RECOMMENDATIONS FOR
IMPROVING THE EDUCATION
OF NEW YORK CITY STUDENTS
WITH DISABILITIES DURING THE
PANDEMIC

August 2020

 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION DURING COVID-19

While many students struggled with the
transition to remote learning this past spring,
the closure of school buildings due to COVID-19
was especially difficult for New York City’s
students with disabilities.
In addition to academic instruction, students with disabilities depend on schools for a
range of specialized services and therapies, some of which can be quite challenging to
deliver remotely. And without consistent services and a structured school day, many
students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) fell behind their peers or lost skills
they had gained earlier in the year.
These losses are doubly concerning in light of the long-standing disparities between
students with and without disabilities: in 2019, only 16% of the City’s students with
disabilities were reading proficiently, 40 percentage points lower than the proficiency
rate for their peers without IEPs, while the 4-year graduation rate for students with
disabilities was just 53%, representing a 30-point gap. Because students with disabilities
are disproportionately Black and Latinx, the damage to their academic progress resulting
from the pandemic exacerbates the racial achievement gap as well. Without a targeted,
comprehensive plan for addressing the barriers that prevented many students with
disabilities from accessing remote learning last semester and helping those who have fallen
behind get caught up, their odds of success in school will grow even more grim.
Based on our experience talking to the families of more than 1,000 students with
disabilities since March, as well as our decades of special education advocacy, we offer a
number of recommendations for how best to support students with disabilities in this
difficult time. While there are no easy answers, we are guided by several key principles:

 
1
 

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Students with disabilities do not give up their civil rights in a public health
emergency. While the pandemic poses new challenges, requiring innovative
thinking and flexibility, the NYC Department of Education (DOE) has the same
responsibilities as ever to provide all children with a free and appropriate public
education in the least restrictive environment.
Federal special education law requires an individualized approach to each
student’s education program. For students who are not physically in the
classroom every day, schools must do everything possible to maximize use of

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their limited in-person time and think creatively about how remote days can best
be used to support each student’s progress. This will look different for different
students, based on individual needs and parental preference. It will require
thoughtful, intentional planning and should not be left to chance.
Students with disabilities should be prioritized for additional in-person instruction
and services, should their families wish to send them to school.
At this point, much, if not all, of a student’s learning will take place in the home
this fall. Schools must work collaboratively with families to an unprecedented
extent and include parents as partners in all decision-making about their
children’s education.

We are not attempting to address every outstanding issue or provide a comprehensive
list of every recommendation that would help students with disabilities during this time.
Rather, we are setting forth some key recommendations based on the challenges we have
seen working with families on the ground.

KEY RECOMMENDATIONS.
❏ 

Offer full-time in-person instruction to all students in self-contained special
education classes, including all students in District 75 programs, whose families want
that option.

❏ 

Offer multiple options for families who want in-person related services,
including receiving services in schools, at the City’s new “Learning Bridges” child care
programs, at home, and at related service agencies.

❏ 

Hold meetings with parents to develop an individualized plan for each student
with a disability prior to the start of the school year.

❏ 

Deploy educators trained in evidence-based literacy instruction to provide smallgroup support to struggling readers on days they are learning remotely.

❏ 

Ensure that all students have the technology and resources they need to be
successful when working remotely and that parents have the information and support
they need to help their children, in a language they can understand.

❏ 

Provide robust behavioral and mental health supports to all students who
need them, refrain from police interventions, and limit exclusionary discipline.

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❏ 

Marshal resources to address the backlog in special education evaluations in a
timely manner and provide clear guidance to guard against over- and under-referral in
the coming year.

❏ 

Ensure all health and safety protocols take into account the unique needs of
students with disabilities, including physical accessibility.

❏ 

Provide compensatory services to make up for the instruction and services
students missed while schools were closed.

❏ 

Ensure the City’s new “Learning Bridges” child care programs provide support for
students with disabilities and expand eligibility to include high school students with
disabilities.

❏ 

Start planning now for post-COVID recovery.

