As the school year comes to a close, many families are looking forward to summer vacation. For some students with disabilities, however, a long break from structured instruction can result in the loss of hard-earned skills. Extended School Year, commonly known as ESY, was created to address that concern by providing specialized education and related services beyond the traditional school calendar.

ESY services are designed to help eligible students maintain progress toward their Individualized Education Program goals and prevent significant regression during extended breaks. While many parents have heard of ESY, confusion remains about who qualifies, how eligibility is determined and what families can do to support progress throughout the year.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires school…

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Across the United States, school districts are struggling to fill special education teaching positions. From rural communities to major metropolitan areas, vacancies remain open for months, classrooms are staffed by substitutes or uncertified personnel, and students with disabilities are increasingly bearing the consequences of a workforce crisis that has been years in the making. While policymakers often focus on recruitment campaigns and emergency certification programs, many educators say the root problem is far simpler: becoming a special education teacher is expensive, demanding and emotionally taxing, while the compensation often fails to reflect those realities.

For many aspiring special education teachers, the path begins with a bachelor’s degree in education or a …

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For decades, the Individualized Education Program, or IEP, was intended to serve as the roadmap for how children with disabilities would receive support inside America’s public schools. Built under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the process was designed to give families a voice in shaping everything from classroom accommodations to speech therapy, behavioral support and transition planning. But for many parents today, the process feels less like collaboration and more like a negotiation they are expected to navigate without a manual.

Across the country, more families are turning to independent IEP advocates — professionals hired to attend meetings, review documents, interpret educational law and help parents push for services they believe their child needs. In some communities, advocates have become near…

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For decades, special education in the United States has operated under a framework built for a different era—one where diagnoses were narrower, expectations were lower, and the goal was often access, not outcome. Today, that system is being asked to do something fundamentally different: support a rapidly growing and increasingly complex population of students with disabilities while preparing them for independence, employment, and full participation in society. The question facing families, educators, and policymakers is no longer whether the system is strained. It’s whether it can be fixed at all.

At the center of the issue is the law that defines special education: Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). Passed in 1975 and last significantly reauthorized in 2004, IDEA established the right to a “free appropriate public education” in the “least restrictive environment.” At the time, it was transformative. …

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https://open.substack.com/.../when-services-fail-georgias...

In Georgia, a quiet escalation is underway. One that is increasingly playing out not in classrooms, but in courtrooms.

Due process hearing requests tied to special education have climbed sharply in recent years, with state-level reporting indicating a significant increase over a five-year period and dozens of filings already recorded in the opening months of 2026. While exact figures can vary depending on how cases are tracked and reported, the direction of the trend is clear: more families are turning to legal action to secure services they say their children are entitled to but are not receiving.

This is not a story about one state. It is a story about pressure building across a system that is struggling to keep up.

At the center of these disputes are Individualized Education Programs, or IEPs, legally binding documents that outline the supports a child must receive. These can include speech therapy, occupational therapy (OT), physical therapy (PT), and behavioral services such as Appl…

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In early 2026, a quiet vote by the Manhasset Board of Education to approve a legal settlement drew little public attention, and even less public detail. The case, first reported by Long Island Press, involved a dispute between parents and the district, but like many school-related settlements across Long Island, the specifics were largely shielded from view. No follow-up disclosures. No public explanation of what changed. No clear accounting of cost, responsibility, or corrective action. It’s a familiar pattern in districts across Long Island, where legal resolutions—particularly those involving special education—are often handled behind closed doors, discussed in executive session, and finalized with confidentiality clauses that leave families and communities in the dark.

Across New York, and particularly on Long Island, these disputes are far from rare. According to the New York State Education Department, thousands of special education complaints, mediation requests, and due process…

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Across the United States, a quiet but significant shift is underway in how families, particularly those raising children with autism, are approaching education. Homeschooling, once considered a fringe alternative, has rapidly expanded into a mainstream option. As of 2024, approximately 3.7 million children in the U.S. are being homeschooled, representing nearly 6.7% of all school-age children, a sharp increase from roughly 2.5 million in 2019. This growth has been fueled in part by the pandemic, but the trend has not reversed. Instead, it has evolved—especially among families navigating special needs.

Within that broader movement, children with disabilities—and particularly autism—are disproportionately represented. Research suggests that about 1 in 10 children with autism in the United States are homeschooled, and as many as 25% to 38% of homeschooling families include a child with special needs. More telling, however, is not just how many families are homeschooling, but why. Studies …

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