August 2023 – Special Educator e-Journal

Cheryl L. Burleigh, EdD

Andrea M. Wilson, PhD

Walden University

 

Erik Bean, EdD

University of Phoenix

***Adapted from the 2023 Spring/Summer edition of JAASEP

Abstract

From the onset of COVID-19, public K-12 schools were scrambling to keep classrooms open virtually providing all students with meaningful learning experiences. This study provides a synthesis of insights gained about K-12 special education service provision during COVID.

A content analysis benchmarking approaches to serving special education K-12 students during COVID-19 included a review of current literature, government, state documentation, and public advocacy data revealed the complexities of this issue. When services are not provided, the school is out of compliance, directly affecting students’ educations and the funding the school district receives to support special education programs. Furthermore, when school districts lacked the forethought to anticipate the unexpected or address how to serve students remotely, students were left to fend for themselves. This disruption in legally mandated services detrimentally affected these students and their special education teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, as well as caregivers. 

Keywords: Special education services, COVID, compliance, public K-12 schools, regions, special education teachers and caregivers

Public K-12 Education Response to Serving Special Education Students During COVID: A Content Analysis

With the onset of COVID-19, increased infection rates, and deaths among US citizens drastic measures were taken by individual states to protect the health and welfare of the populace. The burden of how and when to close K-12 public schools fell onto state governors and state led education agencies such as school boards of education, school superintendents, and departments of education. Public school closures were executed quickly with K-12 public school districts having to pivot to virtual or distance learning within a matter of days in March 2020. Students attending K-12 public schools may have received homework packets, projects, long-term assignments, laptops, or tablets which would allow for some resemblance of instruction that would have occurred in person. Initially, how long students would virtually attend school was the great unknown. Within the chaos that ensued, a specific population of K-12 public school students were not thoughtfully considered as to the impact virtual learning would have on their learning. This population, special education students who have active and ongoing individualized education program (IEP) direct services and accommodations. Students who have IEPs require various services and learning accommodations that are best provided in a structured classroom environment (CHADD, 2016; Reading Rockets, 2019).

When the physical learning environment and support providers are no longer available due to distance learning, the question becomes how are the students’ IEP services and accommodations being met, if at all. The special education departments within each school district will then rely on the guidance of their respective state and the federal government to be sure that IEP services can be provided in fear of falling out of compliance (Bar-Lev & Salzer, 2019; Lee, 2020). The goal of this literature review with content analysis was to identify how COVID-19 impacted K-12 public school special education students’ mandated IEP services and the possible solutions schools employed to support these students during the early days of COVID-19 and throughout the 2020-2021 school year.

Background

Before the implications of the COVID-19 global pandemic on special education students can be understood, the nature of the synergistic relationship between general education law and special education law must be brought into focus. The current K-12 public education system in the United States is governed by numerous federal statutes which began to emerge in the post-World War II era. The Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA; Public Law 89-10) and its subsequent reauthorizations play a major role in the operation of every K-12 school district in the country. The ESEA established a commitment of federal resources toward ensuring that all students be afforded equal opportunity to experience and benefit from public education. In essence, ESEA and its successor reauthorizations along with associated laws govern the operation of K-12 public schools throughout the nation for all students.

All K-12 public schools in the United States that receive federal education funding must operate in a manner that is consistent with the requirements of these laws. The vast majority of federal education laws were written with all students in mind. In essence, education of the entire K-12 student body of the United States, inclusive of all its special populations, is at the heart of these laws. However, for some student populations, there are additional laws in effect. One such group is special education students or students with disabilities. Special education students are a special class of students who were first singled out for special protection with the Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975, known more commonly as Public Law 94-142 (PL 94-142). PL 94-142 required all states that accepted federal money to provide equal access to education for all children with disabilities. This law, and its subsequent iterations via the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA; 20 U.S.C. § 1400, et. seq.) and others, makes it mandatory for all schools to provide equal access to education regardless of a student’s status as a student with a disability. In other words, students with disabilities cannot be denied access to the specialized educational services to which they are entitled under the law.

Special education laws take provision of specialized instruction to students with disabilities one step further. Students with disabilities are provided an individualized education plan (IEP) that is customized to suit the specific needs of the student (Autism Society, 2020). The IEP is a legally binding, written contract between the school and the student which must be followed. Further, the IEP can only be changed or amended through a detailed procedure that is designed to protect the rights of the student (Office of Civil Rights, 2020).

In times of normal school operation, these federal laws work together in an ongoing synergistic relationship to ensure that K-12 public education access is freely and equitably available to all students, regardless of needs (U.S. Department of Education, 2010). However, at no time prior to the COVID-19 global pandemic had the applicability of these laws been so tested. COVID-19 sparked a unique crisis in K-12 public education, nationwide.

In the early days of the global pandemic, K-12 public schools went into a state of full closure. All schools were shut down for all students. General education students and special education students alike were equally affected by schools being closed (Cerna et al., 2020; Lee, 2020). That is to say, schools were closed for all students for a specific period of time much like when schools close for a few days due to weather emergencies or other local emergencies. Under the federal guidance, when schools are closed for all students, other requirements under said laws may also be suspended for all students. However, as soon as schools reopen for all students, all of the federal laws must be followed (Lee, 2020; Press Office, 2021).

During the COVID-19 crisis, the reopening of schools was geared toward the provision of services to general education students via virtual, hybrid, and other modified instructional formats. These formats might be appropriate for provision of basic educational services to the average student, but these formats presented significant and unique challenges for the education of special education students whose educations are governed by IEPs (Gavin, 2020).

