Students May Be Entitled to Compensatory Services Due to COVID
One in four students with disabilities is not receiving any or all services, according to data the New York City Department of Education (DOE) has provided to the City Council.
The reality is that tuition reimbursement is just one thing that parents are able to do in order to protect their children's rights to a free and appropriate public education. However, in looking at the fallout from coronavirus, a lot of people have begun seeking compensatory education services to make up for IEP-mandated services that have been suspended or interrupted during the quarantine. I anticipate that the DOE will see a steady increase in complaints like these as time goes on.
I am keeping an eye out for any court proceedings about this — my fear is that one unfavorable court decision could rule that COVID is a force majeure that made it impossible to fully honor students’ IEPs. All in all, I am optimistic: we’ll have to wait and see as the issue filters up to the federal courts, but recent decisions from NYSED’s Office of State Review are trending in the right direction.
If you have been denied services as a result of coronavirus or in general, you are legally entitled to replacement services to compensate. Compensatory services are intended to bring the student back to where they would have been, but for the interruption, and so a successful claim can even yield an increase over and above what you would have gotten otherwise.
For more information, contact us.
Marc Gottlieb
Partner
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Brooklyn Heights, NY 11201
Marc@GottliebFirm.com
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