On Friday, October 10, the Trump administration fired almost all employees at the US Department of Education’s (ED’s) Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS). A federal judge later temporarily blocked the firings, ruling that the administration couldn’t conduct mass layoffs during a government shutdown.

Required under federal law, OSERS ensures states provide a “free and appropriate public education” to the more than 7.5 million prekindergarten–grade 12 students with disabilities in the US. As part of this work, the office distributes billions of federal dollars to help states provide special education services from early childhood through postsecondary education. OSERS also funds and provides support services for young children with disabilities, including children who were born prematurely or exposed to toxic substances in utero. 

Without the office’s oversight, former staff, state leaders, and advocates worry states could fall out of compliance with federal disability rights laws and deny disabled students the services they’re entitled to. 

This threat to OSERS comes as disabled children and their families face not only cuts to other critical programs they rely on, such as Medicaid, but also increased scrutiny and threats to their data privacy. It’s also part of a larger wave of cuts to staff at other agencies that help administer early childhood programs that serve children with disabilities, such as the Office of Head Start and Office of Child Care. 

To protect disabled children’s right to public education and special education services, state and local lawmakers can work with nonprofit service providers to ensure local school districts and family services departments have the capacity to address families’ needs and concerns. This requires not only funding at the state and local levels but also updating monitoring systems so districts can continue to track key data on disabled students.

Despite federal legal protections, disabled students continue to face threats to their civil rights

Disabled people have only recently won the right to learn, work, and live in their communities. Even still, they continue to face barriers to accessing the basic services and supports they need not just to thrive but also survive.

Before federal law recognized disability civil rights, disabled people were often excluded from society and considered unable to make decisions about their own lives. Disabled children were often denied access to public schools. Those who did attend school were segregated into separate facilities that rarely provided students with disabilities the same opportunities as their nondisabled peers.

That all changed in 1977 with the implementation of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which granted disabled children the right to equal education. Disabled students’ rights were expanded again in 1990 under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which guaranteed their right to access a “free and appropriate public education.”

Despite these laws, disabled people continue to experience barriers accessing the housing, health care, employment, and educational supports they need to thrive. As such, oversight and accountability remain critical to delivering on the promise of equal rights for disabled children and adults.

What OSERS does and why it matters

OSERS ensures states, localities, and school districts uphold disabled students’ right to a public, K–12 education through two of its primary functions: administering federal IDEA funds to states and monitoring states’ compliance with IDEA. 

Last year, the office distributed more than $15 billion in IDEA funding to help states cover the cost of special education services, such as speech therapy or assistive technology. According to one estimate, federal revenue makes up to 12 percent of school district spending on special education. 

Part of IDEA funding includes $540 million for early intervention for children from birth to age 3. These programs provide services, such as speech therapy and physical therapy, to children with developmental delays and disabilities to help set them up for success in school. In 2023, early intervention programs served 4 percent of infants and toddlers nationally. 

If nearly all OSERS staff are eliminated, it’s unclear how or whether IDEA funds will be distributed to states. 

Former staff, state leaders, and advocates also worry states could fall out of compliance with federal disability rights laws without OSERS’ oversight. Under IDEA, states are required to submit to OSERS an annual plan on how they’ll use the funds. Additionally, they must report student data, including the number of kids receiving services and whether local education agencies are providing services in the least restrictive environment. 

If OSERS analyzes these data and believes a state is out of compliance with IDEA, they can conduct an investigation. This mechanism is key to ensuring disabled students—more than 15 percent of all public school students ages 3–21—receive the free and appropriate education to which they’re entitled.

The disruption to OSERS could include a loss of funding for training and technical assistance, such as Parent Training and Information Centers, which currently provide support to state and local education agencies, educators, programs, and families focused on implementing IDEA. 

Beyond its administrative and oversight function, OSERS receives calls directly from parents who are concerned their child’s school may not be providing the services they’re entitled to under federal law. However, staffing cuts at ED’s civil rights division will likely leave families with little to no support. When a family believes their child is not receiving the services they’re entitled to, the family’s only recourse would be legal action. This situation could disproportionately disadvantage families without the means to hire private attorneys.

How state and local leaders, advocates, and nonprofits can support families with disabled children

If the reduction in force at OSERS is allowed to proceed, state policymakers could help fill the gap in resources for families using the following strategies:

• Increase their state’s capacity to field calls and assist families in understanding their rights.
• Partner with local advocacy organizations to help spread the word on where and how parents can get assistance.
• Strengthen their commitment to disability civil rights by creating or expanding dedicated funding streams for special education services. In the absence of federal oversight, this could help ensure school districts have the resources to provide students with the services they need to thrive.
• Create a consortium with other states to unite efforts to keep states accountable to IDEA.
• Continue to monitor school districts’ compliance with federal law by collecting critical data on disabled students, such as graduation rates and school discipline rates. Policymakers can work with state education departments to fund, collect, and analyze these data.
• Partner with nonprofit and advocacy organizations to identify gaps in services families and students with disabilities may face without federal resources. 

Still, nonprofits may need to expand resources in areas schools are unable to address. At the local level, advocates and parents can form special education PTAs and work with their school boards to prioritize funding for services for disabled students.

Though local policymakers, advocates, and nonprofits can step up to help mitigate the harms resulting from staffing reductions at OSERS, disabled students will likely still bear the brunt of temporary or long-term disruptions at the office.