As soon as schools reopened for all students, the existing, pre-school closure IEPs of special education students were required to be followed as written and in the absence of existing or well-thought-out remote learning plans (Gavin, 2020). Students with specialized services including one-on-one work with paraprofessionals or other service providers, nursing care, physical and occupational therapy services, and many other specialized methods of support and instruction were required to restart in a virtual or otherwise compromised environment. These highly specialized and labor intensive special educational services are structured for provision within a typical school environment, not within the individual homes of students nor across an internet connection.

With the virtual and partial reopening of schools, educators were expected to provide the services written in IEPs to students via current instructional delivery methods which could not support such services (U.S. Department of Education, 2020a). As a result, in too many cases, special education students were left without the very necessary specialized services to which they were entitled, thereby opening the possibility of requiring compensatory educational services in the future (Gavin, 2020; U.S. Department of Education, 2020b, 2020c). Thus, for the students with disabilities, the education experience was upended not only in the general education setting as it was for all students, but also in the provision of their specialized educational services mandated by the IEP.

Purpose

The purpose of this scoping literature review was to systematically explore, categorize, and chart the available research to reveal the shortcomings of public K-12 virtual learning of students with an emphasis on exceptional children and special needs populations. In K-12 public education, the emphasis on supporting these students may be dramatically impacted during unprecedented events, such as a global pandemic. Additional purposes of this study were to define gaps in the current literature, provide a synthesis of insights gained about structures of public K-12 special education services, and to stimulate a potential dialogue among schools, Special Education teachers, and caregivers of special needs students.

Research Question

The research questions allowed for an exploration of available data using a categorical reasoning approach. The research question and subquestions guiding this study include the following:

Research Question: How were special education students or students identified needing assistance as related to their public K-12 school social experiences and performance impacted in receiving the services mandated by their individual education program (IEP) while schools conducted classes via virtual learning due to COVID-19?

Sub Question 1: How were public K-12 students with an IEP affected by the reduction or loss of mandated services by their service provider or special education teacher during COVID-19?

Sub Question 2:  What possible solutions were enacted by public K-12 schools to provide services to support students who have an IEP?

Method and Design

The method of this study was a scoping literature review with a systematic content analysis. The research design is appropriate for this study since the topic is of great interest to individuals in the realm of public K-12 education, legal, governmental jurisdictions, professional organizations, medicine, parents, and caregivers of exceptional children and students with special needs. Since the topic zeros in on a specific demographic of students, public K-12, the sheer volume of information on the topic is vast. Therefore, a scoping literature review allows for the researchers to cast a broad net to find applicable resources, then allowing for refinement of specific data that answers the study’s research questions.

Procedure and Data Analysis

This literature review was organized using procedures developed by Cooper (1998) to synthesize the literature. Cooper (1985, 1986,1988) previously developed a specific structural framework to organize and categorize literature from various perspectives and then developed a research framework to support synthesis of literature. The Cooper (1998) framework structures a literature synthesis to include directions for how to a) formulate the problem, (b) collect data, (c) judge data for fit or alignment to the purpose of the study, (d) appraise and interpret the data determined to be relevant, and e) categorize, assemble, and present the products.

Formulating the Problem

The problem is that little is known as to the impact COVID-19 has had on services for K-12 public special education students which are required by Federal and state law. Such services may not have been delivered by special education teachers due to restrictions in place for social interaction and personal engagement in closed settings such as schools due to the pandemic. When services and accommodations are not provided based on a student’s IEP, the school is then out of compliance, which directly affects the student’s education as well as the federal and state funding the school and school district receives to support special education programs.

The focus of the present study was on the provision of required IEP services for special education populations and if K-12 public schools in various regions of the United States were able to meet those specific requirements during the COVID-19 closing of schools. Formulating the problem was conducted by completing a broad, cursory review of the literature consistent with Cooper’s Step A (1998). The initial review of the literature revealed the extent of how IEP services and accommodations were and were not met by states within specific regions of the US, the role of individual K-12 public school teachers, parents and guardians, caretakers, and advocacy groups who support special education students. A deeper dive into the literature may be needed when formulating the specific problem since the topic of meeting IEP accommodations in K-12 public schools during the time of COVID-19 was still evolving. More research may be needed to fully understand how the absence of IEP accommodations could be affecting the educational progress of special education K-12 public school students.

Literature Search Procedures

Sampling data collection was completedbyincorporating Cooper’s Step B (1998). The literature analysis included qualitative, quantitative, mixed methods, empirical research, theoretical and conceptual analyses, and commentaries, as well as literature reviews. Articles and data evaluated were current (2020-2021), and pertinent to the purpose of this study. The criteria of relevancy were defined as related to the study intent and research questions as the search process evolves. The systemic search used databases such as EBSCOhost, ProQuest, and SAGE Knowledge Journals. These databases were selected since various peer-reviewed journals are published on current topics affecting public education. ResearchGate was included as a source for potential articles because researchers often share their work with other researchers via this web-based collaborative. Other modes of a systematic search include specific state department of education websites, professional organizational web-based journal publications, advocacy groups and legal organizations who support the rights of special education populations and specific K-12 students. Specific search terms were generated from keywords or phrases found within the articles and based on the final content analysis. A list of keywords and variations of each were saved for future reference when developing the final manuscript of the study.

