(WASHINGTON, DC) – In a major victory for the District of Columbia, the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE) announced that a longstanding challenge to the District’s handling of special education cases was recently dismissed. Judge Paul Friedman of the United States District Court for the District dismissed Jones, et al., v. District of Columbia, a class action lawsuit regarding special education.

Jones, filed in 1997, alleged systemic deficiencies in the ability of the District of Columbia Public Schools (DCPS) to timely implement Hearing Officer Decisions (HODs) and Settlement Agreements (SAs) in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The Jones suit required that the District timely implement settlement agreements and administrative hearing decisions awarding special education services, according to federal standards. Under the terms of the Consent Decree, the District committed to the timely implementation of Hearing Officer Determinations. This commitment ensures that every student with a disability receives the necessary educational services and supports in an expeditious manner.

The ruling marks the end of the longstanding litigation and nearly two decades of court oversight of the District’s special education system. In late 2011, on the basis of improved performance, a federal court released the District from oversight in the Blackman portion of the Blackman-Jones class action lawsuit. In 2012, a federal court released the District from oversight in a 1995 class-action suit, Petties v. DC, which related to making prompt payments to private schools and getting students with disabilities bused to school on time. Over the last several years, the District has greatly improved service delivery and demonstrated a sustainable system that will safeguard students’ rights to educational services for years to come.

The District has significantly increased funding for special education through Uniform Per Student Funding Formula (UPSFF) and worked to build capacity throughout both sectors to serve students with disabilities in the community. As a result, the city has reduced the number of students educated in nonpublic settings by 50 percent.

Additional evidence that the District is moving in the right direction includes:

• Standardized reading scores for the District’s fourth-grade students with disabilities improved by 6 percentage points between 2011 and 2013 – even as average scores declined by 2 points at the national level. Students’ math scores improved by 11 points over the same period, while remaining flat nationally.
• For the District’s eighth-graders with disabilities, standardized reading scores improved by 8 percentage points between 2011 and 2013, while advancing by just 1 point nationally. Math scores for these students improved by 9 points over the same period, even though the national average fell by one point.
• District’s on-time rates for special-education evaluations was 67 percent in 2008-2009 – is now currently trending at over 90 percent.
• The District has seen a 70 percent reduction in formal complaints by families with children in special education.