Politics
Education Department staff cuts could limit options for families of kids with disabilities
For parents of kids with disabilities, advocating for their child can be complicated, time-consuming — and expensive.
Changes at the Education Department are likely to make the process even more difficult, advocates for kids with disabilities say.
When a parent believes their child is not receiving proper services or school accommodations for a disability, they can seek remedies from their district. They can file complaints with their state, arguing the child’s rights have been taken away without due process of law, or even pursue litigation in state or federal courts.
Those processes often involve multiple sessions with hearing officers who are not required to be experts in disability law. Legal fees can cost tens of thousands of dollars for a single case. Legal aid and other advocacy organizations that can provide free assistance often have more demand for their services than they can meet.
But filing a complaint with the Education Department has long been an option for families who can’t afford a lawyer. They begin by filling out the Office for Civil Rights’ online form, documenting the alleged instances of discrimination. From there, the agency’s staff is supposed to investigate the complaint, often interviewing school district employees and examining district policies for broader possible violations.
“It’s known and has the weight of the federal government behind it,” said Dan Stewart, managing attorney for education and employment at the National Disability Rights Network. “The process, the complaint portal, as well as the processing manual are all in public, and it does not require or typically involve lawyers.”
That option seems increasingly out of reach, advocates say.
Under President Donald Trump, the Education Department’s staff has been cut approximately in half — including in the Office for Civil Rights, whose attorneys are charged with investigating complaints of discrimination against kids with disabilities. The staff has been directed to prioritize antisemitism cases. More than 20,000 pending cases — including those related to kids with disabilities, historically the largest share of the office’s work — largely sat idle for weeks after Trump took office. A freeze on processing the cases was lifted early this month, but advocates question whether the department can make progress on them with a smaller staff.
“The reduction in force is simply an evisceration of the Office for Civil Rights’ investigatory authority and responsibility,” Stewart said. “There’s no way that I can see that OCR can keep up with the backlog or with the incoming complaints.”
A federal lawsuit filed Friday challenges the layoffs at the Office for Civil Rights, saying they decimated the office’s ability to process and investigate complaints.
While the OCR process was not perfect, reducing the office’s investigative staff will only worsen the challenges families face when seeking support for their kids, said Nikki Carter, an advocate for kids with disabilities and one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit.
“It makes them feel hopeless and helpless,” Carter said. “By reducing the number of employees to handle cases, by putting stipulations on certain cases, it only makes it feel intensified.”
Education Department officials insist the staff reductions will not affect civil rights investigations and the layoffs were “strategic decisions.”
In her state of Alabama, Carter said families face an uphill battle to finding legal representation.
“They don’t have the money for an attorney,” she said. “Or the representation they’re getting is not the representation they feel like will be best for their child.”
Even if families can afford the high costs, a limited number of attorneys have the expertise to take on disability discrimination cases. Programs that offer free representation often have limited capacity.
If the backlog of cases increases at the federal Office for Civil Rights, families may lose faith in how quickly the department will investigate their complaints, Stewart said. That may drive them to alternate pathways, such as filing state complaints.
But state and local agencies haven’t always had the capacity or understanding to handle education disability complaints, Stewart said, since those cases so often went to the U.S. Education Department.
“They might not have the infrastructure or the knowledge or the staffing to take on the influx of cases,” Stewart said.
In a separate federal lawsuit filed Thursday, Democratic attorneys general argued the staff reductions at the Education Department may embolden school districts to ignore complaints of discrimination or harassment.
“Students with current complaints will likely see no meaningful resolution, with cases backlogged due to the shortage of employees to resolve them,” the lawsuit said. “Students facing discrimination, sexual harassment or sexual assault will lose a critical avenue to report their case.”
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The Players Championship PGA tournament moved up tee times in hopes of completing play before the storm hits Ponte Vedra Beach.
As a powerful late Winter cold front marches toward the Eastern Seaboard, tornado watches have been issued for North Florida into South Georgia.
Florida’s Panhandle into Tallahassee and the Big Bend areas already were pounded by thunderstorms and high winds Saturday night into Sunday morning. Northeast Florida and South Georgia were bracing for the storm.
The National Weather Service (NWS) station at Jacksonville International Airport was issuing watches and warnings Sunday morning. The tornado watch is in effect for North Florida until 3 p.m. Sunday.
Scattered thunderstorms are expected through Sunday evening and wind gusts could clime to 50 to 70 mph, according to NWS statements.
The threatening weather caused PGA officials to move up tee times Sunday morning to begin at 8 a.m. in hopes of getting the final round of The Players Championship golf tournament completed before the heavy weather hits Ponte Vedra Beach at the expected 2 p.m. hour.
The powerful cold front is the same system that has already hammered several areas of the United States.
Violent tornadoes and high winds decimated homes, wiped out schools and toppled semitractor-trailers as the monster storm that also produced dust storms and icy conditions killed at least 33 people across the central and southern U.S.
Missouri resident Dakota Henderson said he and others rescuing trapped neighbors found five bodies scattered in the debris Friday night outside what remained of his aunt’s house in hard-hit Wayne County. Scattered twisters killed at least a dozen people in the state, authorities said.
“It was a very rough deal last night,” Henderson said Saturday not far from the splintered home from which he said they rescued his aunt through a window of the only room left standing. “It’s really disturbing for what happened to the people, the casualties last night.”
The dynamic storm, earning an unusual “high risk” designation from weather forecasters, was blamed for deadly dust storms in the nation’s midsection, icy winter weather in northern parts of the country and severe thunderstorms on Sunday, including on the West Coast.
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Material from the Associated Press was used in this report.
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Florida’s urban and rural highway systems are fairly decent compared to the rest of the county, but their conditions fell a bit in the past year, at least that’s the finding in a new study.
The Sunshine State’s interstate roadways are not quite at the top, but they’re in the top 20, according to the Reason Foundation’s “Annual Highway Report.” The analysis found Florida was 14th in the country when it comes to safe interstate conditions. However, the study found that’s a six-spot decline for Florida, which was ranked eighth overall in the previous report.
The Reason Foundation 28th annual report examines the urban and rural pavement conditions, rural pavement, deficient bridges, traffic congestion, and spending on roads and bridges in all 50 states.
In terms of safety, the analysis found Florida still ranks highly for general safety of its roadways.
“In safety and condition categories, Florida’s highways rank ninth in urban interstate pavement condition, fourth in rural interstate pavement condition, fifth in urban arterial pavement condition, fifth in rural arterial pavement condition, 10th in structurally deficient bridges, 48th in urban fatality rate, and 38th in rural fatality rate,” the study concluded.
However, Florida faulters when it comes to funding for interstate projects.
“In spending and cost-effectiveness, Florida ranks 40th in capital and bridge disbursements, which are the costs of building new roads and bridges and widening existing ones. Florida ranks 25th in maintenance spending, such as the costs of repaving roads and filling in potholes. Florida’s administrative disbursements, including office spending that doesn’t make its way to roads, ranks 23rd nationwide,” researchers said.
Florida improved the most in its rural fatality rate which increased from 45th to 38th and administrative financial disbursements, going from 28th to 23th.
Florida got worse in congestion with the urban traffic backup ranking going from 18th to 39th in the country. The urban fatality ranking is still pretty low as Florida ranks 48th in the nation.
The Carolinas apparently have the knack for handling highways. North Carolina was ranked first in the country for interstate wellbeing followed in second by South Carolina. North Dakota was ranked third followed by Virginia in fourth and Tennessee in fifth.
Alaska ranked 50th in the country for road safety and spending with California in 49th which was preceded by Hawaii, Washington, Louisiana and New York respectively.
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