Criteria used to determine fitwas based onarticles were reviewed for relevance for the time period of March 2020 through the end of the 2020-2021 school year, June 2021. Intercoder agreement similar to other such content analysis searches included all three authors who scored the relevancy for the articles to be included based on the search criteria. Those where little agreement was found were removed after sufficient discussion on their possible merit (Anderson et al., 2008; Houchins et al., 2016; Knight et al., 2020).

In an effort to evaluate the COVID-19’s effect on the K-12 education sector, this study relied upon federal, state, and professional organization websites as a lens through which the process of responding could be viewed. A preliminary search for federal and national professional organizations guidance for and recommendations to state and local school systems was conducted. In addition, other reputable sources for education related information and specialized resources addressing the needs of students with disabilities were included. Federal agencies’ guidance was released early in the pandemic crisis with several updates over time; however, as the length of the pandemic drew on, the guidance from the federal government seemed to decline. As a result, responsibility for handling the crisis in education shifted to the state departments of education followed by the local school systems.

With this shift in mind, this study took an intentionally balanced perspective in investigating the states’ issued guidance on providing educational services during the pandemic. States were divided into regions based on the current configuration of U.S. time zones (N = 22). States were intentionally selected for inclusion in the analysis by first selecting highly populated states in each region as well as states with smaller population size within the same region. This ensured inclusion of urban, suburban, and rural school districts within each regional sample and in the total sample. Due to large differences in the geographic size of states in each region, the number of states selected from each region varied (Eastern n = 9; Central n = 5; Mountain n = 4; Pacific n = 4). The search for states concluded once the data indicated saturation with regard to policies and practices.

Data Evaluation

To effectively develop the literature review, the study included articles based on firsthand experiences, empirical evidence, state department of education data, requirements and recommendations, and records of application or absence of K-12 public special education student IEP accommodations during school closures as the result of COVID-19. Articles were initially reviewed, appraised, and interpreted, as defined by Cooper’s Step D (1998), to be relevant for the current study. The criteria related to the study’s intent and research questions served in the selection process of evaluating each of the articles collaboratively examined. Based on the evaluation process, essential words or terms were identified and included in subsequent searches (see Appendix) which reduced the total number of articles reviewed to 20 which served as the population for this study.

Sample Selection Process and Parameters

Each of the articles was reviewed for consistency to the study design inclusive of K-12 education, special education services during COVID-19, IEP compliance during COVID-19, population, sample, and results. The abstract or entire article were reviewed to further validate articles for the study sample. From the initial list of 90 articles, 32 articles were selected for more intensive analysis based on consistent fit to parameters of the study. Each team member collaborated in discussions to identify a final sample of articles after an extensive review and discussion based on the same criteria which represented the best fit to meet the goals of this study. An additional complete literature search was conducted six months after the initial search. The subsequent search was used to confirm if no new research on the topic has emerged.

The intent of this study was to review all pertinent articles for relevance on the topic of COVID-19 regarding Special Education compliance of IEP services in public K-12 school settings for the period of March 2020 through June 2021, inclusive of the entire 2020-2021 school year. Since the systematic review of literature was bounded by researchers’ choices, there is the likelihood that existing research may have been inadvertently excluded. We, as a research team, value global perspectives, however for the purposes of this study the focus was on U.S. based research due to the relevancy of the context of this study.

Appraise and Interpret Data Relevance

The literature review process, data evaluation, and analysis were conducted incorporating Cooper’s Step D (1998). Consistent with established criteria, selected articles focused on aspects of how K-12 public school special education students who have IEP accommodations were impacted when classes were conducted virtually during COVID-19, did these same students see a reduction or loss of mandated services, and what were the possible solutions public K-12 schools employed to provide services to support students who have an IEP. This approach is driven by the intent to learn how COVID-19 disrupted traditional in-person accommodations and services as mandated by IEPs and provided to special education students in public K-12 schools throughout the five regions of the U.S. Descriptive categories were developed for the initial analysis of each article: topic, research design, population, and results related to the research questions.

Findings

State and Regional Resources

As COVID-19 spread across the nation, K-12 public schools were forced to make difficult decisions to close their doors and temporarily suspend education services for all students in an effort to protect the health and safety of students and employees alike. Widespread shutdowns across the economy also affected the support services needed to keep schools up and running. While local school systems began making their own decisions to close their doors in late February and early March of 2020, the federal government did not offer guidance to the state and local boards of education about how to provide support to students with disabilities until March 12, 2020 (U.S. Department of Education, 2020a), March 21, 2020 (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2020b), and September 28, 2020 (U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights, 2020c). At best, the federal guidance and the releases that followed were confusing (Gavin, 2020). In many instances, legal professionals and education organizations attempted to fill in the gap left by the federal government in an effort to advocate for the educational protections afforded to students with disabilities across the nation (see KSB School Law, 2020; MBM Law, 2020; National Association of School Psychologists, 2020). This gap in communication left state and local boards of education to figure out best practices to follow on their own.

As time went on, state departments of education began to fill the void left by inadequate federal guidance and support systems. State departments of education took it upon themselves to devise best practices for their school districts that they believed would be aligned to the requirements of the federal law and state regulations. In some states, state boards of education placed the burden for these decisions on the local school districts. This uncoordinated process produced tremendous variability in the level of education and support services that were afforded to students with disabilities.

