Special Education
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Across the States
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.
WI: Tony Evers says school leaders ‘beside themselves’ following failure of education and tax deal
WPR
Democratic Gov. Tony Evers says school leaders are “beside themselves” after the Legislature rejected a deal he negotiated that would have boosted education funding in exchange for tax cuts. In an interview with WISN-TV in Milwaukee, Evers blamed the impasse on “politics,” but focused his criticism on Democratic state senators and U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the Republican candidate for governor. The $1.8 billion deal the state Senate rejected Wednesday would have spent $315 million on special education. It would also have spent another $300 million on general school aid, which would have the effect of driving down property taxes under Wisconsin’s school funding formula.
CA: L.A.’s special education parents constantly advocate — and students still feel unsafe at school, survey finds
EdSource
When Tania Rivera’s son with autism ran out of school and into the street, no one noticed he was gone. Not the teacher or any school official. Rivera said she found out from another parent who saw him. “It wasn’t safe for him, and I was in shock. Believe me, because he was in danger,” Rivera said. She didn’t know whether her son had hopped in a stranger’s car or gotten lost. Although that incident happened more than a decade ago, Rivera’s experience reflects broader concerns across Los Angeles County, where a new parent-led survey finds that many families say their children with disabilities feel unsafe and unsupported at school. The survey, published by SpEducational, a parent-led advocacy organization focused on special education, includes responses from 342 families across nearly 40 school districts in Los Angeles County, including more than 150 with children in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Fewer than half the families — 45% — said their child in special education often or always feels safe at school. Another 41% said they are dissatisfied with the services their child receives. “I am sorry to say that the data is sobering. It’s lifted up a lot of concerns. It’s documented a lot of issues, a lot of structural issues in special education,” said Lisa Mosko Barros, the founder of SpEducational.
GA: Georgia mom questions 8-year-old’s suspension over a LEGO creation that resembled a gun
kvue.com
A woman in Georgia is questioning her son’s three-day suspension after school officials said the 8-year-old brought a small LEGO creation resembling a gun to class, sparking debate over zero-tolerance discipline policies for young students. “This is the weapon they say my child had,” the boy’s mother said while holding the LEGO creation. “This is clarified as a weapon to the school district.” The mother said her son, who has autism and ADHD, did not threaten anyone or behave aggressively. “My child did not go to school and say anything harmful or bad,” she said. “They could have simply explained to him, ‘Hey, we cannot build things that we think are a weapon or look like a gun.’” She said she received a phone call from the school principal informing her that her son had brought a weapon to school.
The school district said it could not comment on individual student disciplinary matters, but a spokesperson said the district’s code of conduct outlines different levels of infraction.
MD: Young students with disabilities are getting derailed from a diploma
The Banner
Kristi Maeng felt crushed when Montgomery County Public Schools staff said they wanted to put her son JoJo on an academic trajectory that rarely leads to a diploma — especially because he was just starting elementary school. JoJo, who has Down syndrome, faced challenges in his general education kindergarten classroom. The pacing was too fast and the class too large, making it difficult for him to get the attention he needed. But Maeng worried about the proposed solution: placing him in a program unlikely to prepare him for future education and job opportunities that require high school diplomas. “Why in the world am I making this decision for my 5-year-old?” she said. It felt ludicrous, but she ultimately went with the school’s recommendation.
MA: Two years after special education report, parents say there’s more work ahead
The Belmont Voice
When her daughter Ruby started school, Andrea Campbell saw right away that Ruby struggled to keep pace with her classmates in reading, spelling, and math. “Even in preschool, it was very clear to me that she was going to have a learning disability,” Campbell said. Ruby was eventually diagnosed with dyslexia. By the end of first grade, Campbell was told her daughter was too far behind to stay in the general education classroom. Unable to reasonably afford sending Ruby to a local private school, Campbell agreed to have her daughter placed in the Lexington, Arlington, Burlington, Bedford, and Belmont (LABBB) Educational Collaborative. Though LABBB has several programs housed in Belmont schools, the Collaborative is considered an out-of-district program.