Democratic state lawmakers are crafting a proposal they say will ensure the rights of Colorado students with disabilities are protected in spite of sweeping staff cuts to the federal Office for Civil Rights in March.
That office, housed within the U.S. Department of Education, investigates allegations of discrimination in K-12 schools — including complaints from families of students with disabilities who say their schools are not providing accommodations their kids need, who allege their students are being bullied or who claim a school is retaliating against them for raising their concerns. Parents have long relied on the federal office to act as a kind of enforcer and arbitrator to handle mistreatment at schools.
The federal government closed seven of the Office for Civil Rights 12 regional offices, eliminating 299 workers and slashing its workforce in half from its staff count in 2024. Those cuts have since been reversed. The federal Education Department in December ordered the workers they had previously terminated to come back to work, but Colorado advocates of students with disabilities say the damage was already done. The staff cutbacks over several months severely restricted the office’s ability to efficiently respond to cases across the country, including in its Denver office.
Lawmakers behind the legislation, who plan to introduce their proposal this month, say they want to enshrine federal protections for students with disabilities in state law and redirect students who bring forward claims of discrimination to the state education department for relief. That way, students and families worried they won’t get help from the federal office still have a path to document and report their claims that a school has violated their rights.
The bill would create a few new legal positions in the state education department, potentially a couple attorneys or an attorney and a paralegal, who would field parent complaints in place of the federal Office for Civil Rights.
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