As the states’ individual departments of education took up the slack for federal government mismanagement, the landscape of education resources became increasingly confusing and disjointed. State boards of education and other state-level education agencies pushed out a tremendous number of resources to local education agencies, educators, and parents. However, these abundant resources were rolled out via haphazard online systems that were poorly designed and lacked a user-friendly interface. Hundreds, if not thousands, of websites and loosely connected communication networks served as the base for disseminating information and resources that should have been beneficial to educators and parents alike. Yet, these systems were often confusing and overwhelming to those who were in most need of the support. At a time when all education was virtual education, even the best designed systems lacked an easy to use and intuitive interface that is a prerequisite of success for expert and novice users alike.

Synopsis of Events

Stage 1: Chaos and Closure

Awareness of COVID-19 was emerging late in 2019 and the beginning of 2020, raising concern not only in the United States, but also around the world. Schools were not sure how to prepare for the possibility of a pandemic reaching the shores of the United States and the potential impact the virus may have on educating students. When COVID-19 gripped the West Coast, schools had to determine, based on the guidance of their respective governors and state boards of education, the process of closing schools. Most school districts in the states of Washington, Oregon, and California thought they would be closed for a few days or up to a couple of weeks (Modan, 2020). During this time, school districts also had no distance learning options in place to continue educating their students. Even though all students in K-12 public schools were directly impacted by the school closures, the student population that was affected the hardest were students with special needs. As the populace were being infected with COVID-19 at an unprecedented rate, by March 2020 school closures were in place for more than three quarters of states and Kansas was the first state to officially announce that school closures would take place until the end of the school year (Modan, 2020).

The dramatic impact of school closures on students with special needs had parents questioning if and how services would be provided, especially for students with mental health, learning difficulties, and those requiring outside providers such as occupational therapists (Becker et al., 2020). Taking care of specific student populations was not a consideration of school districts, instead a focus was on how to move from an in-person teaching to distance learning and the challenges teaching virtually would bring (Modan, 2020). School districts were concerned with having the bandwidth to support the majority of their student populations, especially low-income school districts and communities, with technology, internet access (Grant, 2021), or having packets of schoolwork available for distribution. An additional issue that impacted teachers, including special education providers was how to provide virtual support for students when not having the experience of teaching online or resources (Modan, 2020; Tremmel et al., 2020)

Genztel feared, as the executive director and CEO of the National School Boards Association, schools will face shortages of staff to support students with special needs including “occupational therapists, psychologists, speech therapists and other specialists” (Modan, 2020, para. 24). Besides the concerns with providing the services, maintaining compliance of IEP meetings and other IDEA timelines was an issue that would need to be addressed in a creative and coordinated effort between service providers and parents (Grant, 2021).

Stage 2: The Virtual Pivot Begins

By the end of March until mid-June 2020, school districts throughout the United States were trying to develop processes to assist students in acquiring technology to support virtual learning. This challenge was magnified in Title 1 schools and low-income school districts where technology such as tablets and in-home based internet is seen as a luxury (Grant, 2021). The concern that became apparent to special education teachers, service providers, and parents or guardians of students with special needs is that of meeting the curricular needs of these students while distance learning and in holding virtual IEP meetings (Barack, 2020) would necessitate dedicated resources provided by the school (Tremmel et al., 2020). How specific IEPs services and accommodations were to be met was a driving concern for both special education departments and parents/guardians. The IEP is cumbersome at best and difficult to navigate (Barack, 2020) leaving schools trying to direct and align specific resources to students with special needs that may be required based on their diverse learning styles (Davis, 2021).

The inclusion of equity and accessibility of requisite resources to support student learning accommodations must be considered (Pittman et al., 2021). Special education teachers and specialists needed to quickly learn various platforms and software suites such as Google and Microsoft to find specific tools to support their students. Those built-in tools include Read Aloud, text-to-speech, and assistive technologies such as closed captioning. To support their students, special education teachers were having to learn how to teach “on the fly and at a brutal pace” (Schlichtmann as cited in Jacobson, 2020, para. 3) in the attempt to minimally meet the accommodations and services set forth in the students’ IEPs to try to maintain compliance.

Educators, recognizing special education students would need extensive academic support especially during distance learning when their paraprofessional may not be physically accessible, expressed the possibility that special education students, who have highly individualized needs, may feel the impact of learning loss at a greater rate than the general education population (Barack, 2020; Jones, 2020; Lesh, 2020). Even though, educational settings are still required and responsible for meeting the tenets of IEPs under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) by providing free and appropriate public education (FAPE) regardless of the instructional approach to students with special needs (Arundel, 2020a) the challenge of doing so in a manner that would be similar to in-person learning proved to be daunting. Many school districts throughout the United States were still trying to find a way to support the general education student population and relied heavily on special education teachers to come up with support systems on their own with little, if any, assistance from their school’s administration or district (Jones, 2020). When special education teachers needed to shift to online learning, the IEPs of their students needed to be updated to accommodate the modality, with parental agreement to those changes, in which the students were being taught (Jones, 2020). One challenge faced, arranging for parents or guardians to meet with their student’s special education teacher online to discuss modifications to the IEP. The reason, not all parents’ or guardians’ households had access to computers at home, thus a digital divide was evident (Aissaoui, 2021; Jones, 2020).

Student educational achievement and success is often linked to the support systems available, inclusive of parental or guardian involvement (Chen, 2020). When COVID-19 forced the closure of schools, the home-based support system of parents or guardians were thrust into an unfamiliar role, the primary educator of their students. The responsibility for teaching special education students during COVID-19 early on in the school closures period fell largely on the shoulders of the parents or guardians (Garbe et al., 2020). Accessibility to support student learning who have IEPs was one of the struggles and challenges parents and guardians faced (Garbe et al., 2020). In part, this was due to the capacity requirements of students with special needs that could not be met by their teachers because of inadequate infrastructures, resources, and support from schools (Garbe et al., 2020). The burden to educate these students from a traditional classroom setting to distance learning shifted to the students’ household; however, parents and guardians were not equipped to support their student’s educational needs and accommodations due to the “lack of time, content knowledge or pedagogy, communications, and/or resources” (Garbe et al., p. 59).

