The State of Pennsylvania is depriving students with disabilities of a year of instruction as young adults, according to a lawsuit filed this spring.
Federal law entitles students with disabilities the right to FAPE until they earn a regular high school diploma or turn 22, whichever comes first. Pennsylvania is among many states that force students to graduate at the end of the school year in which they turn 21. According to the lawsuit, this rule deprives vulnerable young adults of a year of special education services.
The complaint was filed in federal court on behalf of A.P, a 19-year-old Lower Merion student with multiple disabilities. A.P. will turn 22 in February 2026, but under current state policy, he will be forced to graduate in June 2025. A.P. and his parents want a judge to force Pennsylvania to alter its policy, as several other states have been compelled to do in recent years. Attorneys have asked the court to grant class-action status.
According to the complaint, the state’s rule “unlawfully deprives students with disabilities of up to a year of a (free and appropriate public education) at a critical juncture of their lives, denying them essential services such as job readiness training, functional math and literacy instruction, and the acquisition of daily living skills such as using public transportation, shopping for groceries, or managing a home.” The complaint noted that the “Age-Out Policy also harms the very students most in need of these services: students with significant disabilities who are more likely to remain in school instead of earning a regular high school diploma, and who will require coordinated, comprehensive supports to successfully transition to adult life.”
About 17,000 Pennsylvania students between the ages of 18 and 21 receive special education services annually; 300 of them are 21. Similar suits have forced changes in Connecticut, Hawaii and Rhode Island.
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