Latest news with #IndividualswithDisabilitiesinEducationAct
Yahoo
06-05-2025
- Yahoo
SCOTUS to Rule in Case That Could Upend Enforcement of Disabled Students' Rights
The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments last week in a case that could prove seismic for students with disabilities who claim their schools have discriminated against them. If the family that brought the original lawsuit loses, cases filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act — the portion of the law that governs many in-school accommodations — could become extraordinarily difficult to win. A ruling in favor of Osseo Area Schools, located in suburban Minneapolis, would mean students who claim their rights were violated will have to prove their school systems acted in 'bad faith or gross misjudgment' — a higher standard than 'deliberate indifference,' which the law requires in other disability discrimination cases. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter An estimated 1.5 million public school students receive disability accommodations under the ADA, ranging from modified academic materials — such as simplifying a text or supplying curriculum via a specialized device — to making classrooms, bathrooms and other school spaces accessible to wheelchair users and others. The law governs accessibility, while disabled children's educational rights are guaranteed by a different measure, the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. Teenager Ava Tharpe has a severe form of epilepsy that causes frequent seizures during the morning. While planning to move from Kentucky to Minnesota in 2015, when she was in fourth grade, her parents sought out a school district that would agree to start her classes at noon and extend them into the evening. After the family relocated, the district reneged, saying it was unwilling to provide services outside the normal school day. When the Supreme Court accepted the case, the district's position had consistently been that disability discrimination suits had to prove the school system acted out of ill intent. Osseo argued that the legal standard, which plaintiffs have been held to in some federal court circuits but not others, applied only to K-12 students. But in the brief it submitted before the April 28 hearing, the district widened its argument, saying that a showing of bad faith is required in all ADA cases, not just those involving schools. 'The statutes do not impose liability for nondiscriminatory, good-faith denials of requested accommodations,' the document asserts, adding that the high court 'should not subject America's 100,000 public schools and countless other state and local entities and federal-funding recipients' to the deliberate indifference standard. The hearing erupted in verbal fireworks after the district's attorney accused the lawyers representing the federal government, which has sided with the family, of 'lying' in saying that the district had shifted its argument. Justice Neil Gorsuch snapped back, and several minutes of heated debate ensued. Later in the hearing, Justice Amy Coney Barrett characterized the district's shift as 'a pretty big sea change,' according to an account posted by SCOTUS Blog, which also reported Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was 'all but incredulous' that the district argued that the ADA does not necessarily require accommodations for people with disabilities. Osseo officials declined to comment on the case, citing Tharpe's right to privacy. 'The school district educates nearly 21,000 students, including 3,000 students with disabilities who have the right to education from birth through age 22,' it said in a comment to The 74. 'We're committed to the principles and the ideals expressed by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.' The Tharpe family initially filed a complaint with state education officials under the IDEA, which guarantees disabled pupils a 'free and appropriate public education.' Noting that the girl had a right to a full school day, even if it extended into the evening, a state administrative law judge found that Ava's educational rights had been violated. When the district appealed that ruling in federal district court, the family filed a second suit under the ADA. In March 2024, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that the family's IDEA rights had been violated. But the appellate court rejected the ADA discrimination claim, ruling the Tharpes had not proven the district acted in bad faith. The Supreme Court's eventual ruling should not impact IDEA, which governs whether children with disabilities are entitled to special education services enabling them to make adequate progress toward their goals. By contrast, the ADA requires equal access to school and an equal opportunity to learn once they are there, explains Ellen Saideman, one of the authors of a friend of the court brief submitted by the Council of Parent Advocates and Attorneys and several other disability advocacy groups. They argue that a ruling in the district's favor would unfairly subject schoolchildren to a much higher legal bar than other people who need accommodations. To illustrate the difference, she cites a 2004 ADA case, Tennessee vs. Lane, brought by someone who had to crawl up the stairs to get into a Tennessee courthouse that didn't have an elevator. Under the 'gross misjudgment' standard, there wouldn't be a claim. 'The building was built before the ADA was passed, so it wasn't built with any discriminatory intent,' says Saideman. 'Under deliberate indifference, they know a person has a disability and there are other people who have disabilities who can't go up the stairs. If they don't fix it, then there could be a claim.' One of the ADA's original drafters, former Rep. Tony Coelho of California, also submitted a brief arguing that Congress' intent was that families of disabled children have 'the same rights, no more, no less, that are provided all other groups … including the right to seek relief under Section 504 [and] the ADA.' A decision is expected in June or July, near the end of the court's current term.
