What Happens When Special Education Oversight Moves From Education to HHS? A Parent’s Breakdown
The coffee in my mug had gone cold by the time our Zoom IEP meeting wrapped up last month. I was folding my 10-year-old Leo’s clean hoodies on the couch next to me, and he was sprawled on the floor, stacking neon Lego bricks into a lopsided spaceship, half-paying attention to the mute button. When we got to the “any other business” section, our district special ed coordinator paused, then mentioned offhand that the Trump administration had shifted federal oversight of special education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services. She said most things wouldn’t change for this school year, but it was something all parents should be aware of. I nodded along, clicked end meeting, and then stared at my screen for five minutes. I’d seen screaming headlines about the change on my Facebook feed, but no one had told me what that actually meant for Leo, who has dyslexia and ADHD, or for his weekly speech therapy and extra test time accommodations.
I texted my friend Sarah, who’s been a special ed teacher in the next district over for 12 years, and asked if she wanted tacos at the food truck by the park that weekend. She said yes, and showed up with a crumpled printout of the policy summary she’d gotten at a district training. Leo came with us, got a cherry slushie, spilled half of it on my notebook while he was chasing a squirrel, so I ended up taking notes on a napkin.
Sarah broke it down simply. Most of the day-to-day stuff your kid gets at school isn’t changing this year. Your district still runs the IEP, your child’s teacher still implements their accommodations. The change is at the federal level, about how rules get written and how federal money gets distributed. The Department of Education always framed special education as a civil right: every kid gets access to a free public education that fits their learning needs. The Department of Health and Human Services focuses on health and human services, so the conversation around what qualifies for support, and how that support gets funded, is going to shift gradually over time. That shift is what parents need to prepare for, not an immediate overhaul next week.
The first concrete step she told me to take was pull out Leo’s current IEP and do a 10-minute check, no deep dive required. First, highlight any services that aren’t 100% run and paid for by the local school. For Leo, that’s his monthly occupational therapy, which gets 30% of its funding from a federal waiver that’s already administered through HHS. For a mom I met at the library parent group later that week, that’s her 7-year-old son’s in-school physical therapy, which is split between the school district and state Medicaid. The next step is just a quick email: send a note to your district’s special ed coordinator asking if the eligibility requirements for any of those split-funded services are changing in the next 12 months. Most coordinators will send you a one-paragraph answer, no long meeting or confusing paperwork required. I did this last month, and found out that our district isn’t changing Leo’s OT funding for at least another year, which took a huge weight off my chest.
The second big shift parents need to watch for is eligibility. Right now, a kid qualifies for special education if their disability affects their ability to learn in school, regardless of whether it’s labeled a “medical condition.” With oversight moving to HHS, there’s already talk that eligibility could start leaning more into medical diagnosis rather than educational impact. For Leo, that matters a lot. His dyslexia is a learning difference, not a medical condition that requires ongoing treatment. If rules change to require a formal medical diagnosis for eligibility, that could add months of doctor’s appointments and paperwork just to keep the accommodations he already uses to succeed.
The simple fix here is something I did in 20 minutes last Sunday: dig up your kid’s most recent diagnostic evaluation, scan it, save it to a labeled folder in your Google Drive, and put a printed copy in the front of your IEP binder. If rules change and you need to reapply or prove eligibility down the line, you already have all the documentation you need. You won’t have to wait 8 weeks for the psychologist’s office or hospital to send over records, which can mean losing access to services your kid needs while you wait. I’ve already had that happen once with a different form, so I know how stressful that gap in care is. This small step avoids that almost entirely.
After I did these two things, I joined my local special ed parent advocacy group’s text alert list. A lot of people think you have to go to long meetings or be an activist to join, but this group just sends one-sentence texts when something changes in our state – things like “IEP eligibility rules updating October 1, submit any documentation requests by September 15” or “Free 1-hour workshop on new funding rules next week.” It’s way easier than trying to follow every federal policy change on my own, and it’s totally free. I get no spam, just the information I need when I need it.
Last night, Leo did his reading homework for class. He used his audio book accommodation, which lets him listen while he follows along with the physical book, and he got through two whole chapters of his graphic novel biography of Neil Armstrong without getting up to get a snack or turn on the TV. That’s a big win for us, the kind that doesn’t make the news but matters more than any policy shift. I have the crumpled taco napkin with my notes tucked into the front of Leo’s IEP binder, which sits on the shelf by our front door. I did the 10-minute IEP check, saved his evaluation, joined the text list, emailed his coordinator about his OT funding. That’s all I can do right now.
I don’t know what this change will look like for Leo a year from now, or for the other kids in our district. Some days I get tired of having to be the one paying attention to every policy shift, every rule change, every new form that gets added to the stack. It’s extra work that parents of neurotypical kids never have to think about. But right now, Leo still gets his extra time on tests, he still gets his weekly speech therapy, he still builds lopsided Lego spaceships all over the living room and chases squirrels in the park. We’re handling the small things first, and we’ll deal with whatever comes next when it gets here.
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