellectual disability as well as his brain abnormality and cerebral palsy, and that his reading comprehension and math skills were between a 4th grade and 6th grade level, respectively. Despite these findings, backed up by medical documentation, the school refused to acknowledge the issues, refusing Makenley further in-person education if he wanted to walk with his class during graduation.
LA: New Orleans charter school goes private to avoid closure
nola.com
Vera Triplett knew the state had her New Orleans charter school in its sights. Last December, Louisiana’s state board of education was on the verge of closing Noble Minds Institute for Whole Child Learning due to repeated F’s on its state report card. So Triplett, who opened the charter school in 2017 to serve mostly students with disabilities, decided to pivot to the private sector. Last month, Noble Minds reopened as a tuition-charging “microschool,” or a very small, mostly unregulated private school. Triplett said the move made sense for the already-small school, which has remained in its leased church space on Carrollton Avenue and kept many of the same teachers and students. But the school’s departure from the public system, where test-based accountability is a condition of running a charter school, also means its performance will now face less public scrutiny. It also leaves the school with fewer resources, raising questions about how it will meet the needs of all its students.
OK: Signing bonuses draw 151 special education teachers to Oklahoma schools
The Duncan Banner
An Oklahoma signing bonus program, intending to fill a critical workforce shortage in public schools, will reward 151 special education teachers up to $20,000 this school year. The Oklahoma State Department of Education announced Tuesday the program will award signing bonuses to 34 experienced special education teachers who came from out of state and to 117 new teachers who recently became certified for the first time. The program exceeded the agency’s initial goal of recruiting 110 special education teachers to work with students with disabilities. About 17% of public school students in Oklahoma are receiving services for a disability, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. Out-of-state teachers coming to Oklahoma were eligible for a $20,000 signing bonus this year and another $5,000 in the 2026-27 school year if they remain in the same district. Newly certified special education teachers qualified for a $10,000 signing bonus and a potential $2,500 retention bonus next year.
WI: School officials celebrate increase to special education reimbursement, say more needs to be done
news8000.com
Although many Wisconsin educators were disappointed with the state biennial budget passed this summer, they say an increased investment in special education is a silver lining. Public schools are mandated through federal law to provide services to meet the unique needs of their students. “It could range from a student that needs speech and language therapy, students that need occupational therapy, students that have learning disabilities, to students with autism or more significant developmental delays,” said Aimee Zabrowski, Director of Student Services for the School District of La Crosse. Zabrowski said the district is proud to provide those services but acknowledged they can get expensive. “The economic impact to support and provide resources, that can get well over six figures with one student really quick,” said Paul Fischer, who serves 26 area school districts as the administrator for Western Wisconsin’s Cooperative Educational Service Agency. The state offers some help to cover the cost of those services, but for years they’ve only given a 32% reimbursement, leaving districts to pay the other 68% themselves.