Prioritize students with disabilities for inperson classroom instruction and services,
provided their families want that option.
STUDENTS IN DISTRICT 75 SCHOOLS
The DOE should offer full-time in-person instruction to all students at District 75 schools
whose families want that option. The DOE places students in District 75 programs
because of their need for intensive, specialized support—support that can be particularly
difficult, if not impossible, to provide online.
By their very nature, District 75 classes are small in size, ranging from six to twelve
students, and responses to the DOE’s summer survey indicate that families of more than
a quarter of these students want their children to remain fully remote. Since the DOE
has said that class sizes this fall will range from nine to twelve students, the small District
75 class sizes should allow schools to offer students full-time instruction and services.
The current DOE scheduling models, however, allow District 75 schools the option of
having one cohort of students attend on a regular Monday through Friday schedule,
leaving another two cohorts of students attending school only two or three days per

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 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION DURING COVID-19

week, depending on the week, or every other week, depending on the model chosen by
the school. Given the needs of students in District 75 schools and the already-small class
sizes, the DOE should revise its District 75 models to offer full-time in-person instruction
to all students whose families wish to send them and should ensure District 75 schools
have adequate space for classes and services.

STUDENTS IN SPECIAL CLASSES IN DISTRICT 1-32
SCHOOLS
Upon the reopening of school buildings, the DOE should also offer full-time in-person
instruction to all students in self-contained special education classes in District 1-32
schools whose families want that option. Since special classes have 12 students (in
elementary and middle school) or 15 students (in high school), and the families of some
of these students will likely opt for full-time remote learning, the DOE should be able
to offer students in special classes the opportunity to attend school five days per week,
making it easier for these students to spend time in the classroom while still receiving
their mandated related services in the building. Similarly, the DOE should offer full-time
in-person instruction to students in specialized programs in District 1-32 schools, such
as the ASD Nest and Horizon programs for children with autism and bilingual special
education classes. As with students in District 75 programs, students whose IEPs mandate
special education classes have significant needs requiring more individualized attention
and support; they are disproportionately likely to flounder in the absence of in-person
teaching.

STUDENTS IN INTEGRATED CO-TEACHING (ICT) CLASSES
As schools group students for in-person and remote Integrated Co-Teaching (ICT)
classes, the DOE must ensure that each cohort includes students with and without
disabilities so that students with disabilities continue to have the opportunity to learn
in an inclusive setting, alongside their typically developing peers. Furthermore, as legally
required, each ICT class must have a special education teacher and a general education
teacher.

RELATED SERVICES & SUPPORTS
For students with disabilities who are not offered the chance to be in school full-time, it
is critical that schools maximize use of students’ limited in-person time to best support
their individual needs. This will require thoughtful planning, flexibility, and collaboration

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with families. For example, a student’s IEP may mandate physical therapy three times per
week in a school location outside the classroom, but the student may be in school only
two days per week. For some students, getting physical therapy on the days the student is
in school may be an important priority; for other students, it may be more important to
maximize time in the classroom and provide in-person or remote services on days when
the student is scheduled for remote learning. The DOE should collaborate with families
to determine what instruction and services should be provided during the student’s days
in school, and what should be offered on the days they are learning from home or other
locations.
For families who want in-person related services, the DOE should offer multiple options,
including receiving related services in schools, at the City’s new “Learning Bridges” child
care programs, at home, and at related service agencies. This summer, the City provided
in-person services to a small number of students at the Regional Enrichment Centers
(RECs); the DOE should build upon the initial success of this model and expand the
number of sites at which students can receive in-person services on days when they are
not otherwise scheduled to be in school buildings.
For English Language Learners (ELLs) whose IEPs recommend an “alternate placement
paraprofessional” due to their need for support in a language other than English, the DOE
should ensure that each paraprofessional has the tools and availability to support their
assigned students on each day of instruction, whether in-person or remote.

