What happens to my child’s IEP if the U.S. Department of Education closes?

July 14: The U.S. Supreme Court ruled on July 14 that the U.S. Department of Education can move forward with mass layoffs for now, until other legal challenges are resolved. Gutting and dismantling the agency are part of President Trump’s efforts to close it. A lower court had stopped the layoffs on May 22.

The high court issued the unsigned order in response to an emergency request for a stay by the department. Justice Sotomayor dissented, joined by Justices Kagan and Jackson. Their opinion states: “Only Congress has the power to abolish the Department. The Executive’s task, by contrast, is to ‘take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.’”

The department asked for the stay on June 5, after a court ruling in Massachusetts. The judge in the case issued a preliminary injunction to block Trump’s executive order to close the agency. The ruling also required the agency to rehire the 1,300 people it fired in March.

In the ruling, U.S. District Judge Myong Joun described how shutting down the agency would harm students:

“The supporting declarations of former Department employees, educational institutions, unions, and educators paint a stark picture of the irreparable harm that will result from financial uncertainty and delay, impeded access to vital knowledge on which students and educators rely, and loss of essential services for America’s most vulnerable student populations.”

March 20: Trump signed the executive order to start dismantling the department on March 20. It directs Education Secretary Linda McMahon to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” of the agency.

Only Congress can shut the department or move key functions to other agencies. But the president can shrink the agency significantly and limit its functions, a process that’s already begun.

For now, the department will still exist, but in a smaller form. It will also continue to enforce civil rights laws, according to the White House.

The day after signing the order, Trump said that “special needs” and nutrition programs would move to the Department of Health and Human Services. Secretary McMahon later clarified that “the programs for students with disabilities will more than likely rest in” that department.

There was no specific mention of the special education law IDEA, which the Department of Education runs. IDEA stands for the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act. This law ensures that kids with disabilities get the special education and related services they need.

It’s also not clear how the order might affect special education services at the school level. The amount of money going to state and local governments, which Congress sets, hasn’t changed. Neither has the federal law that ensures special education and related services, which Congress created in 1979.

In this three-minute video, Rae Jacobson, host of Understood’s Hyperfocus podcast, discusses what changes at the Department of Education could mean for neurodivergent kids.

Read the transcript of the video.

The U.S. Department of Education is part of the executive branch of the federal government. The agency oversees the federal student loan program and some funding for K–12 schools, among other programs. The department doesn’t run IEPs. But along with the states, it also enforces laws that protect students with disabilities in schools. 

Schools only get 6–13% of their funding from the federal government, and the amount is set by Congress. The rest comes from states and local districts.¹

Much of the money that comes through the department supports the special education law (IDEA) that provides services to students with disabilities.

The department doesn’t run any individual schools or districts. Current law forbids the federal government from controlling the curriculum that states, districts, and schools use.² But the proposed action includes withholding funding for schools that teach certain ideas.

While the contents of the order haven’t been released, there are steps the executive branch can take without the OK of Congress. These include:

• Rescinding all administrative guidance letters

• Directing the department to repeal regulations

• Reallocating funding, as long as it’s allowed by law

• Delaying funding 

The U.S. Department of Education was created by Congress in 1979. Federal support for education expanded greatly starting in the 1940s. Civil rights laws protecting students from discrimination emerged in the 1960s and 1970s. IDEA was passed in 1975. At the time, it was called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act.

The department doesn’t play a direct role in the individual plans that provide special education services and school supports to eligible students. But it does provide money to help districts support students through IDEA, the special education law. In that way, it does influence how IEPs end up being used.

But even with an executive order, the president can’t end the following without talking to Congress, because they’re part of the law:

• IEPs

• Special education funding

• Legal rights in statutes

504 plans are based on a civil rights law, the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They arose as a practice to document what schools were doing in terms of discrimination. The U.S. Department of Education oversees and enforces this anti-discrimination law in schools that get federal funding.

Under the new education secretary, Linda McMahon, the staff of the U.S. Department of Education is being cut by half. Six hundred employees have already left. Another 1,300 have been told they’re losing their jobs.

The cuts include half the staff at the department’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR). They’re mostly attorneys who investigate parents’ complaints about discrimination by schools. Half of OCR’s field offices will close, according to news reports. They include offices in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, Chicago, Cleveland, San Francisco, and Dallas.³

Two lawsuits have been filed against the department. One was filed by the National Youth Law Center. It asks the judge to order the OCR to keep following up on civil rights complaints.

The other lawsuit was filed by a group of 20 states plus the District of Columbia. It asks the court to immediately pause the mass firings and declare the dismantling of the department to be illegal.

The U.S. Department of Education will still distribute federal funds to the states and school districts. That includes funding that supports IDEA and students with disabilities. This is the money approved by Congress.

Yes. For now, nothing has happened that would affect existing IEPs or 504 plans. These plans are created and run at the state, district, and school level. (504 plans are not from IDEA, the special education law, so they could be affected at some point.) 

Yes. The process for getting either type of plan from your child’s school hasn’t changed. Nor has the funding for these programs.

It’s not clear, although some of its functions may move over to other federal agencies. That’s how it was before Congress created the U.S. Department of Education in 1979. The federal education office had been small and housed under different departments. 

It’s impossible to predict what would happen to individual programs and functions if the department were to close. That includes federal student loans like Pell Grants that support low socioeconomic, first-generation college students through the FAFSA.

The department also serves as a reporting body, producing the annual Condition of Education report.

This story is developing. We’ll update it as new details emerge.