September 21, 2021
The State of California is excluding students with disabilities from alternatives to in-person classes, forcing vulnerable students and their families to choose between risking COVID-19 exposure or remaining at home without access to the educational services they need to learn and succeed. California’s newly adopted AB 130 limits alternatives to in-person classes to independent studies. Alarmingly, families of students with disabilities have found that California’s Independent Study Program is effectively closed to them because of the program design or lack of needed accommodations. As a result, the state education system is denying students with disabilities the alternative to in-person classes that state law provides to other students.
DREDF joined Disability Rights California, Vanaman German LLP, and The Arc of California to file this civil rights complaint with to the U.S. Department of Justice, seeking an end to this unlawful discrimination under the American with Disabilities Act. […]