TRANSPORTATION
Parents of students with disabilities need information in their home language about
how school buses will work as soon as possible in order to be able to make informed
decisions. For many students with disabilities, in-person learning will only be an option
if there is a safe and reliable way to get to school. The City’s school busing system is
plagued with problems during the best of times, and the logistical challenges will be far
more complicated when students’ schedules are not consistent from week to week and
with the need for social distancing. We appreciate that the DOE has identified students
with disabilities as a priority population for bus services and emphasize that the City has
a legal obligation to abide by IEP transportation mandates. The DOE should communicate
information to families about health and safety precautions to be taken on buses to
ensure children are safe on their way to and from school.

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Improve remote instruction and service delivery.
Many families of students with disabilities will opt for full-time remote learning. And even for families
who want in-person instruction, the DOE’s current scheduling models will result in the vast majority
of students with disabilities attending school only one to three days per week, while continuing to
learn remotely on all remaining days. Therefore, the DOE must improve remote instruction and
services and address the barriers that prevented many students with disabilities from successfully
engaging in distance learning last semester.

INDIVIDUALIZED PLANS FOR REMOTE OR HYBRID
LEARNING
This spring, schools developed Remote Learning Plans (RLPs) to document the type
of instruction and services that students with disabilities would receive while school
buildings were closed. We recommend that schools hold meetings with families to ensure
all students have an individualized plan in place prior to the start of the school year,
collaborating with parents to evaluate what worked and what didn’t in the spring and
making any changes necessary to address what did not work or to account for the switch
from an all-remote to a blended schedule. For students who are participating in blended
learning, the team should decide how students will spend their limited in-person time—
for example, whether a student should receive some or all of their mandated speech
therapy on the days they are in the school building and how the student will receive the
rest of their speech services, whether that be in person at another site, such as a Learning
Bridges program or related services agency, or via teletherapy.
In addition, the team should:
»  Discuss the support parents need to assist their child with remote learning and
services and a plan for providing that support (e.g., a training that a therapist will
provide for a parent or a visual schedule the teacher will create);
»  Use the meeting to ensure that the student has the technology needed to
participate in online instruction and to address any barriers to learning successfully
on the days they are remote; and
»  Proactively plan for what happens if school buildings close again or individual
students switch back to full-time remote learning, whether by choice or because
they are required to quarantine due to exposure to COVID-19.

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 RECOMMENDATIONS FOR SPECIAL EDUCATION DURING COVID-19

SUPPORT FOR STRUGGLING READERS
Learning to read proficiently is the foundation of all future learning, and even before the
pandemic, there were troubling gaps in literacy by race, disability status, and economic need. In
the coming school year, the DOE should make it a priority to target evidence-based literacy
interventions to students who require help learning to read, as students who do not receive
the instruction they need to develop key literacy skills now will fall further and further behind.
We recommend that the DOE deploy staff who have already been trained in delivering
evidence-based literacy interventions, including Universal Literacy coaches and IEP/
Intervention teachers, to provide remote small-group literacy instruction to struggling
readers, with and without disabilities, on days when they are learning from home. The DOE
launched a program to do just that for a small number of students attending remote summer
school; in the coming year, this initiative could be continued and expanded. The shift to online
and blended learning offers a unique opportunity in that individual students are no longer
limited by the training and expertise of the educators who happen to be assigned to their
particular school building. An IEP/Intervention teacher who is working remotely, for example,
could provide supplemental, small-group reading instruction to students attending their own
school as well as to students from other schools in the district who have similar needs but
are unable to access this support in their own building.

LIVE INSTRUCTION
Some students with disabilities received little or no live instruction while schools were closed
in the spring, depriving students of the opportunity to interact with their teachers and peers
and often leaving it to parents to teach their children new skills. The DOE should ensure
that all children participating in either blended or full-time remote learning receive daily live
instruction from a teacher. While the DOE has committed to providing daily live instruction
to students learning remotely, we are already hearing from families that their individual schools
do not plan to offer any live instruction on days of remote learning. While distance learning
has never before been implemented at the scale currently required because of the pandemic,
existing research on online education indicates that frequent, direct, and meaningful studentteacher and student-student interactions are critical for student engagement and success.

FAMILY ENGAGEMENT AND SUPPORT
Many students, especially those with disabilities, rely on parental support in order to
participate in remote instruction, complete assignments, and access related services.

