NC isn't meeting federal special education requirements. State officials point to the teacher shortage

North Carolina public schools aren’t evaluating students for special education in a timely manner, they’re not resolving complaints quickly enough, and they’re not properly helping most disabled students 16 and older prepare for adulthood. Those are among the findings of a new federal report that found the state has continued to fall short of federal special education standards.

The U.S. Department of Education labeled the state as one that needs assistance with managing special education for the second year in a row, based on the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years — not the first time in the past decade the state has received consecutive “needs assistance” ratings.

The designation means more federal oversight. That could include requiring the state to access federal technical assistance, designating the state as "high-risk" when considering grant awards, or directing the state to set aside federal funding to address shortcomings.

The state has in part blamed staff attrition, a decades-long problem that has worsened in recent years as schools have struggled to recruit new teachers. Improving the state’s special education services could be complicated by that dilemma, but also by money available to fix the issues noted in the federal report.

"There's the staffing issues, there's the funding crisis," said Monica McHale-Small, education director of the Learning Disabilities Association of America.

There hasn't been enough federal funding for services for students with disabilities, she said, and now there's a worsening shortage of special education teachers. Both are affecting schools across the country.

But McHale-Small said some things North Carolina is faulted for don't have much to do with funding, such as failing to create transition plans with measurable goals for older students preparing to graduate or leave high school. Those help prepare students for adulthood.

"That's been in IDEA for a very long time and, in my mind, there's really no excuse for a state to be cited for compliance [violations] in that regard," she said, referring to the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The federal law requires all students with disabilities to have a transition plan for life after school by age 14. Once they're 16, those plans need to have clear and measurable goals, such as plans for classes or services or a specific skill to be mastered.

Federal rules set a goal of 100% compliance with the standard for 16-year-olds.

Prior reports show 94.7% of 16-year-old students with disabilities had that 15 years ago, during the 2009-10 school year.

That dropped to 80.8% for the 2018-19 school year. For the 2023-24 school year, it was just 44.6%.

That coincides with a drop in recent graduates who have jobs or who are enrolled in college — declining from 79.1% in 2019 to 72% in 2024.

It also coincides with an increase in disabled students dropping out of high school — increasing from 4% in 2019 to 15.7% in 2024.

“What transition planning is meant to do is be that bridge between school and the

community and the real world,” said Crystal Grant, director of the Duke Children’s Law Clinic, which works with lower-income families on special education cases. It helps students be prepared but also stay focused on school, because they understand how it’s helping them advance, Grant said.

‘Doesn’t surprise me’

The growing share of less-experienced teachers is also not as familiar with community resources to connect students to for job or college readiness, and they haven’t set up partnerships with them, said Melinda Plue, director of advocacy and chapter development at The Arc of North Carolina, a Raleigh nonprofit organization that advocates for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.

The transition plans are critical for setting students up for success after they’re finished with public education, but they’re not seen as academic the way math and reading are, Plue said.

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A worsening special education teacher shortage, high caseloads and continuing funding struggles for students with disabilities means the drop from 95% of students having transition plans to just 45% of students having them isn’t shocking.

“That makes me sad, but it also doesn't surprise me,” Plue said. “I know the workload of our exceptional children's teachers. I know how hard they're working in the classroom. I know how cumbersome the IEP process can be and I know that their strengths often are not in understanding some of those transition components.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Public Instruction said the state provides assistance and some professional learning to schools when they are found noncompliant. When it comes to transition plans, specifically, the department said those are “unique” to individuals and must be fixed at the student level.

Parents want to make sure their schools have adequately prepared their children for life after high school, McHale-Small said.

"When we do get parents who call that, that is one of the things that they're concerned about," she said.

The state, like it did for a number of findings throughout the 100-page report, cited the challenge of recruiting and retaining special education teachers.

"Many [public school units] within the state have experienced a high rate of attrition which has resulted in a lack of fidelity in transition planning across the state," the state wrote in response to the federal education department. "NC will explore ways to increase technical assistance related to transition planning to address this hypothesis of slippage."

North Carolina had 1,544 special education teaching jobs last fall that were either vacant or filled by someone who didn't hold a qualifying teaching license. That's up from 616 in the fall of 2021.

North Carolina’s teaching ranks have undergone worsening shortages over the years as fewer people enroll in the state’s teachers colleges and educators have sounded off on teacher pay scales that haven’t always kept up with inflation, resulting in the state falling several spots back in average teacher pay rankings.

“A lot of turnover in public school staffing creates a situation where we don't have people who have a lot of expertise,” Grant said.

A lack of opportunities for job training and exposure aligned with his interests hindered Amy Bryant’s son’s transition out of high school. After completing high school in June, at the maximum age of 22, his family has no idea how he can spend his days. They want him to have a job, but they don’t know any other students from his Union County high school for children with special needs who have gotten a job. Some partnerships with outside groups floundered during the Covid-19 pandemic and haven’t recovered.

Her son has DYRK1A syndrome, a rare disorder that impairs development, though he can walk and talk. Because of his disability, he was placed on a track to complete but not graduate high school.

His high school completion ceremony in June was “difficult,” Bryant said, because she felt the burden of needing to navigate what was next.

“We're very involved parents,” Bryant said. “We're educated. We understand the processes. But we still don't have a plan.”

‘We need to improve’

The state was also faulted in the federal report for some schools taking too long to decide whether a student is eligible for special education. More than 12,000 students' evaluations took longer than three months. Some complaints took over a year to resolve, according to the report. More than 200 findings of school-level noncompliance weren't corrected within a year of being ordered to, the report said. That was about half of all findings of noncompliance.

Many compliance measures have improved after worsening during the Covid-19 pandemic. But many metrics have worsened or remained significantly below prepandemic levels.

State Superintendent Mo Green, who oversees the state Department of Public Instruction, says his department is clear-eyed about where things stand.

"There are many things we need to improve with regards to how we're serving all students, but then certainly students with special needs," he said in an interview.

The department needs to make sure schools are getting proper training and that they understand what changes they need to make, Green said.

He noted the state is one of more than two dozen that have been found noncompliant two years in a row.

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Green said funding is major reason. Many teachers quit because they don't think they have enough resources to help students, he said.

Those are things DPI can’t solve at scale without the help of state lawmakers, Green said. "Obviously, the federal government also has a part to play in this as well."

Special education advocates have long criticized Congress for underfunding IDEA, compared to its original promise. When the law passed, Congress pledged to fund 40% of the average per-student cost of providing services, but estimates show Congress has typically funded less than 15% of that cost. That’s resulted in states and local school systems footing most of the bill. In North Carolina, advocates for people with disabilities have complained that the state funds students with disabilities at a flat per-student rate that doesn’t account for the severity of the disability and caps how many disabled students it’s willing to fund at 13% of a district’s student body. Most districts have higher percentages of students with a disability. Statewide, 13.4% of students kindergarten and older were in special education, or about 203,000 students.

North Carolina is one of 27 states that “needs assistance” two years in a row. Only the District of Columbia has a more severe rating, of “needs intervention,” which occurs after three consecutive years of falling short.

“It does not surprise me; North Carolina, like most states, has work to do to improve outcomes for children with disabilities,” said Lisa Lukasik, director of the Richardson Family Education Law Clinic at Campbell University.

North Carolina isn’t alone in experiencing a special education teacher shortage, either, Lukasik said. That means schools are hiring people without sufficient training in the field to implement the “robust protections and rights” of IDEA, she said.

“Without certified special education teachers,” Lukasik said, “it's challenging to provide special education that will comply with the requirements of federal law.”