Yahoo
10-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Isolation & Neglect: Disability Advocates Fear Return to a Bleak Past Under HHS
Federal law has been clear for decades: The Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act — the landmark set of statutes that guarantee children with disabilities the right to attend public schools — is to be administered by the U.S. Department of Education. Indeed, the law that created the department says it controls IDEA funds and requires it to have an office dedicated to special education. Yet in their quest to close the department, President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon have said they plan to move special education administration to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and push as much overall responsibility for education as possible to the states. Related Backers of this shift advocate allowing states and districts to use the money as they see fit. 'Most IDEA funding should be converted into a no-strings formula block grant targeted at students with disabilities and distributed directly to local education agencies,' the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 recommends. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter One of the red state education leaders pushing to be freed of spending rules, Oklahoma state Superintendent Ryan Walters has even said he wants to use IDEA to fund vouchers for children with disabilities to attend private schools. Families who use vouchers for private school choice lose IDEA protections for their children. Like many of the new administration's edicts, critics say, much of what has been proposed is likely illegal. And yet, by gutting the agency responsible for enforcing special education laws, Trump and McMahon may get their way. 'Part of the really challenging moment we are in is on one hand reminding everybody of what's in the law and what should happen, and then recognizing that we're living in extrajudicial times where saying, 'Well it's in the law, so that can't happen' clearly isn't enough,' says Jennifer Coco, interim executive director of the Center for Learner Equity, which advocates for high-quality special education. 'There's been a pretty broad pronouncement that this administration is thinking about moving [special education] anyway.' Concerns about those plans fall into two broad areas. First, moving responsibility for students with disabilities to HHS means taking oversight away from experts in specialized instruction and handing it to an agency ill-equipped to administer non-medical programs. With its own mass firings under the direction of Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. — who continues to promote a disproven link between vaccines and autism — HHS will be hard-pressed to adequately attend to children's health, much less their education, say disability advocates. Second, advocates predict that states and districts, freed of oversight and rules about spending IDEA dollars, will consign increasing numbers of disabled students to segregated special education classrooms. This raises fears of a reversal of decades-long efforts to integrate students with disabilities with their general-education peers whenever possible and returning to the pre-IDEA norm of isolation and institutionalization. It could even mean 'making some determinations that we just don't think [some kids are] capable of learning,' says Coco. 'Even if the law says you can't do that, we have enough examples in our history where decisionmakers have a tendency to go back to that in a way that's really harmful to kids.' Related Currently, the Education Department oversees the distribution of about 10% of school funding nationwide. By law, most of that money goes to states to pay for specific services. Title I funds help offset the cost of educating children from low-income families, for example, while other grants pay for instruction for English learners and teacher training. It is unclear whether McMahon has the authority to deviate from requiring funds to be spent according to established guidelines. The legal guardrails on IDEA funds may be the toughest to skirt. If the secretary ultimately loosens the rules, advocates fear state and local officials will be quick to segregate many more special education students from their general-education peers. Before the department's creation in 1979, children with disabilities were the purview of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, says Weade James, senior director for K-12 education policy at the liberal Center for American Progress. They were typically denied the opportunity to learn in regular classrooms — and often could not attend school at all. No one monitored the quality of instruction. 'We've been down this road before,' says James. 'When you leave this up to the states, those things go unchecked. Reverting back to that reverts back to segregation.' Today, two-thirds of special education students spend 60% or more of their school day in classrooms with their non-disabled peers where, as the law intended, they are most likely to receive grade-level instruction. Keeping them in what IDEA terms this 'least restrictive environment' often requires parental advocacy and legal oversight. Congress has never funded special education anywhere near the level it promised when it passed IDEA, leaving states to come up with the lion's share of the money. Most school systems still have to divert general education dollars to make up shortfalls. Because of this — and despite federal requirements that they not reduce special education spending, except in narrow circumstances — states and districts are frequently on the lookout for ways to cut costs. Related One example: In 2016, a Houston Chronicle investigation found that Texas education officials had for years threatened to sanction districts that identified more than 8.5% of their students as having disabilities that merited an individualized education program, the legal document spelling out how their needs would be met. Nationwide, some 15% qualify for services. Advocates complained about the number of children — including students who are blind, deaf, hearing-impaired or medically fragile — going unserved. But until the Chronicle's investigation, the department failed to intervene. In recent weeks, the division that investigates complaints when students' rights are violated has been decimated by mass firings. Also stripped to bare-bones staffing were the parts of the agency dedicated to researching strategies for educating disabled students and training their teachers. This, too, is likely to fuel segregation because poorly equipped educators often resort to sending a challenged student out of general education. 'It is easier for the adults involved to remove children with disabilities when they can't or won't support those kids,' says Carrie Gillispie, senior policy analyst at the think tank New America. 'If the adults in the room don't have the resources they need, it's easier to remove the child.' Other endangered services include Medicaid reimbursement for in-school therapies and health care for children who are medically fragile or have chronic conditions; early childhood services that diagnose youngsters at ages when interventions are likely to have the most profound impact; and vocational programs to help older students become independent and enter the workforce. Unable to get local or state officials to enforce their kids' rights, and effectively shut out of the department's complaints process, affluent parents will increasingly turn to the courts, Gillispie predicts. 'But for the families with fewer means and less social capital, it's going to be especially hard,' she says. 'Every month is a big time period for kids. A little kid waiting a month or two for education, accessible education, can mean a big difference for really young kids.'
