Education Department layoffs cause concern
Offices that help students with disabilities nearly empty now, union says
By: Zachary Schemele
USA Today
WASHINGTON - Families and educators across the country were plunged into a state of uncertainly after the Department of Education laid off practically every staffer in the government's special education division.
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Nearly the entire Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, including the Office of Special Education Programs, was let go, according to agency workers and their union.
..... Employees in the Education Department 's Office for Civil Rights, many of whom work to protect students with disabilities from discrimination, were also laid off, the union said.
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The cuts, which have been challenged in court, come as part of an effort by the Trump administration to pressure congressional Democrats to end the ongoing government shut down.
..... Agency spokespeople, many of them furloughed due to the shutdown, did not respond to requests for comment.
..... The layoffs created widespread trepidation over the future of federal oversight of special education programs, as well as the billions of dollars in funding tat states and schools are entitled to receive. In recent days, advocates stressed the multiple l;ayers of supervision of that money are needed to ensure that students with disabilities can access that resources necessary to learn safely and effectively.
..... For decades, the offices with those responsibilities employed robust teams. They were largely spared from the first round of major Education Department cut in March. [2025]
..... Now "you can count them on one had," said Denise Marshall, CEO of the council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates, a national advocacy group for students with disabilities.
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To be clear, no federal civil rights laws have changed. Students with disabilities are still legally entitled to a "free appropriate public education," a standard cerated by the 1975 Individual with disabilities Education Act. though the law, Congress is required to pick up the costs for a portion of the average pr-pupil cost of special education, spending billions of dollars each year.
..... Education Secretary Linda McMahon has repeatedly voiced support for IDEA. "I would like to see even more funding go to the states for that," she told CNN in March. [2025]
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The difference after the recent firings is that the people and systems in charge of doing those things have been untended.
..... "IDEA still exists," Lisa Lightner, a special education advocate and lobbyist, wrote in a October 12 blog post. "But the people who used to help enforce it? Most (if not all, waiting for final count) of them were just laid off. That means fewer eyes watching the states. Less technical assistance. Fe weer resources."
..... "The law didn't go anywhere," she said."But our backup did."
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Parents need to take notice, said Katy Neas, a former high-ranking official in the Education Department's special education division.
..... "The whole reason we have a federal special education law is because states wouldn't uneducated students with disabilities," she told USA Today. "This is a time when parents have to really saddle u0p and be ready to be the most aggressive advocates for their child that they've ever been."
..... Parents of students with disabilities - of which there are millions in the United States -are often familiar with a couple of key terms.
..... An Individualize Education Program or IEP is one of them. The other is a Section 504 plan. 6they are similar types of blueprints that, at no cost to parents, ensure students with disabilities in K-12 schools get the resources and accommodations they need.
..... The 504 plans and IEP's aren't going away. While they're mandated by federal laws, they're implemented at the local level.
..... The problem is that not every school follows the law correctly. Sometimes that's because educators don't understand what special education laws require of them.
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Take one example: In Wyoming, when a school was delaying an IEP meeting for a kindergarten who sued a wheelchair, the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights stepped in. Without the agency's intervention, that student wouldn't have gone to school, said Catherine Lhamon, who helmed the division for many years.
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"Historically, over decades, families have been able to come to the federal government and get relief without hiring an attorney," she told USA Today. "These cuts ensure that no family can rely on that."
..... Still, families should continue to file civil rights complaints with the Education Department if they believe their child is being discriminated against, advocates said. States also have education agencies with avenues to report alleged civil rights violations.
..... Then there's money, a huge part of special education - specifically, the federal funding streams crated by IDEA. Because of the law, billions of dollars flow each year from the federal government to states, which distribute the money to local school districts. Those dollars pay for all sorts of things, including support for staff salaries, special equipment and student medical services.
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The most recent batch of IDEA funding went to states before the recent layoffs, according to the National Association of State directors of Special Education.
..... "The money for this coming year [2026] should be available," said Audrey Levorse, the association's senior director of government relations. But, she cautioned, "Sometimes glitches happen, sometimes there are questions, and you need someone on the Educationist Department's end to intervene."
..... Both the people who originally disbursed the money and those who would traditionally help troubleshoot problems for states and school districts appear to be gone, she said.
..... It's not clear whether states are immediately prepared to deal with what comes next or what the Education Department's broad plan is going forward.