New Colorado law expands disability protections for students amid federal education changes
As students return to classrooms across Colorado this fall, advocates say a new state law will protect some of its most vulnerable students from discrimination.
The law, SB26-125, prohibits public schools from discriminating against students with disabilities, requiring equal access to programs and reasonable accommodations. It also creates state oversight at the Colorado Department of Education, grievance procedures, and enforcement mechanisms to ensure schools comply.
Advocates say the law was motivated in part by changes at the U.S. Department of Education. More than a year ago, the Trump administration announced efforts to dismantle the federal agency. In June, the US Education Secretary Linda McMahon announced plans to move the Office of Civil Rights to the Department of Justice, and special education oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services.
Advocacy Denver, a disability rights organization, said it began hearing last year from families of children with disabilities whose complaints to the federal Office for Civil Rights went unanswered. While the complaint process through OCR has always been "notoriously slow" Advocacy Denver explains in a newsletter, cuts to the Education Department and OCR by the current administration, along with its shifts in federal priorities "exacerbated the challenge of resolving OCR complaints."
"There are times when it's important to push it to another level, and sometimes for someone to provide a directive to a school district and to a school on what needs to be in place for a student," said Pam Bisceglia, executive director of Advocacy Denver.
Bisceglia said state lawmakers were responsive to those concerns.
"Representatives were willing to put it in public law, so that in spite of whatever happens at a national level, as a state, the state policy reflects our values, and that we are a state that believes in educational opportunities for all children," she said.
Asked about Colorado's law in light of the federal cuts, the U.S. Department of Education said in a statement that disability advocates "should feel reassured," adding that the Trump administration "is taking bold steps to break up the federal bureaucracy and reorient enforcement to ensure all students' civil rights are protected in schools."