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
2 Texas Bills Tackle Long-Overdue Special Ed Reforms — & a $1.7B Funding Gap
Texas school leaders are hopeful that a pair of bills making their way through the state legislature could help to close an estimated $1.7 billion special education funding gap and better equip schools to handle a dramatic rise in the number of children with disabilities in need of services. The measures are intended to address several longstanding issues that have plagued the state's special education system. Since the 2015-16 school year, the number of students receiving services has increased by 67%, rising from 463,000 to 775,000. Funding has not increased proportionally, meaning schools must divert ever-increasing amounts of their overall budgets to make up the shortfall. Between the 2015-16 and 2023-24 school years, spending on special education increased from $5.6 billion to $9.1 billion. Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter Get stories like this delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for The 74 Newsletter In 2016, a Houston Chronicle investigation revealed that for years, the Texas Education Agency had improperly denied services to hundreds of thousands of children by imposing a cap on the number of special ed students districts could serve. Over the last decade, the rate at which Texas schools have identified children with disabilities has risen from 8.6% to about 14% — still slightly shy of the national average. Districts have scrambled to meet their legal obligation to identify students who started school over the last decade and should have been evaluated for services before the cap was eliminated. In 2015-16, Texas schools evaluated 80,000 children. In 2023-24, 180,000 were assessed. State education officials estimate each evaluation costs $1,000 to $5,000. Also adding to the increase: To better comply with the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, Texas now includes children with dyslexia in special education — adding to the number of students who need evaluations and individualized education programs, the legally mandated documents that spell out how their needs will be met. Related Among numerous changes to education funding, House Bill 2 would increase special education funding by $615 million annually starting in the next school year. Senate Bill 568 does not set a dollar amount, but the latest budget measure contains an allocation of $700 million for both 2025-26 and 2026-27. The Senate bill proposes significant — and long sought — reforms to the way special education is funded and the expenses for which districts can seek reimbursement. Currently, districts' special education funds are calculated based on the amount of time individual students spend in different settings, ranging from regular classrooms to specialized and segregated classes, hospitals and residential facilities. The proposed change — recommended by a state task force in 2022 — would allocate money according to the services each child needs. A number of states fund special education using weights or tiers that take into account the variation in services between students with multiple, profound challenges requiring full-time support and those whose needs can be met with simpler modifications to instruction, for example. Director of governmental relations for the Texas Council of Administrators of Special Education, Andrea Chevalier says her organization supports creating a tiered funding formula — which is based on weights adopted by Florida — but is concerned that the coming academic year is too soon for the new system to go into effect. Her organization would like the shift to be postponed for one year. 'Our state education agency is kind of building the plane as it flies,' she says. 'There are going to be a lot of changes to things like data collection. We're going to have to see how it goes.' This month, the council released a detailed report outlining the history of the state's shifting special education policies, the different revenue streams schools have depended on to pay for services and the rationale for moving to a tiered system. The measures would reimburse districts $250 to $1,000 for each initial evaluation but don't allot funds for periodic reassessments required by law, says Chevalier: 'At any given time, schools are re-evaluating a third of students, plus paying for independent evaluations for families who disagree with a district's evaluation.' The Senate bill contains a number of novel provisions intended to increase district accountability for special education students' outcomes. If adopted, school boards would have to publicly discuss the performance of children with disabilities at least once a year and to track student progress on college, career or military readiness. Related In 2003, Texas lawmakers slashed $1 billion from what was then a $30 billion overall education budget. The special ed cap was created the following year. Federal law says states and districts may only lower spending on special education in very narrow circumstances. State officials insisted fewer children needed disability services, but the U.S. Department of Education found Texas out of compliance in fiscal years 2012, 2017 and 2018, and levied fines each time. Lawmakers outlawed the enrollment caps in 2017 but did not send funds to schools to address the anticipated, corresponding increase in need. In the 2019 session, lawmakers approved a small increase in special education funding, much of it intended to cover the $277 million fine.
