Parents of Special Needs Students Bring Class Action Lawsuit Over Remote Learning

A group of parents has filed a federal class action lawsuit against New York city and state education officials over alleged shortcomings in remote learning for the city’s special needs students.

Since the pandemic began, the city’s schools have not provided special needs students with the services – including speech therapy, language assistance, in-person support and, in some cases, technology and equipment – that their individualized education plans, or IEPs, call for, the parents say. The students are falling perilously behind, according to the class action lawsuit, and the city and state must fix the “pervasive failure,” quickly.

Dissatisfied with the results of their own individual efforts to effect change, the parents of seven special needs students in the New York City school district and the guardian of another filed the class action lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York on Nov. 23.

Named as defendants in the case are the New York City and New York State departments of education, the New York City Board of Education, Chancellor of the New York City School District Richard Carranza and New York State Board of Regents and Interim Commissioner of Education Betty A. Rosa.

“From the onset of remote learning necessitated by the pandemic, defendants have failed to meet their obligations to students with disabilities under federal and state education laws,” the class action lawsuit says. “At the most basic level, [they] have failed to provide these students with the programs and services required by their IEPs.”

Individualized education programs are legal documents developed by educators, specialists, administrators and parents working in collaboration to set a plan for students who need special education. The education blueprints are usually reviewed each year and evolve to meet the student’s changing needs.

In addition to setting out which classes and courses the student will have, IEPs often call for related services such as occupational, physical and speech therapies, behavior counseling, paraprofessional support and other services.

U.S. Department of Education regulations say services prescribed by IEPs are expected to continue during periods of remote learning, lawyers for the parents who are suing say.

“Students who do not receive these programs and services can, and often do, regress,” the class action lawsuit states, and since the schools have gone to remote learning, that is exactly what has happened to many.

“While the pandemic may have made it harder to provide services, this does not discharge defendants of their legal obligations to ensure those services are provided or to remedy the educational losses suffered by students with disabilities,” the parents’ complaint goes on to say. “Defendants have failed to meet those obligations and have demonstrated no mechanism or plan to rectify those failures.”

Because the IEPs are legal documents, parents can challenge them, or challenge schools or educators they think are not abiding by them, through an established hearing process.

The plaintiffs in the class action lawsuit say that option is not adequate to deal with the pandemic-related remote learning issues. That’s due, in part, to the fact that, as of February, before the crisis began in earnest, the city’s Department of Education was already juggling 10,000 open complaints, the class action lawsuit alleges.

The parents and guardian who are serving as lead plaintiffs in the case want to represent a Class of all parents or guardians of students with special needs who are not getting the services – or compensatory services – required by their IEPs. According to the class action, there are tens of thousands of special education students enrolled in New York City schools.

They are asking the court to order the education departments and administrators to come up with a plan “which will promptly afford these students the education to which they are legally entitled—before they fall any further behind.”

Do you have a child who requires special education and has an IEP in the school system? Tell us about it in the comment section below.

The plaintiffs and the proposed Class Members are represented by Joshua Kipnees, George A. LoBiondo and Danielle C. Quinn of Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyle LLP and Rebecca C. Shore of Advocates for Children of New York Inc.

The Remote Learning Class Action Lawsuit is Z.Q., by his parent, G.J., et al. v. New York City Department of Education, et al., Case No. 1:20-cv-09866, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

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