Education

Lawsuit claims New York City children with special education needs should have been evaluated sooner

Three public school families suing the Department of Education argue that its failure to provide timely special education evaluations to students with disabilities has hampered their education.

Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan

Tweed Courthouse in Manhattan Leonid Andronov/Getty Images

Several New York City families filed a lawsuit against schools Chancellor David Banks and the Department of Education on Monday, accusing leaders of depriving thousands of students from receiving special education services by failing to evaluate children with disabilities in a timely manner. 

The three families, who are represented by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP and the legal services advocacy group Mobilization for Justice, allege that the “unacceptably long delays” have exacerbated impacted students’ underlying disabilities and hampered their learning progression since at least 2018, according to the complaint.

School officials are legally required to refer students for special education evaluations if a parent requests one or if an educator believes that a child’s academic problems may be linked to a disability. These evaluations, which are generally completed by a school-based support team or an independent contractor that the DOE pays for, are critical to determining a special education student’s individualized education program, or IEP. Once a parent gives their consent, the DOE is legally required to evaluate the student within 60 days – something the families say the department failed to do. One of the students cited in the lawsuit allegedly didn’t receive an evaluation for over seven months. The lawsuit also contends that the DOE has delayed responding to families who request that an independent contractor evaluate their student instead of a school-based support team. 

“The number of due process complaints have increased, there’s been budgetary issues, but also more fundamentally, I think this is a population that’s been overlooked for a very long time,” said Andrew Gerst, Mobilization for Justice staff attorney. “A lot of the families we’ve worked with are really overwhelmed by the whole special education process. They are overwhelmed by the DOE bureaucracy.”

The lawsuit also alleges that the DOE has failed to pay independent contractors in a timely manner, which has shrunk the pool of evaluators who are willing to work with the DOE. 

Advocates and families have long accused the DOE of being slow to evaluate students for special education services, delaying some students from starting services and thus impacting their educational growth. A 2019 audit from the state comptroller’s office found that 29% of the students referred for an evaluation during the 2016-17 school year didn’t receive it on time. That number was around 30% during the 2018-19 school year for initial evaluations, according to a DOE report.

The DOE has taken some steps to speed up how they do evaluations. According to a DOE spokesperson, New York schools have increased the number of school psychologists from 988 to 1,138 since 2018. Most recently, leaders added an additional 10 school psychologists to schools and 10 others to be deployed to areas as needed. The number of psychologists in training has also grown. In addition to opening after school evaluation sites, every borough also has 1-2 assessment sites running from December 2022 to June 2023. 

“It is our goal to provide quality options for students with disabilities in every school district,” Nicole Brownstein, DOE director of media relations, said in a statement. “We are proud to have expanded several special education programs with a strong track record of success over the course of this school year, and we are continuing to evaluate our processes to ensure a more seamless experience for our families.”

Still, the delays have persisted – particularly among bilingual students. Around 64% of the city’s bilingual special education students didn’t receive all of their mandated program services last school year, according to the education department’s latest special education report.

Low-income families of color seeking an evaluation for their special education child have also borne the brunt of the burden as independent contractors have become more reluctant to work with the DOE because of the delayed payments, according to the lawsuit.

“We didn’t want to have to file this lawsuit, but here we are. We really just want the best for these families. We want them to get these services. This is an issue of racial justice – almost all of our clients are Black and Latinx and these are the families we’re seeing that are struggling to get these evaluations,” Gerst said. “It’s particularly upsetting when we know there are many wealthy families in the city that are able to pay out of pocket, so they’re the ones who are able to get the evaluations first.”

Mobilization for Justice and Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

X
This website uses cookies to enhance user experience and to analyze performance and traffic on our website. We also share information about your use of our site with our social media, advertising and analytics partners. Learn More / Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Accept Cookies
X
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Do Not Sell My Personal Information

When you visit our website, we store cookies on your browser to collect information. The information collected might relate to you, your preferences or your device, and is mostly used to make the site work as you expect it to and to provide a more personalized web experience. However, you can choose not to allow certain types of cookies, which may impact your experience of the site and the services we are able to offer. Click on the different category headings to find out more and change our default settings according to your preference. You cannot opt-out of our First Party Strictly Necessary Cookies as they are deployed in order to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting the cookie banner and remembering your settings, to log into your account, to redirect you when you log out, etc.). For more information about the First and Third Party Cookies used please follow this link.

Allow All Cookies

Manage Consent Preferences

Strictly Necessary Cookies - Always Active

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data, Targeting & Social Media Cookies

Under the California Consumer Privacy Act, you have the right to opt-out of the sale of your personal information to third parties. These cookies collect information for analytics and to personalize your experience with targeted ads. You may exercise your right to opt out of the sale of personal information by using this toggle switch. If you opt out we will not be able to offer you personalised ads and will not hand over your personal information to any third parties. Additionally, you may contact our legal department for further clarification about your rights as a California consumer by using this Exercise My Rights link

If you have enabled privacy controls on your browser (such as a plugin), we have to take that as a valid request to opt-out. Therefore we would not be able to track your activity through the web. This may affect our ability to personalize ads according to your preferences.

Targeting cookies may be set through our site by our advertising partners. They may be used by those companies to build a profile of your interests and show you relevant adverts on other sites. They do not store directly personal information, but are based on uniquely identifying your browser and internet device. If you do not allow these cookies, you will experience less targeted advertising.

Social media cookies are set by a range of social media services that we have added to the site to enable you to share our content with your friends and networks. They are capable of tracking your browser across other sites and building up a profile of your interests. This may impact the content and messages you see on other websites you visit. If you do not allow these cookies you may not be able to use or see these sharing tools.

If you want to opt out of all of our lead reports and lists, please submit a privacy request at our Do Not Sell page.

Save Settings
Cookie Preferences Cookie List

Cookie List

A cookie is a small piece of data (text file) that a website – when visited by a user – asks your browser to store on your device in order to remember information about you, such as your language preference or login information. Those cookies are set by us and called first-party cookies. We also use third-party cookies – which are cookies from a domain different than the domain of the website you are visiting – for our advertising and marketing efforts. More specifically, we use cookies and other tracking technologies for the following purposes:

Strictly Necessary Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Functional Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Performance Cookies

We do not allow you to opt-out of our certain cookies, as they are necessary to ensure the proper functioning of our website (such as prompting our cookie banner and remembering your privacy choices) and/or to monitor site performance. These cookies are not used in a way that constitutes a “sale” of your data under the CCPA. You can set your browser to block or alert you about these cookies, but some parts of the site will not work as intended if you do so. You can usually find these settings in the Options or Preferences menu of your browser. Visit www.allaboutcookies.org to learn more.

Sale of Personal Data

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Social Media Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.

Targeting Cookies

We also use cookies to personalize your experience on our websites, including by determining the most relevant content and advertisements to show you, and to monitor site traffic and performance, so that we may improve our websites and your experience. You may opt out of our use of such cookies (and the associated “sale” of your Personal Information) by using this toggle switch. You will still see some advertising, regardless of your selection. Because we do not track you across different devices, browsers and GEMG properties, your selection will take effect only on this browser, this device and this website.