A death in the family? We’d like to help—in six months.

In her recent Huffington Post article, Executive Director Judith Sandalow explains why funding the 2014 Special Education Reforms is critical for DC’s children.

We meet children every day who are failing in school and must wait months before getting the right supports to learn. The most   recent testing data shows that 60 percent of special education students score at lowest level of standardized testing, as opposed to 20-30 percent of students in general education. Our schools are failing these children.

That’s why we’re asking Jennie Niles, our Deputy Mayor for Education, to fully fund the 2014 Special Education Reforms when she submits her budget requests to Mayor Bowser.

One of these reforms is to shorten the amount of time schools have to perform an evaluation. Before the law passed, schools were given 120 days. The new law will shorten that time to 60 days if it is funded. This shorter time frame brings DC in line with most other states, and would help kids like DeMario catch up and keep up faster.

Small, easier-to-fix learning problems become complicated and expensive if they aren’t addressed. Fully funding these education reforms is good for kids and good for the District’s budget. I have no doubt that in DC’s multi-billion dollar budget we can find funding to get services to children faster.

Read the full article here: