By:  Serach Nissim

New York City public school officials announced this week that they plan to step up oversight on special education services for private school students.

As reported by the NY Times, the city’s announcement stemmed from an article last year in the Times which had alleged that a disproportionate number of requests to pay for special education services came from Orthodox Jewish neighborhoods in the last decade—in which private education companies allegedly sometimes billed for services that were not needed, and sometimes not even provided.

Now, amid the city’s efforts to balance the budget, the school systems will start to require proof that the student’s family wants the aid and that the services will be provided by qualified professionals. Additionally, the DOE will no longer pay more than $125 an hour for the services, unless ordered to do so.  This represents a significant change in policy, as for the past several years the public schools have agreed to most funding requests for private tutoring—even sometimes paying exorbitant rates to providers without extensive experience. This had been part of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s directive in 2014, in which he said special education was too hard to obtain and began fast-tracking approvals.

Per the NY Times, on Wednesday, Liz Vladeck, general counsel for the NYC Department of Education penned a letter to state officials, lawyers and special education organizations saying the new rules are the “basic, low-bar controls,” set to make sure that the requests for services are legitimate and, “most of all, that those services indeed provide children with what they need to succeed in school.” In the letter, Ms. Vladeck said officials had noticed problems, including that some “providers are of poor or even incomprehensible quality.” She added that some of those providers had become regulars at the private schools, urging parents to let them request services for their children.  The letter did not specifically mention Orthodox schools.

New York law requires city schools to provide special education to private school students who need them, and to pay outside companies to provide the service when the school system can’t provide the service.  Families can find their own service providers and ask for reimbursement by attending a hearing, in which they assert that their children need the services and cannot get them from the government.  Despite these standing requirements, last December the Times had reported that in the 2021-2022 school year the city received some 17,900 requests for services– with more than half stemming from five school districts which include large communities of Orthodox Jews.  Some of those providers had charged over $200 per hour for their services.

In January, executive Martin Handler, who was linked to several of the education firms, was charged with theft of government funds and wire fraud conspiracy, per the Times.  His trial is scheduled for July and the case is still pending. In February, officials temporarily stopped doing business with some 20 companies which provided services in private Jewish schools—in which some parents seemed not to know what service they requested or why.  Over the past summer, the city comptroller had released a report calling for changes to improve the city’s own services so as to reduce the number of special education funding requests from outside providers.