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Therefore, it is vital for the DOE to see parents as partners and ensure they have
the information and support they need, in a language they can understand. The DOE’s
“Beyond Access” webinar series, held this spring and summer for families of students
with disabilities, should be continued in the coming year. We urge the DOE to offer
more targeted webinars for families of students with specific disabilities, such as ADHD
or dyslexia, as well as trainings specifically for parents of ELLs receiving special education
services, to help ensure that all families can support their children during remote learning.
Additionally, to ensure that parents with low literacy and limited access to online media
receive critical special education information, the DOE should communicate significant
updates to parents by telephone.
In addition to ensuring that school-based staff offer translation and interpretation services
to all parents who need them, the City must ensure that special education providers
who are not DOE employees—such as the contracted and independent therapists the
DOE relies on to provide related services—can communicate with families in a language
they understand. For example, given that therapists are relying on parents to assist with
remote related services sessions, the DOE must extend access to its phone interpretation
service to all related services providers so that they can communicate with parents in
their primary language.

OUTREACH
In the months after school buildings closed, we spoke with many families whose children
were not receiving their special education instruction and services for a variety of
reasons, ranging from low digital literacy to a need for mental health services to a parent’s
inability to serve as their child’s teacher, service provider, and paraprofessional while also
holding on to a full-time job. While school staff should be the first ones to reach out
to families of students who are not attending in-person or virtual school, there must be
central oversight and a strengths-based plan for identifying, re-engaging, and supporting
students who are not participating in online instruction or are facing obstacles to success
under blended learning.

TECHNOLOGY
The DOE must ensure that all students have the technology, internet access, and other
material resources and specialized equipment (e.g., sensory toys, assistive technology)
they need to be successful when working remotely, given their disability. This may require
reassessing what was initially provided in the spring (e.g., a particular student may benefit
from having a laptop rather than an iPad in light of their specific needs). The DOE should

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continue to make remote learning devices available not only to students attending DOE
schools but to all NYC students with disabilities, including those enrolled at charter
or non-public special education schools, as the DOE is responsible for providing an
appropriate education to all of these students. Finally, the DOE should ensure parents
have a place to reach out for technical support and individualized assistance to resolve
problems with accessing remote instruction.

PUBLIC REPORTING
While the DOE reported the overall percentage of students engaging in remote
instruction this spring and summer, it did not provide any information specific to students
with disabilities. To ensure accountability and help promote equity, the DOE should
publicly report the number and percentage of students with disabilities who did and did
not participate in remote instruction and who received full services, partial services, or no
services, both retroactively to March and continuing through the coming school year.

Provide robust behavioral and mental health
supports, refrain from police interventions, and
limit exclusionary, punitive discipline.
The City should put forward a detailed and substantive plan for ensuring students receive the
trauma-informed and culturally-responsive social-emotional learning and mental health support
they need to be able to thrive in the coming school year. Students have experienced trauma related
to COVID-19, systemic racism, and police brutality and will need help adjusting to the new school
routines.
Students with disabilities are disproportionately Black and Latinx, and are thus more
likely to have loved ones who fell ill or passed away from COVID-19 and who have been
harmed by the police. Moreover, difficulty coping with abrupt changes to daily routines
is characteristic of a number of disabilities; some students with disabilities found it
especially difficult to transition to remote learning in the spring and likely will have trouble
acclimating to a new blended or fully remote schedule this fall. Furthermore, students

