A bill now on the governor’s desk would give families extra time to apply for compensatory special education services if their child with disabilities experienced learning losses during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The current statute of limitations to file for full compensatory education is two years. That means parent have until mid-March to file for COVID-related losses that began that day. Under Senate Bill S905 and its companion Assembly Bill A1281, families would have until Sept. 1, 2023 to file for compensatory services.
The federal law, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), provides parents, guardians, and school districts two years to file a request for compensatory education, should a disagreement come up within a public school district about the “identification, evaluation, or educational placement of a child with disabilities or the provision of a free and appropriate public education,” according to the bill.
The bill would retroactively let parents and guardians file due process hearing requests for the time period between March 18, 2020 and Sept. 1, 2021, when many schools were fully virtual and some hybrid, with a new deadline of Sept. 1, 2023. The bill also requires school districts to hold IEP meetings this year to discuss the need for compensatory education and services for every student with a disability who had an IEP at any time between March 18, 2020 and Sept. 1, 2021.
The bill passed unanimously in the Senate and the Assembly. Governor Phil Murphy has 30 days to sign it.