Stage 3: Preparation for Combined Virtual and Face-to-Face Reopening

The first few months of school closures for parents and guardians of special needs students proved to be challenging (Jacobson, 2020). Parents and guardians were placed in the position to serve as their student’s special education teacher and service provider. When students were not able to follow established daily routines which were set in place by their service providers in a learning environment other than the classroom, many of these same students struggled academically, socially, and behaviorally (Jacobson, 2020).

Due to school closures, students with special needs could have significant learning loss which will require “more intensive services that they didn’t require” (Bateman as cited in Jacobson, 2020, para. 6) prior to the global pandemic. Although flexibility has been granted by the Department of Education, under DeVos, to help schools transition (Modan, 2020) to in-person and hybrid learning, concerns still exist regarding accessibility of support services. DeVos noted that Congress would not need to waiver other provisions (Modan, 2020) to assist schools as they put in place services to support students with special needs when schools reopen for the 2020-2021 school year. Thus, the burden is placed on schools to try to adhere to the IEP timelines while developing plans to fully transition to online learning (Jones, 2020). The difficulties for school districts lie in finding solutions for the social, emotional, and behavioral functional services their students with special needs require. Therefore, school districts were placed in a position to dissolve traditional means of communicating with parents/guardians and to accelerate the development of robust collaborative networks with families and community partners to assist students who require specialized services according to their IEPs (Modan, 2020). To assist in the facilitation of virtual IEP meetings, beginning in the Fall of 2020, recommendations were made to school districts to send prerequisite materials in advance of the IEP meetings to parents/guardians to review and to encourage the use of cameras during the meetings along with the use of screen sharing to engage all parties to increase the productivity of the virtual IEP meetings (Barack, 2020; Jones, 2020; Nissman, 2020). Understanding how to navigate virtual services could, in the long run, improve accessibility to providers and improve the delivery of services for students when schools are due to reopen for the 2020-2021 school year.

In preparation to returning to in-person or hybrid learning, schools will need to “evaluate the kids like crazy for serious regression” (Bateman as cited in Jacobson, 2020, para. 6) in order to determine if current IEP accommodations are valid or if those accommodations will need to be modified. In such instances, both parents/guardians and school districts will need to open the lines of communication and collaborate to make sure students with special needs, on a case-by-case basis, have the resources and accommodations in place to fully support the learning needs and meet the deadlines set forth in the student’s IEP (Barack, 2020; Modan, 2020). To exacerbate the situation, universal guidance offered by the Department of Education falls short, relying heavily on state education departments or governments to provide instructions on how schools should move forward to support students with IEPs. The approaches for how to support effectively and efficiently students with special needs vary from state to state and district to district. For example, the California 2020 Budget Act included a reporting requirement if a school was to be closed for more than 10 days. Special Education teams would need to outline in detail how students who have IEPs would receive individualized instruction and services (Arundel, 2020b). The state of New Hampshire enacted an emergency order which required schools to hold within the first 30 days of the 2020-2021 school year IEP meetings for all qualifying students (Arundel, 2020b). The purpose of the meetings is for the IEP teams to determine if additional services will need to be provided to students based on the regression of skills or the absence of such services during COVID induced school closures (Arundel, 2020b). Vermont required by September15, 2020 individual service pages added to student IEPs detailing how services would be provided if the student were to continue with online learning, attend in-person, or a hybrid learning model (Arundel, 2020b).

While some students with disabilities thrived during COVID induced distance learning, other students need physical classroom instruction to obtain the services to deter learning regression (Arundel, 2020b). The Office of Civil Rights (OCR) noted that schools could be “required to provide in-person instruction for students with disabilities based on their individual needs” (Arundel, 2020a, para 2). The reopening of schools to support students with special needs will need to consider the welfare of not only the students, but also the teachers and support providers before moving forward to in-person instruction. A concern was expressed by Almazan (as cited in Arundel, 2020a), legal director for the Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates Inc., “we know students with disabilities are disproportionately affected by distance learning” (para 8). Therefore, schools still need to uphold their responsibility to execute the Individual with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and IEPs by providing Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) with high fidelity regardless of how services and curriculum are delivered or the state guidance that is provided (Arundel, 2020b). Saideman (as cited in Jacobson, 2020) acknowledged the problem is a “public health emergency” (para. 7) that will require coordination and creative solutions between parents/guardians, special education teachers, service providers, and school districts.

Stage 4: Blended Reopening Phase  

Stage 4 occurred in a four-to-six-month period arriving in the Fall of 2020 through Winter 2021, a period where special education found itself wallowing away from a host of pandemic bound challenges for general education, to a conundrum now underlined with a sense of immediacy. In the Fall of 2020, a Tufts University report said, “parents of special needs children have struggled through a trial-and-error process to find what works—and what doesn’t—to encourage their children to engage with virtual education and/or in-person education that looks much different than it did before COVID-19” (Nelson, 2020, para 3). The stance was taken from Leadnra Elion, a lecturer in the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Study and Human Development. “Elion said she understands that schools are overwhelmed as they adapt to virtual learning and enhance safety measures inside school buildings to comply with COVID-19 guidelines” (Nelson, 2020, para 13). Nelson’s article documented the current state of IEPs that for most states were problematic carried out online.