Boston Globe
15-03-2025
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Over 1000 demonstrators attend anti-Trump, Musk rally in Boston Common
Joshua Rand, 18, a student at UMass Amherst and member of the Sunrise Movement, a progressive climate activist organization, said nearly every executive order Trump has signed is unconstitutional to some degree. Advertisement 'I think he's engaged in a broad overreach of executive power, and there's basically nobody in the federal government who has either the influence or the care to actually stop that,' Rand said. The protest is part of a national effort to peacefully oppose President Trump, according to Rebecca Winter, a press representative for 50501 Massachusetts, a state chapter of a grassroots movement to stage anti-Trump protests in every US state. People listen to a speech at anti-Musk rally. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff While the rallies have not been as large as those from his first term eight years ago, protests against Trump have become a common occurrence nationwide. Rather than opposing one of the Trump administration's policies, most demonstrations oppose multiple initiatives he's put in place since taking office including So far this month, Many have taken aim at Musk, a senior adviser to the president and leader of the Advertisement Trump and Musk are trying to change what they say is a corrupt federal bureaucracy that benefits liberals and wastes money. 'We feel that the billionaires at the top are trying to take advantage of the American people and the policies that they're putting in place are destroying our social safety nets and also destroying our relationship with our allied countries all over the globe,' Winter said. Mary Bickerton from Medford dressed as The Statue of Liberty as she attended an anti-Trump and anti-Musk rally. John Tlumacki/Globe Staff Jessica Tang, the president of the American Federation of Teachers Massachusetts and one of the speakers at the rally, said in her speech that the Education Department's announcement on Tuesday of plans to lay off more than 1,300 people will put Massachusetts programs on the chopping block. Some of the services threatened by the layoffs are Title I-funded afterschool programs for low-income children and disability accommodations under the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, Tang said. 'What happens is that there's no oversight of how the funding is used,' she said. 'There's no guarantee that the money that is supposed to go to our lower income, our special education, our multiple-language learners, our most vulnerable students is actually going to them,' she said. Bryan Winter, a retired US Army sergeant and the 50501 veteran representative, said in his speech he was ashamed he did not recognize Trump's character sooner. 'It only took a minute of real attention for me to realize that the president of the United States was a spiritual traitor for the American idea and ideal,' he said. Winter condemned Advertisement 'He has literally ordered that we burn billions of dollars on the pyre of an un-American purity test to mollify a political base that wants spectacle and theater, not greatness and strength,' he said. Around 2 p.m., the emcee led the crowd in one last chant to end the rally. 'This is what democracy looks like,' attendees shouted. People lingered after the event to chat and lined up at the press table to sign themselves up for the organization's email list. The group said they are planning a large-scale protest in the coming weeks. Material from the Associated Press was used in this report. Talia Lissauer can be reached at
Yahoo
30-01-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Lewiston private school sues state, family over 'stay put' rule for disabled students
Jan. 30—A private special education school in Lewiston is suing Maine's education department, the Lewiston school district and a family after it was ordered to keep teaching a student who had injured staff. Spurwink, a Portland-based nonprofit that operates four special purpose private schools for students with developmental disabilities, filed a lawsuit last week in U.S. District Court in Portland alleging the defendants are misinterpreting a federal law that says students with disabilities have a right to stay in their school placement. According to the suit, a 19-year-old student referred to as "Tommy Doe" had several diagnoses, including non-verbal autism and a seizure disorder, which qualified him for special education services under the federal Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act, known as IDEA. Tommy attended Spurwink's Lewiston Day Treatment school from January 2023 to November 2024. During that time, the complaint alleges, he was frequently violent toward himself and would bite, hit and kick staff members. Spurwink says it started to discuss removing the student from the program in October 2024 because staff did not think they could safely care for him, and it accelerated that decision the following month after he bit three staff members, all three of whom needed emergency medical care. The parents requested a due process hearing with the state in November, saying schools have an obligation under IDEA to keep a student in their current placement while the family seeks out a new school. A state hearing officer agreed, writing that Spurwink Lewiston Day Treatment was not allowed to unilaterally discharge Tommy, and ordered that the decision be