What Happens When Special Education Oversight Moves From Education to HHS? A Special Ed Mom Explains
The mac and cheese on my plate went cold at 7:12 last night, my phone buzzing nonstop in my pocket as the local special ed parent group chat blew up. I wiped cheese off my thumb and opened the thread, and there it was: the headline everyone was panicking over, the news that the Trump administration moved oversight of federal special education from the Department of Education to the Department of Health and Human Services.
I’m a former special ed para, now a stay-at-home mom to 8-year-old Milo, who has dyslexia and ADHD and gets 30 minutes of one-on-one reading support and 20 minutes of social skills group through his IEP every week. Most nights, I’m just trying to get everyone to bed on time and remember to refill his allergy inhaler. I don’t have time to parse 10-page Washington think pieces, and I know most other parents in that group don’t either.
One mom wrote, “Does this mean they’re going to cut my son’s speech therapy? I can’t afford private.” Another said, “My kid is autistic, is he going to be considered a ‘health problem’ now instead of just a kid who learns differently?” I sipped my cold coffee and thought about the IEP meeting I’d sat in just 10 days before, where our district’s special ed coordinator slid a sheet of paper across the table saying they were facing a $2 million budget shortfall and were re-evaluating all extra support minutes for next year.
I met my old coworker Lila, who now coordinates special ed services for a district 20 minutes away, for coffee yesterday. She’s been doing this 22 years, and she didn’t sugarcoat it, but she also didn’t feed the panic. She said the shift sounds massive on paper, but most parents won’t see a change tomorrow. The big difference, she explained, is that HHS already handles Medicaid, which many districts already bill for “related services” — that’s speech, OT, physical therapy, even school counseling for kids with disabilities. Moving oversight to HHS makes it easier for the federal government to push districts to rely more on Medicaid funding instead of the dedicated federal special education dollars that come through the Department of Education under IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
IDEA is the law that guarantees every kid a free appropriate public education, no matter what their disability is. It started as a civil rights law, not a health care program. That framing matters, Lila said. If services are framed as health care benefits instead of education rights, it’s easier to change eligibility rules and cut funding when budgets get tight.
I thought of my friend Sarah, whose 10-year-old daughter has cerebral palsy. Last year, her school tried to cut 15 minutes of weekly physical therapy that lets her walk to the cafeteria on her own instead of needing a wheelchair push every time. The district said Medicaid wouldn’t cover those extra 15 minutes, and they couldn’t cover it out of their education budget. Sarah spent three months fighting, going to two extra IEP meetings, getting a letter from her daughter’s doctor, before they finally agreed to keep the service. That’s the kind of fight more families will have if more services shift to Medicaid funding under HHS oversight.
I walked back into the living room after closing the chat last night, and Milo was on the floor building a Lego spaceship, his noise-canceling headphones pulled down over his ears because my teen niece was watching a loud TikTok compilation on the couch. He looked up, held up a half-finished rocket, and said “Mom, look at the engine I made.” I leaned against the doorframe and didn’t say anything about the news, or the budget cuts, or the fight that might be coming down the line. That’s the thing about being a special ed parent: you carry all that worry, but you don’t dump it on your kid.
After he went to bed, I sat back down at the table and did three small things, and I told the parent group about them too. They’re not big, dramatic actions, they’re just small steps anyone can do in an hour or less, no lawyer or advocacy experience needed.
First, I pulled out Milo’s current IEP, grabbed a highlighter, and marked exactly how many minutes of each service he gets every week, and noted the section that lists funding sources. I put a physical copy in a labeled folder in my closet and a digital scan in my Google Drive. That way, if anyone tries to change his service minutes a year from now, I don’t have to dig through six months of scattered emails to find what we originally agreed on.
Second, I signed up for the free email list from our state’s special education advocacy non-profit. It took two minutes, I just put in my email and checked the box for parent updates. They send alerts when state rules change, and they have free volunteer advocates that come to IEP meetings with you if you need help. I’d been meaning to do that for months, and the news last night was the nudge I needed to get it done.
Third, I wrote down a question to ask at our next IEP meeting in October: “Is this service currently funded through IDEA or Medicaid? Will that funding source change in the next 12 months?” It’s a direct question, no jargon, and districts have to answer you honestly. A lot of parents don’t think to ask that, but it’s the most important question you can ask right now to stay ahead of any changes.
I’m not here to tell you this is a good change or a bad change, or to give you a big political speech. I’m just a mom who’s sat in enough IEP meetings to know that big federal changes don’t stay in Washington. They trickle down to your kitchen table, to your kid’s IEP meeting, to the 15 minutes of therapy that makes all the difference in their day.
This morning, Milo got on the school bus, his backpack covered in alien stickers, and waved at me from the window. I still don’t know exactly what this shift will mean for him, or for the other kids in that parent group, in the next few years. There’s a lot that’s still uncertain. All I know right now is that getting your paperwork in order now, asking the right questions, and having a little community behind you doesn’t cost anything, and it makes whatever comes next a little easier to handle.
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