Websites become the preferred choice to quickly disseminate the most important requirements typically associated with providing continued services in the vacuum of prospective online meetings and the digital divide’s firm grip among many families struggling not only to connect to the internet, but to integrate collaborative platforms and the physical or intellectual challenges so their special education students were able, let alone willing, to obediently follow along. For example, in Michigan, the Michigan Department of Education (MDE) had formally provided its recommendation on best practices and efficacy for preparing special education students, administrators, and faculty to return to school in August 2020.

According to a 17-page guide none of the 6 priority recommendations were meant to subvert any legal advice, but practical measures in consideration of the best science with respect to social distancing, sanitizing, and practices shared by all returning schools on physical premises. With regard to the special education students themselves the number 1 priority was to assure such students continued to qualify for a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). The second priority is to be certain that each special education student FAPE is based on an in-person (brick-and-mortar) setting and that consideration of any remote serving strives to meet the guidelines. A third priority is to assist the parents via counseling and training to support their special education student and the necessary IEP requirements.

34 CFR § 300.34 of the IDEA states that related services include parent counseling and training. The purpose of parent counseling and training is to assist parents in acquiring skills to support the implementation of children’s IEPs. In some cases, this may involve helping the parent to gain skills needed to support IEP goals and objectives at home. (MDE, 2020, p. 7, para 3)

The fourth priority included a formal IEP assessment, followed by priority 5 to review the actual impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to determine if recovery services were needed by December 2020 and to priority 6, prioritize those recovery services. The guide acknowledged that students may have experienced trauma from lack of physical school activities and each district must monitor what it can to assess damage. In nearby Indiana, the requirements to serve those with special needs in public education had not changed under the many challenges of remote learning that COVID has spurred. According to Michael and Kerr (2020),

The reassuring thing for families is that while the world of education has changed, the laws as to what must be provided for children with special needs have not. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a federal law that requires appropriate education plans and supports for children with special needs. Its Indiana-based counterpart is Article 7 of the Indiana Code. (para. 3)

Thus, the assurance is still on the public schools which must provide the technology for special education students to be able to communicate between administrators and resource teachers, for example. And if students need paper and traditional books, those were to be delivered to them. Any more intensive student needs where the school cannot serve, the school must provide a private service provider. The Indianapolis Bar Association contributors maintained that accommodations from one special needs student to another can vary considerably including how each student accepts the use of wearing a mask in person. Moreover, what each school system considers enough protection can vary from one to another and each requires a different student intervention even before the basic learning objectives are the focus of that student’s IEP time.

Above all, says Michael and Kerr (2020), parents must communicate to the school about their child’s needs. Nevertheless, states are pumping out resources for teachers on websites – extensive supply of information and support materials. But a special education family crush persists. There is an impending and persistent question that continues throughout the educational pandemic landscape where we posit out of sight out of mind, how does delaying the face-to-face reopening influence student progress and response from organizations/government?

Much depends on the voices of special education parents and the various state laws that could potentially cost districts in potential lawsuits for lack of services or services so watered down just keeping touch becomes a challenge. As the challenges of the Fall of 2020 continued to burden special education departments returning to school nationwide, Education Dive (2020) reported that providing a free appropriate public education amid COVID-19 has been a staggering challenge for students with special needs. “Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), these students are guaranteed the right to a ‘free appropriate public education.’ Providing those services in remote environments for students with a vast range of special needs” (Education Dive, 2020, para 2).

Accomplishing that objective is a staggering proposition. The article recounted six published stories it offered throughout the nearly first three quarters of 2020 on IEP implementations, how schools can prioritize reopening based on special needs, supporting IEPs remotely, the need to create certainty and clarity in delivering services remotely, ed tech coalition for special needs students, and the initial school closing in almost all states. Under the leadership of Betsy DeVos, the Amway family dynasty heiress who held the United States Department of Education directorship in August 2020, Vos asked for waiver requests to provide flexibility for timelines under IDEA. “But the flexibilities called for by the U.S. Department of Education don’t completely align with what education leaders had conveyed were necessary” (Modan, 2020, para. 2). But the measure was only for toddlers who needed evaluations. Ultimately, local districts would continue to progress with provided services virtually as most continued to struggle through new realities.

Due to a variety of conditions, local school district choices, public sentiment ready to accept the responsibility of safety measures needed, as well as demand, the Southeast region was among all the regions ready to return to physical in-person general education instruction. Thus, the Southeast was among the first to accommodate IEP type students face-to-face more readily. We speculate that well distributed and available information helped to accentuate the return. For example, the widely publicized COVID-19 safety telephone hotline, an HTML guide to return aboard the GeorgiaInsights.com website, and the power of local community stakeholders each contributed to such a demand (GeorgiaInsight.com).

Throughout Stage 4 several observations persist. The digital divide continues its grip not only for lack of Internet access and proper computer equipment, but for parents, caregivers, and significant others who must accompany their special education student during online collaborative sessions, dealing with wanky connections, camera, and microphone issues as well.

