Date: March 17, 2025
Agudath Israel of America supports this bill which restores services that were inappropriately denied to private school students at the start of the 24–25 school year.
In September 2024, private school parents were informed that a previously unenforced rule would be retroactively enforced, resulting in the denial of special education services for their children. This rule required parents of private school students with IESPs to request the special education services by June 1. In the past, no private school student was denied services due to a missing June 1 letter.
The NYCPS Standard Operating Procedures Manual that was in effect during the spring of 2024 directed the CSEs to solicit the June 1 letter from parents of private school students. As per these directions, in previous years, the CSEs routinely sent parents blank June 1 letters every spring with instructions on completion and submission – until the spring of 2024.
During the spring of 2024, the vast majority of private school parents did not receive requests from the CSEs for the June 1 letter. Therefore, the parents of approximately 20,000 private school students did not submit this document and subsequently were denied services.
Furthermore, hundreds of private school students whose parents did submit the June 1 letter were denied services because the NYCPS deemed their June 1 letters as “unacceptable“ because the letters did not meet the NYCPS “requirements “. It turns out that the NYCPS created a list of new requirements for the June 1 letters and did not disseminate these requirements to parents, schools or community organizations. These new requirements were applied retroactively and the parents and schools only found out about these newly created requirements in September 2024 – after it was too late to remedy
the June 1 letter.
These requirements do not conform with acceptable legal standards. For example, the NYCPS rejected all June 1 letters submitted by attorneys on behalf of their clients, despite clear precedent that this is acceptable (State Review Officer’s Decision 24–042).
The June 1 letter is only a requirement from parents of private school students with IESPs. Public school students with an IEP are exempt from this requirement. In a manner that defies logic, students who transitioned from public school to private school over the summer of 2024 have been denied services. During school year 24–25, NYCPS maintained that these parents had to submit a June 1 letter, even if the parent had no obligation to do so on June 1.
In December 2024, NYCPS disseminated a waiver to parents who submitted the June 1 letter late. This waiver forced parents to relinquish any claims to services that should have been delivered from September to December 2024. Agudath Israel of America is aware that hundreds of parents felt compelled to sign this waiver, even though they most likely would prevail at an impartial hearing, as they were anxious to obtain the desperately needed services for their suffering children.
It is a travesty that NYCPS concocted the scheme to deny services to the very students who they are charged with supporting.
For all of the above, Agudath Israel of America strongly supports this bill that aims to restore these denied services to the students who are legally mandated to receive them and urges its passage.
Click HERE to download the memo.