Will the Federal Government's Probe into DC Public School’s Special Education Programs Make a Difference?

In March 2026, the US Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) concluded a year-long investigation into the DC Public School System, and to no one’s surprise, the result wasn’t great. The findings mirror ongoing concerns brought up at length by DC residents.  

Teacher leading a discussion.

In a press release, the Department of Education (DOE) stated that the DCPS system violated both Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). According to Ed.gov, “Section 504 and Title II require public schools to provide appropriate education and modifications, aids and related services free of charge to students with disabilities and their parents or guardians. The “appropriate” component means that this education must be designed to meet the individual educational needs of the student as determined through appropriate evaluation and placement procedures. However, students with disabilities must be educated with students without disabilities to the maximum extent appropriate.”

The idea is that the school is responsible for tailoring the special education experience to the student in need by utilizing modifications, aids, and services as needed to ensure that each student has access to an appropriate education, or one mirroring that of a student who would not otherwise need these additional supports.  Many schools and educational organizations tend to refer to this as “FAPE in the LRE, or a “free and appropriate public education” in the “least restrictive environment”.

The least restrictive environment (LRE) component here is very important. While in many cases schools can provide very restrictive placements (e.g. home/hospital instruction, or self-contained classrooms), the overall goal is to prepare the student for life outside of school not just cognitively, but in a socio-emotional manner as well. In many cases, doing so means equipping a child with the minimal amount of support for them to succeed, ideally reducing those supports as they become more self-sufficient and develop effective supportive habits of their own.

Instead of providing that, the probe found that “D.C. Public Schools has extensively violated federal antidiscrimination law by failing to serve students with disabilities. Students and their families have been forced to demand accommodations the law entitles them through an adversarial system that, among other shortcomings, denies students timely evaluations, individualized placements, and reliable transportation that meets students’ needs. The District must take immediate action to remedy their violations and protect the rights of current and future students to a free and appropriate public education”, as said by Kimberly Richey, the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights.

While this is new information to the DOE, families have been forced to deal with these issues for quite some time. In fact, it isn’t unusual at all to be told that if you’re putting your child into a DC public school, that you should be prepared to sue. I was told this by at least half of the families of disabled children I encountered as I discussed preparing my own daughter with Down syndrome for her school years. And just getting a child into a school with the means to provide for them can be an uphill battle, as evidenced by Dawkins v. District of Columbia, a civil suit about alleged discrimination in the DC public school lottery process currently being litigated.

This is major, not just for families with students currently receiving specialized instruction, but the growing numbers of future beneficiaries of the program as well. A study from the Deputy Mayor for Education found that the number of students enrolled in special education services (56%) has outpaced general public school enrollment (20%) by more than double from the 2013/14 school year to the 24/25 school year. This means that the current state of DC’s public schools isn’t just problematic, it’s unsustainable; it's snowballing out of control.

 Note: Only students between the ages of 3 and 21 can qualify for special education status per federal requirements. Source: OSSE Audited Enrollment, SY2013-14 to SY2024-25

With that being the case, thank goodness, the DOE felt the need to intervene, right?

The jury is still out on that one.

The fact remains that the Trump Administration doesn’t appear to be very concerned with the needs of disabled people. From President Trump mocking disabled reporters to the concept of “autism camps” to misinformation surrounding the causes of autism, it makes sense for parents to be skeptical about its involvement in this issue.  After all, the DOE took this case on of their own volition. No one requested that they get involved, and with the pattern we’ve seen regarding DC’s home rule and the federal government’s consistent move to overstep; this could yield troubling results.

The release also stated that “The District” “allows untrained staff members to make decisions about the educational needs of students with disabilities and permits education services to be removed from a students’ plan if the school social worker runs out of time or if a student seems unmotivated to participate.”  They went further to acknowledge the Office of the State Superintendent of Education’s (OSSE) transportation woes purporting that “the District has no way to ensure students with disabilities have adequate transportation to and from school, presenting serious safety concerns for these students.” 

These are all incredibly serious systemic problems that seem to plague the school system, but what does the solution look like?

The Office of Civil Rights has issued a resolution agreement in an attempt to remedy the situation. And while neither the resolution agreement, nor timeline for action has been made available to the public, the press release does cite the following action items: 

·       The District will establish a Disability Services Division to oversee the District’s provision of services to students with disabilities;   

·       The District will revise its policies related to students with disabilities, including those related to the identification, evaluation, and placement of students with disabilities;   

·       The Disability Services Division will provide annual training to District level staff, school transportation staff, Special Education Coordinators, and other school level administrators on the District’s revised procedures for serving students with disabilities; and,   

·       The Disability Services Division will develop a process to properly manage transportation requests, bus delays and cancellations, and safety incidents for students with disabilities.   

The release states that if OCR cannot reach an agreement with “the District”, the Department of Education may initiate enforcement action, or force compliance. 

Of course I have hopes that this investigation will lead to a real beneficial change in DC’s public school system, but it’s incredibly hard to lean too much in that hope when the press release doesn’t  even name the correct agencies involved.

DC public education system hierarchy

The release cites transportation issues, but that isn’t handled by DC Public Schools, it’s under OSSE and affects both DC public and charter schools.  Complaints around timely evaluations and individualized placement occur in both public and charter schools as well and would fall under DCPS or the Charter School Board respectively.

The release doesn’t mention the lack of transparency regarding diploma and certificate learning tracks or self-contained classroom types and how eligibility is determined for them. Nor does it touch the fact that there don’t appear to be guidelines on classroom size or mention the number of students counseled out of public and charter schools into non-public placements, mostly located outside of the district, rather than addressing the systemic issues. It doesn’t mention that should a parent find themselves with an issue on how their child’s education is being addressed, there is no recourse at the state level. You either solve it with the LEA (DCPS, Kipp Schools, etc.) or you find another solution elsewhere.

I hope that in the end this comes out favorably for families and their disabled students, but as much as I’d like to be proven wrong, I don’t see that occurring.

There is no real transparency regarding this situation. The full report of the findings hasn’t been released to the public for us to even know what we can expect to change and it isn’t clear if the DOE is working with the right agency to address the issues. The school system in DC has a lot of ground to cover to fix what’s broken, and I’m not sure how we can get back on the right track.