Stage 5: Full Reopening Phase

As the winter of 2021 progresses the vast majority of schools are at or near full face-to-face, but the lag in reopening still looms large in sprawling urban areas such as New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. Even so the openings remain fragile and continue to be compromised by students, faculty, or staff that test COVID-19 positive. For example, California braced for a surge in the needs of special education students by enacting an assembly bill (AB), AB- 86 COVID-19 Relief and school reopening, reporting, and public health requirements. California Governor Newsom signed California Assembly Bill-86 dubbed Disability Rights California 2021 was signed into law on March 5, 2021. “AB 86 has new requirements for learning recovery and school reopening. These new requirements encourage schools to provide in-person instruction to students (this includes hybrid models)” (Disability Rights California, 2021, para 3).

A Learning Recovery Fund totaling about 4.6 billion must be used by schools to develop plans for learning loss and must support students with disabilities (Disability Rights California, 2021). A laundry list of the types of services schools can offer in the wake of COVID-19 is revealed. From tutoring and mental health services to school meals and developing community learning hubs with high-speed internet access, for example. This includes the requirement of a public meeting to adopt an Expanded Learning Opportunity grant plan for fund use (Disability Rights California, 2021).

As the traditional 2020-2021 public school year neared its closing in May 2021 California provided a good example of what it took to return to face-to-face classes and some of the many obstacles that continue to stand in its way. Staff shortages, lack of data, particularly on the effectiveness of what can help with the return to in person classes, and a backlog of IEP evaluations kept most districts limping along. For the most part as Jones (2021) reported,

For students with disabilities, the pandemic has been a landscape of extremes. Some have thrived with distance learning and want to continue in the fall, while many have languished without the in-person support of therapists and teachers and have lost ground academically, socially, and emotionally. (para. 1)

Some bright spots, if you will, stood out along the Stage 5 reopening in certain geographical areas. For example, the South and Central Midwest states moved faster through stages. Yet all regions were mired with budgetary and support issues. Special education students seemed to take a back ride before general education challenges were met. In some cases, state policy dictated school system policy. A good metaphor to sum up reaching stage five can be likened to building the plane while flying it. The best word that continues to describe the sign of the times, burnt out. Teachers, faculty, staff, parents, and students alike, each weary of not only the day-to-day challenges of special needs students, but each wondering if any signs of progress would yield permanent intellectual and growth results and the ramifications of delayed learning and the ever-present force of those who might be held back.

Discussion

This study revealed that the pool of existing literature about the direct impact of COVID-19 on IEP services for students with special needs was limited. While these authors recognized the depth of literature available on the impact of COVID on distance learning of the general education population and the potential consequences, the same could not be said for the special needs population of students. For students with disabilities, the direct impact of lost school and service time is likely to be skills regression, failure to recoup lost skills, as well as loss of progress in learning. Thus, the potential impact of COVID-19 school closures and disruptions in education is likely to run deeper and longer for these affected students.

This study raises important questions for public K-12 schools and the contexts in which students with special needs are obtaining services as mandated within IEPs during a time of crisis. In other crisis events, such as natural disasters, contingency plans are in place within the school and/or school district to support students with special needs as to mitigate the length of time in which the disruption occurs. No such emergency contingency plans are in existence for public health related disruptions as shown by findings of this study.

Beyond the services as mandated within the students’ IEPs, another consideration raised by the current investigation is the social, emotional, and behavior (SEB) functioning losses that may have occurred during the global pandemic. The implications of school closures and disruptions extend far beyond the academic performance of students with disabilities, many of whom have functional as well as social, emotional, and behavioral deficits that impede their academic progress. For these students, if the strides made in SEB prior to COVID are lost completely, it remains unknown what additional services and supports will be needed to recoup those losses if it is possible to recoup them at all.

Implications

During an unforeseen event, such as COVID-19, public K-12 educational systems were scrambling to find a means to keep classrooms open virtually to provide students with a meaningful classroom experience. Within this same context, public K-12 schools did not adequately address or robustly put into place the required services for their exceptional students and students with special needs. When school districts do not have the forethought to anticipate the unknown or immediately address the issue at hand, this specific population of public K-12 students are left to fend for themselves. The immediacy of special education services was not being addressed. Therefore, a disruption occurs in the mandated services these students so desperately need which affects not only the student, but also the special education teachers, paraprofessionals, parents, and caregivers.

Limitations

The authors recognize the use of a scoping literature review may affect the outcome of the results of this study that is bound by a specific contextual time frame based on a global event. For this study, the boundaries of the literature review included all known research found from March of 2020, when the majority of public schools began to close for face-to-face instruction, until June 2021, the end of the 2020-2021 school year. This specific study, the authors believe, illustrates how a literature review can be executed to find specific trends, themes, and current relevant research on the topic of the execution of services as mandated in IEPs of students with special needs within specific regions of the U.S. and the five identified stages as discussed in the findings. The limitation for this specific study is the number of peer reviewed journal articles available on the topic; therefore, the dataset needed to be expanded to include other sources of viable research and information based on the parameters of the study. While the authors of this study believe the methods were exhaustive at the time of this publication, there is the possibility that other relevant studies may have been published.

Future Research

Future studies could investigate how distance learning during the time of COVID affects student performance based on the rollout of closure and reopening plans, if mandated attendance was enacted, and the possible differences in services available and executed based on school location of an urban, suburban, or rural setting. Additionally, further research is likely warranted to investigate the connection between state, regional, and local crisis management plans and how those plans are disseminated to the local school districts in a coordinated effort to determine the effectiveness to support students with special needs.

