Sign up for Chalkbeat New York’s free daily newsletter to get essential news about NYC’s public schools delivered to your inbox.New York City has long failed to quickly provide special education services even after families won legal orders for them, generating more than two decades of litigation.Three years ago, city officials embraced a federal court order requiring dozens of reforms to more swiftly provide services like speech therapy, tutoring, or tuition payments for students who can’t be properly served in public schools. But a key question has been surprisingly difficult to answer: Is the city actually providing services to students with disabilities more quickly?New data from independent auditors offers good news and bad news: More families are getting services and other payments within court-mandated deadlines — but the Education Department still blows past the legal timeframes in the vast majority of cases. “There has been some improvement,” said Rebecca Shore, the litigation director at Advocates for Children, which brought a class action lawsuit in 2003 that sparked additional court oversight. At the same time, she said, the city is “nowhere near” full compliance.When families believe they aren’t getting the right special education services they can file a legal complaint against the city that is adjudicated by an administrative judge, known as an impartial hearing officer. Caregivers were on track to file under 16,000 cases last school year, officials said at a City Council hearing in June. When families prevail, the Education Department typically must comply with the order within 35 days, the deadline established in a 2007 legal settlement, unless a hearing officer offers a different timeline.Orders for services like speech therapy, counseling, and transportation were implemented on time in just over 36% of cases according to a recent audit that focused on cases with deadlines in January. That’s up from a compliance rate of 7.2% during the first months of 2023, just before a Manhattan federal judge ordered the city to make a series of reforms to speed up the process.The Education Department provided on time payments — which can offer funding for private school tuition, outside evaluations, and tutoring — in just under 13% of cases in January. That represents a jump from early 2023, when orders were implemented on time in just 4.1% of cases. (The regular quarterly audits are running roughly two years behind; the auditor conducted a narrower one-month review of cases with deadlines in January.) “We have made substantial progress by improving core processes, increasing staffing capacity, and advancing critical technology upgrades, all of which support a stronger and more responsive system,” Education Department spokesperson Onika Richards wrote in an email. She added that the city remains “committed to meeting our obligations” but did not respond to a question about whether the city plans to reach full compliance. In some cases, officials contend that delays stem from families or their advocates not submitting paperwork on time. Delays continue in most casesStill, many families continue to experience delays after receiving a favorable ruling from a hearing officer, according to caregivers and their legal advocates.Nilda Ferrer, a Bronx mom, said she had to wait for the Education Department to line up transportation for her teenage daughter, who has autism and anxiety and struggled with claustrophobia. Her bus ride to a private school in New Jersey, which she attends at no cost because there isn’t an appropriate public school for her, sometimes stretched roughly two hours, Ferrer said.Bronx mom Nilda Ferrer and her 17-year-old daughter, Nilda.After unsuccessfully lobbying for the city to find a more manageable transportation option, she filed a legal complaint seeking a taxi service with help from a lawyer at Legal Services NYC. She was thrilled when the family won the case last December. “I thought that that would be the end of it,” said Ferrer, who works as a home health aide. Instead, it took weeks for the city to implement the service in response to the order. Her daughter wound up missing school as a result, compounding existing struggles with school refusal. (Citing privacy concerns, city Education Department officials declined to comment on the case.)The family will likely have to file another legal complaint this coming school year, as the city did not include the taxi service on her daughter’s special education learning plan. “Now we have to fight it all over again,” Ferrer said. “It doesn’t make sense to me because her situation is not changing.”NYC has yet to complete 21 court-ordered reformsIt remains to be seen whether the city will continue making progress on implementing special education orders more quickly.Officials have been slow to comply with the 2023 order requiring the city to modernize its special education implementation system, after a court-appointed special master found it relied on antiquated technology and manual data entry. City officials have yet to complete 21 of the 51 reforms required under the 2023 federal court order, according to a special master report released last month, including a technology overhaul of a case management system that missed its March launch date and does not currently have a timeline for completion.David Irwin of Thru Consulting LLC, the court-appointed special master, credited the city with hiring staff, committing resources, and making some technological progress, including launching a customer service portal for families and their attorneys that offers case information. “The leadership in DOE is very engaged in this,” Irwin said, noting that he meets with Chancellor Kamar Samuels every month. Still, city officials are simultaneously trying to revise some of the requirements that stretch back to a 2007 court settlement, arguing the terms of that agreement are outdated.The Education Department is pushing to loosen the 35-day legal window, according to a recent court filing. They want to exclude certain private school cases from the court settlement’s requirements, including timelines and auditing rules. And they are pushing to scale back the independent audits that measure their performance, such as assessing only a sample of cases for timeliness, in part because the audits are expensive and delayed. The auditing firm cost the city $6.6 million in 2025 alone. Lawyers representing families, including Shore of Advocates for Children, criticized those proposals in a court filing.“Rather than focusing on improving its implementation rates,” the lawyers wrote, “the DOE is asking this Court for shortcuts.”Alex Zimmerman is a senior reporter for Chalkbeat New York, covering NYC public schools. Contact Alex at azimmerman@chalkbeat.org.
