Inspire Education: Coaching and Advocacy Specialist

I will be publicly commenting on the transfer of the Department of Education to HHS this week on Instagram. It may be a long video. I actually attended one of those sessions where I was able to voice my opinion about what families in the state of South Dakota face and what we could do to strengthen the system. One of them being to fully fund IDEA and public education. The second second being that idea has not been updated since 2004. Our families need more protections!

🚨🚨Today, the Department of Education announced plans to move the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) to the Department of Justice (DOJ). 🚨🚨

🚨 For IEP parents, this matters because OSERS oversees the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), the office responsible for IDEA implementation, special education funding, state oversight, guidance, and accountability.

Officials (meh) say these offices will continue doing the same work. But many are raising concerns because special education, accommodations, accessibility, and civil rights enforcement all work together. Splitting those responsibilities across multiple agencies could make an already confusing system even harder for families to navigate.

OCR is the office that investigates disability discrimination complaints involving issues like accommodations, accessibility, restraint and seclusion, bullying, and discriminatory discipline.

Right now, all the issues all fall under the umbrella of the Department of Education. Under this proposal, different pieces of our concerns could end up being handled by different federal agencies.

Another concern being raised is that moving IDEA oversight to HHS could shift disability further toward a medical model rather than an educational model.

And the DOJ....you all know who is the head of that right now, right? He doesn't strike me as a guy passionate about protecting disabled kids' rights. "Vigorous enforcement of laws" as stated in their fact sheet, does not appear to be a priority of this DOJ.

IDEA was created because students with disabilities were being excluded from schools and denied meaningful educational opportunities--it's an education law and a civil rights law, not a healthcare program. 🚨

Families already spend months, and sometimes years, trying to get schools to follow the law. The fear is that dividing responsibilities among agencies could create more confusion, more delays, and more difficulty getting answers when students need support.

What's Next: Who the eff knows....this administration does whatever it wants, laws and procedures and processes be damned. I'm sure that this will also cost taxpayers millions or more to happen, millions or more in lawsuits that they'll eventually lose (they lose over 70% of them) and then more millions to move it back.

But there's no money for education, right?

Great for students who need help regulating!

Book Online at Soma Chiropractic Dr. Cook is a chiropractor who helps people to restore efficient communication within their nervous system so the body can adapt, recover, and regulate more effectively. He practices according to principles of Bio-Geometric Integration (BGI), a neurologically informed system of chiropractic. Rather....