And the letter says that, once pandemic closures eased, the Fairfax school system failed to provide “compensatory education” to students with disabilities whom the district failed to educate during the shutdowns. Fairfax officials also inaccurately told staffers that the district was not required to offer these compensatory services, according to the letter. Federal law requires that all public school districts offer students with disabilities a “free appropriate public education,” known as FAPE.
“During remote learning, the Division failed or was unable to provide a FAPE to thousands of qualified students with disabilities,” the letter states.
To remedy the situation, the Education Department is requiring that Fairfax convene teams of employees to review whether it failed each student with disabilities in its system during the pandemic. Fairfax must then offer “compensatory education” to all these students to catch them up to where they should be, per the department.
The Fairfax school district has signed a 10-page resolution with the Education Department agreeing to meet these demands. In a statement published to the district’s website Wednesday evening, officials wrote that Fairfax will also conduct evaluations and offer compensatory services for students who graduated or left the school system between mid-April 2020 and mid-June 2022.
“As we emerge from the global pandemic, FCPS remains committed to working diligently to provide the support needed to ensure each and every student recovers from learning loss,” the statement reads. “FCPS has and will continue to leverage resources to ensure students with the greatest need receive prioritized support for enhanced outcomes.”
Catherine E. Lhamon, the Education Department’s assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement Wednesday that she is “relieved that the more than 25,000 students with disabilities in Fairfax County will now receive services federal law promises to them, even during a pandemic, to ensure their equal access to education.”
The department opened its investigation of the Fairfax system, which serves nearly 180,000 students in Northern Virginia, in January 2021 after receiving what federal officials called “disturbing reports involving the district’s provision of educational services to children with disabilities during the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Fairfax was not alone. When the pandemic forced schools to switch to online learning overnight in March 2020, many districts across the country found themselves unable to meet the needs of students with disabilities — who can often require hands-on interventions such as speech therapy and physical therapy — in an online environment, The Washington Post has reported.
As national assessments of students’ academic progress during the pandemic years have emerged, results indicate that students with disabilities have fallen especially far behind. This trend has held true for Fairfax, too: As the Education Department’s letter notes, the percentage of Fairfax students with disabilities in middle and high school who earned F’s…
Read More: Fairfax schooling for students with disabilities inadequate during pandemic, Ed Dept. says
