Page 2 — Dear Educators and Parents
to many people with disabilities – including (but not limited to)[1] those who are immunocompromised or with complex medical conditions. These students may need additional protections to ensure they can remain safe in the classroom.
It is important to remember that State and local educational agencies (SEAs and LEAs) are bound by Federal laws, including Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 (Section 504), and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) to ensure the inclusion of students with disabilities, including those experiencing Long COVID,[2] in our nation’s schools.
This document is intended to help educators, staff, and families thoughtfully design learning experiences for all students – including students with disabilities. It reviews some important strategies for doing so and reiterates key rights afforded to students with disabilities to make sure they can maintain equal access to in-person instruction and receive a free appropriate public education (FAPE) in the least restrictive environment (LRE). Consistent with Federal civil rights laws, this must be done so that students with disabilities do not face risk to their school-related health needs.[3] It builds on previously released guidance and includes both policy guidance and examples of processes to help deliver safe, in-person learning.
Extra precautions may be needed to protect our students, friends, neighbors, and loved ones who are at increased risk of severe illness from COVID-19. CDC recommends that people who are at increased risk of severe illness – and family, friends, and coworkers who spend time with them – should consider taking extra precautions even when the COVID-19 Community Level is low. When the COVID-19 Community Level is medium or high, these precautions can include properly wearing well-fitting masks and getting tested before gathering.
We hope this document serves as a helpful resource and source of information for educators, families, and school communities on how to effectively include students with disabilities in in-person learning. We encourage school personnel who have questions to take advantage of the resources developed by the Department’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)-funded
- ↑ In addition to immunocompromised individuals and those with complex medical conditions, the CDC published updated guidance that outlines People with Disabilities who are at-risk of severe complications from COVID-19.
- ↑ For additional resources on Long COVID, please refer to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) Long COVID under Section 504 and the IDEA: A Resource to Support Children, Students, Educators, Schools, Service Providers, and Families.
- ↑ For purposes of this document, a “student with a disability” includes both “child with a disability” as that term is
defined in IDEA, 34 C.F.R. § 300.8, and “individual with a disability” as that term is defined in the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U.S.C. § 705(9)(B), (20)(B). All children with disabilities who are eligible for special education and related services under IDEA are protected by Section 504, but the inverse is not true; not all students protected by Section 504 are IDEA-eligible.
The term “free appropriate public education” is used in both IDEA and Section 504 regulations, although it has a slightly different meaning for students protected only by Section 504 but not IDEA. The term “least restrictive environment” is drawn from IDEA and is analogous to the Section 504 regulatory requirement that a student with a disability be provided an education with students who are not disabled “to the maximum extent appropriate to the needs of the” student with a disability. 34 C.F.R. § 104.34(a). Although these requirements are not identical, for purposes of this document, references to “least restrictive environment” encompass both requirements for ease of reading. For a fuller discussion of the similarities and differences of IDEA and Section 504, see Office for Civil Rights, Parent and Educator Resource Guide to Section 504 in Public Elementary and Secondary Schools 40-44 (Dec. 2016).
