June 2026:

The MLO Minute: “How Will the Current Dismantling of USDOE Affect Special Education?” 

By Dennis McAndrews, Esq., Founder and Managing Partner Emeritus, and Heather Hulse, J.D., M.S., M.A., Senior Partner Scranton Office/Lead Attorney for Western PA — 

This week, United States Department of Education transferred supervisory functions over special education and investigations of violations of the rights of children with disabilities to the Departments of Human Services and Justice, respectively. This astonishing development, which removes from the Education Department with 50 years of expertise in these matters, has been met with anguish and even outrage by parents of children with disabilities and groups which advocate on their behalf. For example,

“Students with disabilities don’t experience school in agency silos,” said Katy Neas, CEO of The Arc of the United States and former Deputy Assistant Secretary and Acting Assistant Secretary in the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services at the U.S. Department of Education. “A student who is denied services, disciplined for disability-related needs, or blocked from an accessible classroom needs one federal education system that can see the whole picture and act. Moving special education to HHS and civil rights enforcement to DOJ would split apart the offices responsible for making disability rights real in schools, leaving families chasing answers across the federal government instead of getting accountability from one education agency.”

This development places oversight of special education programs under the domain of HHS secretary Robert F Kennedy, Jr., who has never been educated in a public school and has only attended exclusive private school programs. The oversight of the civil rights of children with disabilities is now in the Justice Department currently headed by Acting Secretary Todd Blanche, whose primary education is not stated in his official biography or in publicly accessible sources. His secondary school education was at a military high school in New Mexico. These developments were announced by Linda McMahon, the Secretary of Education, who has no prior experience in the field of special education, previously gutted her Department‘s Office of Civil Rights by closing offices and firing employees (until a court ordered them reinstated) and who’s prior work experience was as the President of the World Wrestling Federation.

The “moral of the story“ for families of children with disabilities is that they must remain highly vigilant and informed about their children’s educational program, placement, identification, and services. The rates of open investigations and resolutions of special education cases by the Office of Civil Rights has been few and far between under Secretary McMahon, and this development cannot be expected to increase those rates under an uninformed new bureaucracy.

At this time, our firm’s work in this field is more important than ever. As we have long stated, our consultations with families are at no cost, and most cases are handled without a retainer or payment of hourly fees for our work. We are here to assist families in these challenging times, and to help ensure that students with disabilities receive the appropriate educational programming and services they need.