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who had difficulty engaging in learning last semester due to mental health needs that went
unaddressed will need support to participate in instruction this year, and students with
significant mental health challenges will need targeted and intensive behavioral supports
and services.
Regardless of whether students learn online or in person, it is essential that the DOE
equip schools with the resources, tools, staff, training, and coaching to support students’
social-emotional needs this school year, including providing behavioral and mental health
supports to students. The DOE should marshal the resources of central and boroughbased staff such as school response clinicians and social workers working on other
student mental health initiatives, Borough/Citywide Office staff (e.g., behavior specialists,
crisis de-escalation managers), and social workers at Alternate Learning Centers. The
DOE should make such staff available to families and schools to provide mental health
and behavioral supports to students and to assist school staff in implementing traumainformed and restorative supports.
The DOE should require all schools to focus on supporting the social and emotional
well-being and resiliency of students when school begins while phasing in academic
content, and then infuse social-emotional support throughout the school year. In order
to encourage connection, healing, and relationship-building, we recommend that this
transition period focus on community circles and other restorative and trauma-informed
practices.
We strongly recommend that the DOE set forth a policy for the school year that limits
exclusionary, punitive discipline. School staff should not contact School Safety Agents or
other members of law enforcement to address student behavior, including students in
emotional distress or crises or struggling to comply with health measures. Exclusionary
punishments and police interventions are not only ineffective, they also disproportionately
impact Black and Latinx students and students with disabilities. No student in emotional
distress or crisis should face the police or be handcuffed. No student with a disability
struggling to comply with pandemic-related health measures should be punished or
excluded from in-person learning or face law enforcement. Teachers and mental health
professionals, and not the police, are best equipped to address student behavior.
During the school year, the DOE should not suspend or remove students from class for
behavior constituting a Level 1 to Level 4 infraction of the NYC Discipline Code. The
DOE must ensure that students with disabilities receive positive behavioral supports
and interventions when necessary and are not suspended or otherwise disciplined for
behavior exhibited because of their disability. The DOE should remind school staff that,
in the limited instances where students with disabilities — including students the DOE is
deemed to know have a disability — are disciplined, schools must follow Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) discipline rules, even when students learn remotely.

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Address the backlog in special education
evaluations and provide clear guidance to
schools on referral and evaluation in the
coming year.
This spring, the DOE did not conduct any psycho-educational evaluations, either in person or
remotely. As a result, there is likely a significant backlog in special education evaluations that must
be completed in order for children to receive the help they need to learn. We urge the DOE to
marshal a variety of resources to address the evaluation backlog in a timely manner and to explore
creative solutions that minimize the extent to which students are pulled out of class in order to be
evaluated.
For example, the DOE could have itinerant evaluation teams that travel to the City’s new
child care centers and students’ homes to evaluate students on their remote learning days
rather than during the regular school day, should their families prefer. When appropriate
and feasible for individual students and families, evaluators could conduct remotely those
assessments that can be done virtually, on days when students are learning from home.
Schools will also need clear guidance on meeting their legal obligations to identify
students with disabilities in need of special education services, in light of the fact that
many students will be returning to school with unfinished learning from last year.
Students struggling with grade-level material because they were unable to access remote
instruction in the spring will need extra support to accelerate their learning; they should
not be referred to special education if their only ‘disability’ is that they had to wait six
weeks to receive a remote learning device, didn’t have an adult at home able to help them
navigate online learning platforms or understand their assignments, or were unable to
focus on schoolwork because they were caring for younger siblings or ill family members.
At the same time, schools should not take a ‘wait and see’ approach and inappropriately
delay starting the special education evaluation process for a student with a suspected
disability on the grounds that they just need time to get caught up. On the contrary,
students with disabilities who need specialized instruction or more individualized support
in order to make academic progress will fall further and further behind the more time
passes.

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Ensure all health and safety protocols take
into account the unique needs of students with
disabilities.
The DOE must provide guidance and training to schools on accommodations for students with
disabilities as they develop and implement protocols for health screenings prior to entry into DOE
buildings and all health and safety measures taking place throughout the day.
For example, mask wearing, social distancing, and schedule changes may be particularly
challenging for some students with autism spectrum disorders. Schools must provide
supports and accommodations to students with disabilities who have difficulty complying
with the new requirements and should not exclude students from the classroom if they
struggle to follow certain protocols. Such accommodations must be individualized based
on the student’s needs. For example, teachers and occupational therapists can help some
students build tolerance for wearing masks, or find creative ways to make mask-wearing
more fun for the students—letting students decorate or design their own masks. Other
students may need a mask specially designed for children with sensory needs, and some
won’t be able to wear masks due to their disability and need extra supports to reinforce
social distancing. We are pleased to see that the school reopening plan submitted by the
DOE to the New York State Department of Health recognizes that teachers and related
service providers may need clear face coverings in some circumstances so that students
with disabilities can see the mouths and facial expressions of educators and better
understand them.
In addition, as schools look to repurpose every available space in order to maintain
appropriate social distancing, they must be mindful of the needs of students and educators
with physical disabilities, given that the majority of school buildings are not fully accessible.
As each school plans for reopening, it must ensure that students with physical disabilities
are assigned only to fully accessible spaces and are able to participate in the entirety of
the school day. For example, a building with two entry/exit points may want to maintain
traffic flow in a single direction by devoting one door entirely to entrances and limiting
use of the other to individuals leaving the building—but if only one of those two entry/
exit points is wheelchair-accessible, while the other sits atop a flight of stairs, this will
immediately pose a barrier to anyone with a physical disability.

