It is not news that New Jersey’s 225,333 students with disabilities lost many many mandated services during the 14 months of COVID school closures and remote instruction. In response, some families sued their school districts in order to receive compensatory education services, a right guaranteed to them after Gov. Phil Murphy signed a bipartisan law, S905/A1281, that protects the rights of students with disabilities to compensatory education arising from COVID-19 school closures. 

Here is what is news: among the students who filed complaints and got decisions, 80% of them were denied the special education services the bill was supposed to secure.

Why? I asked special education attorney Jamie Epstein.  He told me the law is “so vague as to be unenforceable,” which resulted in students with disabilities unable to get the services they had missed.

As an example of how NJ can do better, California just approved $2 billion in education recovery funds to be spent specifically on students who, either due to disability or other circumstances (no internet, no laptop), were unable to access their educational programs during COVID. Mark Rosenbaum, a lead lawyer for the CA plaintiffs, described it as a “historic settlement” that ensures the money will go to students who are “most in need.” After all, the federal government granted public school districts more than $190 billion between March 2020 and March 2021 for that purpose. Epstein notes, “unfortunately, the State of New Jersey, unlike California, has been able to pocket its share of the $190 billion in COVID federal funding rather than pay for the make-up educational services to students with disabilities.”

Epstein did the hard work of calculating the 80% denial rate, often justified for reasons like, “I CONCLUDE that the District did its best, under unprecedented times, to address student’s needs.”

Here is the list of cases that were approved and denied.

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