reversed immediately. But in its lawsuit, Spurwink argues that as a private school, it is not subject to the provisions under IDEA, and the state erroneously applied the law. "As this case illustrates, the untenable situation occurs when students need a more intensive level of supervision and treatment than the school can safely provide," Spurwink wrote in the lawsuit. FAMILY SHOCKED BY LAWSUIT The student's parents, who were not identified in the lawsuit and only agreed to speak to the Press Herald on the condition of anonymity, said they were surprised last week when they learned about the complaint. "That was shocking and problematic for us," his dad said. They said Spurwink was well aware of their son's behavioral issues when it took him in as a student two years ago. Tommy's parents said his behavior is characterized as low-frequency, high-intensity aggression, meaning most of the time he doesn't lash out, but when it does it can be severe. They know his aggression is sometimes dangerous, and said they've both had several injuries in the past. But they say that was laid out in detail in his Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, and in the contracts Spurwink signed when they took him on as a student. Tommy's mom said her son was diagnosed with autism at an early age and received in-home support until he was in sixth grade. That care allowed him to participate in normal family activities and thrive in school, she said. Then, a shortage of care workers led to Tommy sitting on waitlists for in-home care for more than seven years. "I'm a stay-at-home mom to three kids, and one of them has a lot of challenges, and I can only do so much," she said. "I cannot be focused on just one child to do the amount of work that you need to do to continue to maintain and improve skills. And the result of that is that the skills get lost." During that time, she said, his coping skills declined, his aggression and needs increased, and he didn't learn as much in school. When he switched to remote learning during the pandemic, many of those issues got even worse. Since then, Tommy's home situation has been unstable. He stayed in a hospital for almost a year, then was placed in a Spurwink residential facility in Chelsea. But that facility closed in May 2024 because of workforce and funding challenges, and his parents say they called 40 to 50 different residential programs before finding one in Lewiston. His mom said all of those changes were traumatic for Tommy, but he enjoyed his school. When Tommy moved into the facility in Lewiston, he enrolled in Lewiston Public Schools. The district worked with Spurwink's school as an out-of-district placement. In a November letter to the organization, the district disagreed with its decision to discharge Tommy. "Lewiston requests that you allow (Tommy) to return to Spurwink and implement his current IEP and that you comply with the IDEA's 'stay put' requirements, which apply with equal force to state-licensed special purpose private schools," Lewiston's Director of Special Education Kirsten Crafts wrote. "Lewiston is willing to work collaboratively with Spurwink to create, implement and adjust, as appropriate, strategies to keep (Tommy) and Spurwink staff safe while he is at school. If Spurwink will not return (Tommy) to school, then Lewiston will file a motion to join Spurwink in the pending due process hearing proceedings requested by parents and seek stay put through that process." The district's superintendent said Thursday that the administration was aware of the case but declined to comment. A spokesperson for the Maine Department of Education also declined to comment Tuesday. 'HE'S REGRESSING' The parents aren't arguing that the Spurwink school can't discharge their son, eventually — he's already being evaluated for placement in a new program. But they say IDEA and similar state guidance, allow Tommy to stay at his current placement until he has a new school to attend. Spurwink not only didn't honor that, but they also discharged Tommy without any consultation, which undermines the team-based IEP process. In the meantime, he isn't learning, they said. "If we got to the point through a normal IEP process where they said 'He needs a new placement and we can't support him anymore, but we'll allow him to stay put until that new placement is found,' we would have been very sad about it ... but we would have gone through that process and waited for his placement," Tommy's father said. "Now he's at home, he does pretty much nothing all day, he plays on the iPad, he gets very frustrated because there's a lack of structure, and he's regressing." Overall, they say Spurwink's staff have been wonderful to them and their son. The parents attribute most of the problems to statewide understaffing, which they said is a symptom of low pay for behavioral heath care workers. "They're paid slightly above minimum wage, and they're doing combat work," his dad said. But they're unsure why they, and their disabled son, have been named as parties in the case. Spurwink's Vice President of Legal Affairs Kristen Farnham said in an email Wednesday that the organization does not comment on pending litigation, but shared a statement. "Our highest priorities are the wellbeing of the people in our care and the safety of our staff," she wrote. "We adhere to our internal policies and all applicable laws and regulations when it comes to the services we provide and the people we serve." Copy the Story Link
