Special Education
Laws & News
Across the States
LA: New Orleans Schools piloting shared services, tech for special ed
This fall a handful of New Orleans schools will have access to centralized special education services, the first step in an effort to help autonomous charter schools join forces to serve students with disabilities. The new program will provide participating schools with shared special education technology, services, and training. The first of its kind in the district, the opt-in program will be run by an “education service agency,” a public entity authorized by law to coordinate and provide services. The governance model is still being worked out, but eventually, an advisory board made up of representatives from the participating schools will oversee the program. The model is meant to make it easier for smaller and single-site charter schools to provide students with disabilities a range of specialized services, which can be financially and logistically challenging, and equalize special education access across the district.
MT: Montana’s new law brings funding for early special education
NBC Montana
A new law will bring funding to early special education in Montana for the first time in decades. The bipartisan effort got House Bill 168 onto Governor Greg Gianforte’s desk, and now, it’s law. According to federal law, all school districts in the nation are required to educate preschool-age children with disabilities. The Treasure State is no different, but since 1993, schools haven’t received any funding to provide those services. “Over the years, various school funding reforms, all well-intentioned and generally good, kind of an unintended effect seemed to be that those three and four-year-olds kind of fell off the radar,” said Rep. Jonathan Karlen, D-Missoula. The legislation, sponsored by Karlen, addresses the long-standing gap in Montana’s education system. While school districts have been federally required to provide special education services to preschool-aged children, the state has not allocated funding to support those efforts. This left local districts to either scale back essential services or reallocate funds from other K-12 programs to meet students’ needs.
NE: How Nebraska is reimagining special education — and seeing promising results
Hechinger Report
When Bethany Jolliffe started teaching kindergarten 15 years ago, she picked up on what seemed like a long-standing pattern: Teachers mostly stayed in their lane, with general education teachers focusing on “their” students, and special education teachers homed in on students deemed to be their responsibility. Instead of keeping children with disabilities in classrooms and bringing help to them, teachers often pulled them out of the classroom, away from their peers. Nationwide, that’s a common approach in schools, where many students with disabilities, starting in kindergarten, are segregated from their classmates for large portions of the day. At Westmoor Elementary in west Scottsbluff, where Jolliffe is now assistant principal, that’s no longer the case. In classrooms across the school, children of all abilities learn side by side. Scottsbluff and many other communities across Nebraska have joined a statewide effort over the past few years to include more children with disabilities in general education classrooms for the majority of the day.
WI: GOP legislators approve $220 million increase for special education, $1.3 billion in tax cuts
Wisconsin Examiner
After many delays, the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee met Thursday evening to approve its plan for K-12 education spending that included a 5% increase to special education funding for schools and its $1.3 billion tax plan that targets retirees and middle-income earners. Lawmakers on the powerful budget-writing committee went back and forth for nearly three hours about the plans, with Republicans saying they made significant investments in education and would help Wisconsinites, while Democrats argued the state should do more for schools. The committee approved a total of about $336 million total in new general purpose revenue for Wisconsin’s K-12 schools, only about 10% of Gov. Tony Evers’ proposed $3.1 billion in new spending. Special education costs will receive the majority of the allocation, with an additional $220 million that to be split between the general special education reimbursement and a subset of high-cost special education services.
DE: Delaware school funding: Framework for new formula moves ahead
WHYY
The Public Education Funding Commission recently voted on a set of recommendations to change Delaware’s school funding formula, but big questions loom over what a new funding formula will look like and how much additional money, if any, state lawmakers are prepared to invest in the education system. Commissioners approved moving from a unit-based system to a hybrid model where funding would be weighted with additional money for students with higher needs using a block grant approach. The commission also recommended a three-to-five-year implementation plan, which considers additional revenue to support it. It would include a “hold harmless” caveat so no district would lose funding.
IN: ‘We can’t go back’: Special education advocates fear federal cuts
Indiana Public Media
Kristie Brown Loftland said the Autism Society of Indiana wants to make it easier on parents and families. “It’s already confusing for a lot of parents when they first get the diagnosis of autism,” Brown Loftland, the ASI board president, said. “Oftentimes the public doesn’t understand, necessarily, what kind of services are offered to a child with a disability,” she said. Many of those services in special education, such as special therapy or individualized education plans, are partially funded by the federal government. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) enshrined protections and funding for these students with disabilities in 1975. About 15 percent of children receive special education, more than 7.5 million students. In Indiana, about 200,000 students receive special education. But advocates, including Brown Loftland, believe the act and the rights it guarantees for those students are threatened as President Donald Trump reshapes education. “It’s going to affect millions of students with disabilities and their families,” Brown Loftland said.
NE: ‘Shot down at every turn’: Nebraska schools frequently deny kids with disabilities
Nebraska Public Media
Angela Gleason knew something was wrong with her son’s education by the time he began first grade in Omaha Public Schools. The district moved Teddy, who has autism and is nonverbal, from a behavioral skills class to general education. His struggles brought on outbursts of running around the room and disrupting his classmates, leading to near-daily phone calls asking Gleason to come get him. Feeling hopeless, Gleason applied for a transfer to Millard Public Schools in 2018. But the district said its special education program had no room for Teddy. Year after year, Gleason applied to Millard and received the same response, even as the district later accepted two of her other children who didn’t need special education services. She tried other Omaha-area districts. Westside. Then Bellevue. Both rejected Teddy. “It’s very disheartening as a parent to try repeatedly to get your child with disabilities accepted into a different school district, and to be told ‘no’ over and over and over again,” she said. A 35-year-old Nebraska law lets students transfer from one public school district to another — a policy known as option enrollment.
NJ: New Jersey has the lowest rates of inclusion for students in special education in the country
Hechinger Report
New Jersey students with disabilities are the least likely in the nation to spend their days surrounded by peers without disabilities. One underlying reason: a sprawling network of separate schools that allows districts to outsource educating them. New Jersey has more than a hundred private schools, plus eight county-run districts specifically for students with disabilities. Districts spend hundreds of millions of dollars placing students in private schools rather than investing in their own staffing and programs — placements that cost New Jersey taxpayers $784 million in 2024, not including transportation. That’s up from about $725 million the year before. This can create a self-perpetuating cycle that increases reliance on separate schools and, experts say, may violate students’ federal right to spend as much time as possible learning alongside students without disabilities.
NY: Parents say Mayor Adams’ Afterschool for All must include students with disabilities
Gothamist
Advocates for students with disabilities said Mayor Eric Adams’ Afterschool for All plan won’t actually be “for all” until the city updates bus contracts to provide late-day service, especially for students in special education. “When the mayor says ‘Afterschool for All,’ he doesn’t mean students like me,” said Lucas Healy, a student with autism who attends the High School for Telecommunications Arts and Technology. Healy spoke at a rally outside City Hall on Thursday, saying he’s able to take the subway now, but many of his classmates can’t. “They still need the busing because they can’t travel independently,” he said. “They miss out on the plays, the sports, the clubs, and the general opportunity to make new friends and have new experiences.”
TX: Texas’ new $8.5B school funding bill explained
The Texas Tribune
Texas is moving away from the long-scrutinized special education funding system that gives money to districts based on the classroom setting where a child with a disability receives instruction. Now, schools will receive dollars based on the individual needs of that student — an approach educators, lawmakers, and public education advocates consider more equitable. The new system, which Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath will design, will take effect at the beginning of the 2026-27 school year. The education chief must consider the nature of services provided to students, the technology and equipment required, and the professional needs of educators. When HB 2 takes effect later this year, districts will also start receiving $1,000 for each assessment they conduct evaluating kids for disabilities.