The Louisiana Department of Education failed to protect the rights of students with disabilities by making sure schools follow federal law, according to a new audit that says hundreds of schools were allowed to go years without state inspections.

More than 40% of the state’s school systems went at least seven years without the department conducting an inspection of their special-education services, according to a Louisiana Legislative Auditor report released last week. Instead, the department asked most of those school districts and charter schools to complete “self-assessments,” documenting times they failed to comply with federal law and creating their own improvement plans.

While the state’s monitoring appears to meet federal requirements, it is not robust enough to ensure that students receive the special education services they are entitled to under the law, according to the audit, which examined the department’s special-education monitoring from 2015-2022.

Due to budget cuts during that period, the department slashed its special-education staff by nearly 70%. Today, six employees are responsible for monitoring special-education compliance in the state’s nearly 190 school districts and charter schools.

“What they’re doing is not oversight,” said Kathleen Cannino, a special education advocate whose child has a disability. “Without that monitoring, these kids are lost.”

Education Department officials said the agency’s special-education monitoring meets federal requirements and includes oversight beyond what is highlighted in the audit. Still, they said they agree with some of the report’s recommendations and have made changes and plan to hire more monitors if the state provides funding.

Meredith Jordan, the department official who oversees special education, said she welcomed the audit as part of the department’s commitment to “continuous improvement.”

“We want more on-site, boots-on-the-ground monitoring” of schools’ special education programs, she said. “We’ve already taken steps to address that.”

What does federal law require?

Nearly 90,000 students in Louisiana’s public schools, or about 13% of the student population, have a disability.

Under federal law, public schools must provide those students with special education services that meet their individual needs. Louisiana received about $228 million in federal aid last year for special education. In exchange, the state must ensure that schools comply with federal law.

The state employs a ranking system to monitor special education. Using test scores and other performance measures, school systems are ranked on their likelihood of not meeting students’ needs. Lower-risk systems are asked to assess their own special-education programs, while higher-risk systems receive state inspections.

During the seven-year period ending in 2022, the department conducted just 10 on-site inspections. In those reviews, state monitors visit schools to observe special education programs in action, meet parents and interview staffers.

Only nine of the state’s 100 school districts and charter schools received on-site inspections during the years covered by the audit.

Mary Jacob, executive director of Families Helping Families of Greater New Orleans, a resource center for parents of children with disabilities, said in the past she helped arrange parent meetings during the state’s on-site inspection.

“The districts took it very seriously,” she said, adding that monitors often spent several days in a district conducting interviews and reviewing student files. “If there was something in the file that looked a little funny, we could go to the school and see what was happening.”

Now that such inspections are rare, schools face less pressure to closely follow special-education laws, Jacob said.

“They know they’re not going to get in trouble,” she said, “so why bother?”

Many districts not inspected at all

According to the audit, another 48 school systems were subjected to “desk reviews,” in which department staffers examine school files and data remotely. Schools have 30 days to provide the requested documents. In a survey of nearly 100 special-education administrators conducted by the Legislative Auditor, about one in four said there is a risk schools will alter requested documents before sending them to the state.

Still, the audit said remote or in-person inspections are essential for monitoring schools’ compliance with federal law, the audit said. They reveal whether schools properly evaluate students for disabilities, create special-education plans for each student and provide legally mandated services — “activities not included in any other type of monitoring,” according to the audit.

Yet 43 of the 100 school districts and charter schools did not receive either type of inspection from 2015-2022. Most of those school systems, which include 580 schools and nearly 36,000 students with disabilities, were asked to complete self-assessments, the audit found.

The districts chose which files to review and noted any violations of special-education law that they found. The Education Department did not track those self-reported violations, the audit said.

Cannino said that it often falls on parents and advocates like her to ensure that schools provide students with their mandated special-education services.

“You have to do it every single year because there’s no monitoring,” she said. “And it’s exhausting.”

Other findings from the audit include:

• The state Education Department received nearly $19 million in federal aid to oversee special education in fiscal year 2023, yet it spent only $612,000 on school monitoring.
• The department focused its oversight on Orleans Parish following a federal lawsuit that alleged the state failed to properly monitor special education in that parish. From 2015-2022, more than 60% of state inspections targeted Orleans Parish schools, even though they serve just 7% of the state’s students with disabilities.
• The department does not track “informal removals,” when students are kept out of school due to their behavior but are not suspended. Such removals, which includes repeatedly asking parents to pick up students who act out, can allow schools to skirt protections for students with disabilities. Under federal law, if a student is suspended or expelled for more than 10 days due to behaviors caused by a disability, the school must come up with a behavior plan for that student.

Department officials said informal removals are difficult to track because they are not clearly defined by law.

The officials also said Louisiana’s special-education monitoring currently adheres to federal guidance issued in 2023, which require states to review each school district every six years. The department also reviews school performance and spending data annually, the officials added.

The department plans to hire six additional monitors, doubling the size of that team, if the Legislature includes the requested funding in the upcoming budget, the officials said. They added that the department has already improved its system for responding to parents’ special-education complaints, which was the subject of a Legislative Auditor report last fall.

“We’ve continued to work alongside stakeholders to engage in continuous improvements for students with disabilities across the state,” Jordan, the department’s executive director of diverse learners, said in a statement. “Together, we have made several policy, procedural, and staff changes over the past year.”

But advocates who have long demanded better special-education monitoring said the department has been slow to make changes.

“This audit was validation of what we’ve been saying for three years in private meetings” with state officials, said Jodi Rollins, an advocate and parent of three children with disabilities, including a son who will soon finish high school. “My son is running out of time.”