Within the literature review, several articles (Barack, 2020; Jones, 2020; Nissman, 2020; Tremmel et al., 2020) focused on the facilitation of IEP meetings virtually when possible. Follow up research may be necessitated to disseminate the possible benefits of moving IEP meetings to a virtual environment to improve compliance and communication with all parties to support special needs students. As there were with virtual instruction for students, it will take time and a coordinated effort on the part of schools and educators to properly train and support parents in order that IEP meetings are accessible, welcoming environments that are designed for the benefit of the student.

Ultimately, for the majority of all public-school districts, lessons learned or improvements will not be evident until the 2021-2022 academic year has time to adapt during the new face-to-face realities and those districts are simply fed up with online alternatives. This leaves the current state of education during COVID-19 and beyond ripe for future research. Suggestions for such research include: (a) investigation of U.S. regional (east, central, mountain, west) or locality (urban vs. suburban vs. rural) differences in student performance outcomes; (b) long-term vs. rolling school closures effect on student performance; (c) virtual vs. hybrid vs. face-to-face instructional delivery effect on student outcomes; (d) differences between mandatory attendance and non-mandatory attendance states/districts; (e) regression vs. failure to make progress and the need for compensatory educational services; (f) impact of losing performance data creating gaps in teachers’ data-driven instructional planning practices; (g) impact of delayed access to service eligibility during initial placement and re-eligibility determination; (h) performance losses beyond academics including social, emotional, behavioral functioning.

Conclusions

For this specific study, we concluded the literature review in June 2021 since the vast majority of public K-12 schools had ended the 2020-2021 school year. These same school systems were starting to anticipate how and when face-to-face instruction would occur and what the classroom would look like for students in the upcoming 2021-2022 school year. Based on the findings of this study, the delivery of instruction and services for students with IEPs would not appear the same for the 2021-2022 school year. School districts are struggling to re-open schools safely for the general education population and the thought of how to support students with special needs may not be a top priority.

As school districts and educational agencies continue to grapple with the effects of the pandemic, they must consider the most vulnerable populations, students with special needs. The perspectives of this population of students are essential in helping to learn what is needed to avoid a disruption of educational and support services. The key is to continue to work towards understanding the differing circumstances of students to help them be successful in the event the services and learning opportunities they know are shuttered.

Finding ways to address what school districts need to prepare for future events requires a continuous examination to assess what happened during the COVID-19 pandemic. The systems most school districts have in place to deal with natural disasters should be developed further in anticipation for a future traumatic event that cripples or shuts down in-person learning. While governmental agencies at the state and local level and school districts can use the findings from this study to continue to support students with special needs through the presence of the pandemic, the results might be able to shed light on programs, processes, and services that can be improved and implemented during ‘normal’ times and in future states of emergency.

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About the Authors

 

Cheryl L. Burleigh, EdD, is a Contributing Faculty member in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University. Over the course of the last 17 years, she has been a faculty member, research fellow in residence, and university supervisor of higher education faculty and teacher licensure candidates for several universities within the colleges of education and educational leadership, general studies, and doctoral studies. She has extensive experience within K-12 and higher education, educational coaching, and consulting as a fully credentialed educator in the fields of educational leadership and science education. Her K-12 education career included leading programs for NASA, teaching the sciences, and working in administrative leadership positions in public, private, and charter schools in the United States, Europe, and Africa. Dr. Burleigh is a widely published author with a focus on relevant issues that affect the field of education and education leadership in the K-12 and higher education sectors. Her research interests include current issues in K-12 and higher education, science education, emerging educators, educational leadership, policies and governance in education, and technology applications in education.

ORCID Number

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2393-5477

Andrea M. Wilson,PhD, is a current Core Faculty member in the Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership at Walden University. She has served for the last 15 years as a member of the faculty and field supervisor for multiple universities teaching and advising students in the fields of education leadership and administration, special education, research methods and statistics, and psychology. Dr. Wilson has extensive experience in the K-12 public education sector as a teacher, behavior interventionist, and special education district leader. She is a fully certified educator in the fields of educational leadership and special education. Dr. Wilson is a published author with current research interests in the retention and success of students and faculty in online higher education, collaborative teaming approaches to research and scholarly activity, best practices in school discipline and leadership, as well as technology applications in education. In the Summer of 2019, Dr. Wilson was the honored recipient of Walden University’s prestigious Presidential Award for Faculty Excellence.

ORCID Number

orcid.org/0000-0002-1471-654X

Erik Bean,EdD is Associate University Research Chair, Center for Leadership Studies and Organizational Research, University of Phoenix, and is the Leadership Perspectives section editor for the Journal of Leadership Studies (Wiley). In addition to more than 20 years of experience teaching higher education English composition, journalism, leadership, cyber communications, and critical thinking classes for example, Dr. Bean is a retired, but active K-12 public education teacher who specializes in study skills (K-8) and computer aided instructional lessons. He is the author of several popular educational books such as Social Media Writing Lesson Plans, Using Microsoft Word AutoCorrect for Rigorous Grading, WordPress for Student Writing Projects, and his most recent effort Bias Is All Around You: A Handbook for Inspecting Social Media & News Stories. 

ORCID Number orcid.org0000-0003-4731-2135

Web of Science Researcher ID Q-1835-2015

 

Appendix

 

Primary and Secondary Search Terms Used for Study

Special Education and COVID-19

Special Education

Special Needs Population

Exceptional Students

Exceptional Children

IEP services

Special Needs

COVID

Special education services

Student Disabilities

K-12

Public Schools

State Departments of Education

US Department of Education

Compliance Issues during COVID

Compliance

Virtual, Distance Learning

State guidance on special education services during COVID

State Department of Education guidance on special education services during COVID