Silencing Parents over Special Ed

The proposal is officially known as “Proposed Amendment of Section 200.5 of the Regulations of the Commissioner of Education Relating to Special Education Due Process Hearings.”

Parents often face resistance from school districts over the services their children need — even when the services are documented as needed in a child’s Individualized Education Services Plan (IESP). New York state law allows parents to pay for private services and be reimbursed if the local school district cannot provide them, which is often the case. The final determinations are made by impartial officers at official hearings. The amendment would do away with the hearings, and it is this aspect of due process that is now under threat.

More often than not, parents have emerged victorious at these impartial hearings. As a practical matter, most students receiving special education services in New York have obtained their funding as a result of these hearings. It is precisely this due process, the impartial hearing enforcing implementation, that is threatened by the proposed new amendment to state education regulations.

This proposal would adversely impact all nonpublic school parents, and askanim are working with Catholic advocates and others in the nonpublic school community to combat it. There are whisperings, however, that rather than being a cost-saving measure, the amendment is actually fallout from last year’s New York Times articles, which, among other canards, accused yeshivah parents of taking more than their fair share of services.