August 2022 – 

The MLO Minute: “Teacher Shortages and Compensatory Education for Children with Disabilities”

By Dennis McAndrews, Esq., Founder of MLO

The upcoming school year presents extraordinary challenges to school districts and charter schools in terms of staffing classrooms and related services. Just weeks before the beginning of the school year many school districts and charter schools report that some classrooms are currently without assigned staff and that despite their best efforts, significant concerns exist that qualified teachers cannot be found. A variety of reasons exist for this serious and escalating problem, including school safety/gun violence issues, challenges related to Covid, an aging workforce, inadequate numbers of education majors in postsecondary programs, retirements, and attrition of staff moving to alternative professions.

For children with disabilities, the failure to provide properly certified instruction not only robs those children of the appropriate education to which they are entitled, but also to regression, emotional issues, and behavioral challenges. Where uncertified staff are assigned to manage classes of special education students, and/or the children’s IEP services are not provided, the students have a clear right to compensatory education to provide the services to which they are entitled under federal and state law. As a result, the upcoming school year will require parents to be particularly vigilant in understanding the services that are actually being provided to their children and in advocating for them where necessary.

Dennis McAndrews was recently interviewed by Rosemary Connors of NBC Channel 10 in Philadelphia concerning this mounting issue. Click here to view the full interview. Teacher shortages are just one of the special education issues that we will address in the weeks and months ahead. In special education matters, our firm provides free initial consults, and most special education cases are handled without cost to parents. Please visit our website for more information on critical special education issues.