Aresia Rhodes’ home was filled with signs of her efforts to help her son, who has autism, ADHD and Sensory Processing Disorder. Posters with information to help with emotional regulation hung above a piano in the foyer. A rack filled with educational DVDs stood against a wall. In the center of the room was a rolling whiteboard filled with flyers and sticky notes.
She pointed toward a shelf filled with binders as she moved deeper into the home toward the brown leather sectional. Over the years, she collected all of her son’s individualized education programs, documents and sample work.
“Behind those are a whole lot of special education disability books and (books on) autism behavior,” Rhodes said, gesturing toward the shelf on May 21, 2024. “Early on, I found that I had to really educate myself to the nth degree on not just his condition or conditions but the whole process. I’m not only quoting federal regs. But I understand them. I understand the policies.”
She rolled a black bag filled with binders and notes into the living room. She had just left an IEP meeting at her son Dominic’s school, a few hours before.
“Impactful education started when he started earning Carnegie units in seventh grade,” Rhodes said that day. “That’s when the reality start(ed) to hit the fan of just how broken the system is.”
Carnegie units are academic credits that students earn for successfully completing high school subjects. Students must obtain a certain number of them to earn a diploma. For students receiving special education services under an individualized education plan, teachers make certain accommodations to ensure that education is attainable despite learning differences. Rhodes found that it was not as easy as she thought it would be to ensure her son received the appropriate accommodations.
For example, Rhodes said that she struggled to obtain advanced reading materials because many teachers presented students with daily assignments and expectations, but could not provide the materials in advance. This posed a problem for her son, who struggles with executive functioning skills, because it left no room for him to plan ahead and organize study time and large assignments.
‘Someone Has Finally Put Into Writing What We’ve Been Saying’
More than a year after that visit, a report from the federal government confirms what Rhodes and many other parents have long felt: Mississippi may be out of compliance with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, which guarantees students with disabilities the right to a free and appropriate public education.
The United States Department of Education sent the findings of its most recent Differentiated Monitoring and Support evaluation to Mississippi State Superintendent Lance Evans on July 23. The DOE’s 47-page report found that Mississippi’s school districts may not be ensuring that special education students receive all the services they are entitled to under federal regulations.
The report was completed before the Trump administration gutted the DOE’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, which has oversight for special education programs nationwide, laying off 466 employees earlier this week. It includes the Office of Special Education Programs, which produced the Mississippi report. It’s not immediately clear how the changes will affect Mississippi.
The report said the state is not in compliance with several categories of special education requirements, including monitoring and improvement, dispute resolution, and discipline and behavior.
“My first thought was that someone has finally put in writing what we have been saying for years,” Rhodes told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 19. “… That was my first thought. Thank you, Jesus. It’s in writing now.”
Special education advocate Danita Munday said families in the state have been saying for years that special education was not meeting the needs of their children. Munday said that in her role as an advocate, she has worked with families to file complaints about non-compliance. The school was found to be out of compliance by MDE and given a corrective action plan. Yet, when the family returned for an IEP meeting a year later, many of the corrections had still not been made, Munday said.
“The DMS Monitoring report confirms what families and advocates already know, meaningful correction is not available from within Mississippi’s education system,” Munday told the Mississippi Free Press on Sept. 2.
Munday said parents have encountered issues with compliance hearing officers who were not knowledgeable or adequately trained and a lack of general supervision for students with special needs.
The Office of Special Education Programs completes an evaluation of the state’s Office of Special Education every 5 years, said MDE Interim Executive Director of Special Education Tonya Green. The DOE report followed a nearly 18-month review that included a state self-review and a site visit by federal authorities.
The federal Department of Education found that Mississippi’s state agency did not have a monitoring system designed to identify noncompliance in local education agencies, nor did it have a system designed to verify that identified noncompliance issues were corrected. Green said the state generally completes general supervision of each district every three to five years according to a set schedule. She said this results in 15-20% of the state’s districts being monitored each year.
“This year, there are 32 districts on the monitoring list that will currently go through monitoring,” Green said.
Once a district receives notice that it has been selected for monitoring, it has 30 days to complete a self-assessment evaluating its policies and procedures. MDE then assigns a monitoring team to the district to evaluate specific policies, procedures and records.
Green said that MDE was already aware of some of the issues and had begun reviewing its policies and procedures ahead of the review. She added that the department was working to make improvements in other areas highlighted in the report.
“Most of those findings were some procedural findings that might have overlapped with each other in our procedures,” Green said. “And then the (USDE/OSEP) provides us technical assistance along the way as we begin to work through the findings.”
Regaining Trust
Munday said that families’ continued efforts to ensure their children are receiving the necessary services and accommodations have created a chasm between them and school districts.
“When non-compliance is ignored and minimized, trust in the system collapses,” Munday said.
Green told the Mississippi Free Press that the State is working to make the necessary improvements to the system and will pass those down to districts. The department has redesigned the OSC monitoring system and created urgent timelines for internal staff training. The department is reviewing its process for transition plans for postsecondary outcomes and embedded models of support for districts. MDE is also working on a concentrated behavior programming support model for districts in response to the report’s finding that the state needed enhanced discipline and behavior documentation.
“We’ve put a high emphasis on purpose-driven timelines,” Green said. “…and then a high level of expectations with a sense of urgency has been sent out to our districts.”
The department is also working to reorganize its state support system for behavior interventions. Green said the new model will include regional coaches who will work with schools to build positive behavior support programs. The department is partnering with Reach Mississippi for both financial and programmatic support.
Purposeful Improvements and Implementation
The report could have deeper implications for public education in the state. Federal law requires state education agencies to ensure compliance with special education laws to receive federal funding; however, Green said she does not believe the state is at risk of losing federal funding at this time.
“I can’t 100% always guarantee that, but I do not anticipate that any findings will not be cleared on our report,” Green said. “In fact, I feel like we’re sitting in a situation where a lot of the procedural pieces have already been corrected, and we’re ready to turn those in in October, which will clear those off of us.”
“Once those are cleared, we will be able to work on the program side of it,” she continued. “(There are) certain things that they shared with us needed to be enhanced for our state, and we’ve already started on enhancing those programs and building layers of support to send out to our districts to help them as well.”
Green said MDE is confident in the improvements being made and is ready to work with families to ensure their children receive the necessary services.
“We feel really good about where we’re going,” Green said. “And I feel that our state organizations and our state advisory panel are really pleased with the direction in which we are going, and we look forward to including and hearing from our stakeholders, our communities, and our families.”
Rhodes, who still brings the same rolling bag to meetings about her son, said families feel they have been failed by the system designed to ensure their children receive the best education.
“My son is 16 now and we’ve been in one county since he was three getting services,” Rhodes said. We’ve seen the pattern of issues repeat themselves over the years, whether it was the person or the system.”
Munday hopes that the report will bring more attention to the issues and prompt real reform.
“The Mississippi DMS Monitoring Report makes one thing clear: delays, excuses, and empty promises are no substitute for compliance,” she said.
Rhodes is not convinced that having the findings in writing will prompt real change.
“Under our current federal leadership, I am not confident that will happen at least for the next four years, but at least now we have something for those who (file complaints),” Rhodes said.
She added that the special education department at the school district where her child attends school is under new leadership. Still, she can only be cautiously optimistic.
“I want to be hopeful that at least on a local level, some things will begin to change, but again, part of that is systemic, top-down issues,” Rhodes said.
Munday said parents and advocates have to continue to hold the state accountable.
“They know they’re wrong. That’s been put in writing,” Munday said. “They’ve been told how they’re wrong. It’s their job to correct it. We just keep applying the pressure.”