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Ensure students with disabilities, including high
school students, can enroll in Learning Bridges
child care programs.
The City is creating “Learning Bridges” programs to provide 100,000 students from 3-K through
8th grade a safe place to participate in remote learning on days when they cannot be in the regular
school building but need someplace to go while their parents are at work. The City must ensure
that these programs, which will be run by community-based organizations, accommodate students
with disabilities who enroll and can provide the support these students need to engage in remote
instruction as well as the offered enrichment activities.
This must be true from the time those programs open. Including students with disabilities
may require the City to provide additional staff, arrange for services, or conduct targeted
training to meet the individual needs of students. No student should be turned away due
to a disability.
In addition, the City should allow high school students with disabilities to enroll in the
Learning Bridges programs. The City has announced that the programs are available only
to students through the 8th grade under the assumption that high schoolers do not
require care and supervision and are able to participate in remote learning independently
on days when they are not in the classroom. However, some high school students with
disabilities cannot stay alone while their parents work and need adult support in order to
participate in online instruction. For this reason, while subsidized child care is generally
available only to families of children younger than 13, it is also available to youth with
disabilities through age 18. The City should follow these same guidelines with respect to
access to the Learning Bridges programs. In addition, the City should ensure that students
with disabilities whom the DOE placed in state-approved non-public schools or preschool
special education programs at community-based organizations because of their needs
have access to the Learning Bridges programs, just like students who attend DOE schools.
Finally, the City should ensure that Learning Bridges programs in every borough are
located in fully accessible spaces. If not all program sites are fully accessible, children who
have physical disabilities must have enrollment priority at accessible Learning Bridges
programs as close to their homes as possible.

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Provide compensatory services to make up for
the instruction and services students missed
while schools were closed.
During the period of school closure, thousands of students with disabilities missed out
on their legally mandated services. These students have the right under federal law to
compensatory instruction and services to make up for the support they missed and help
them get back on track. The DOE must develop a plan for providing make-up services
that includes identifying which students went without services or did not make adequate
progress during the period of remote learning and working with families to develop
individualized plans for providing compensatory services.

Start planning now for post-COVID recovery.
The above recommendations all focus on the immediate challenges of educating the
City’s students amidst an ongoing pandemic, with the aim of minimizing the long-term
educational harm to students with disabilities. However, pandemic schooling is inherently
less than ideal, requiring difficult tradeoffs. When the threat to public health has resolved
and all students are able to resume full-time, in-person learning, there will be widespread
need for additional academic and social-emotional support; schools cannot simply revert
back to the ‘normal’ of February 2020. Without targeted action and an eye towards
equity, the months of in-person instructional time lost to the pandemic will have ripple
effects for decades to come. The DOE will need to offer students with disabilities,
along with other high-need populations, including ELLs, students who are homeless,
and students in foster care, additional learning time—whether during the summer and
other school breaks, via extended school days or school years, or on weekends—as
well as targeted instructional interventions with proven effectiveness, such as highdosage individualized tutoring. Launching new, high-quality programs of this nature at an
unprecedented scale will require extensive and meticulous preparation, the commitment
of significant resources, and unparalleled collaboration across agencies and between the
public and private sectors. Recovery from COVID-19 will be a multi-year process, and the
City must begin planning now in order to effectuate it well.

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