October’s Public Newsroom showcased how disabled students and their families can advocate for the services they need.

By Mike Tish

In October, City Bureau’s Public Newsroom addressed how students with disabilities and their parents can advocate for an essential education service from Chicago Public Schools: Individualized Education Programs (IEPs). IEPs are legally binding documents that outline how educators will ensure students with disabilities make progress in school. 

Since the pandemic, Chicago Public Schools (CPS) has been unable to fulfill thousands of IEP evaluations. As a result, thousands of Black and Latine students have been without access to services they’re owed.

To help us gain some actionable insight into this issue, we were joined by:

  • Chris Yun, former education policy analyst at Access Living, where she led policy advocacy efforts to ensure inclusive education for students with disabilities.

  • Barb Cohen, a policy analyst and legal advocate focusing on special education at the Legal Council for Health Justice, which works statewide to help folks overcome and dismantle barriers to the care and services they need to stay healthy, fed and housed.

  • Rachel Shapiro, a supervising attorney at Equip for Equality, which provides advice and legal representation to students with disabilities who aren’t receiving appropriate special education services.


Our moderator was Sammie Smylie, a state education reporter for Chalkbeat Chicago and former City Bureau fellow, who also covered education on the city’s Southeast Side for the Hyde Park Herald.
Here’s what we learned:

During the 2019–2020 school year, CPS failed to complete thousands of IEP evaluations

“Once a year, students and their parents are supposed to have an IEP meeting,” Smylie said. These meetings should identify a student’s disability, as well as what kind of instruction or related services (think: speech pathology or physical therapy) they’ll need. State law requires that schools conduct student evaluations before they’re provided with an IEP (students with an existing IEP must be re-evaluated every three years). After filing a FOIA request, Smylie found that during the 2019–2020 school year, CPS failed to complete more than 10,000 evaluations and annual reviews. (Chicago has a little over 330,000 students; about 14 percent have IEPs.)  No evaluation? No updated IEP for students.

Students across Chicago’s South, West and far east sides were most likely to have IEP delays

Smylie said the data they obtained as part of their FOIA request showed CPS students in Networks 11 and 13 were unlikely to receive re-evaluations during the school year. These networks include Englewood, parts of the Southwest Side, as well as neighborhoods on the city’s far south and far east sides. Shapiro said she heard from CPS parents all over the city who felt that CPS lacked a sense of urgency when it came to addressing its IEP backlog.

Shapiro said one of the students she represented went without services for five to six months because CPS didn’t conduct their re-evaluation on time. “The reality is no matter how many services we give [them] now, that can’t make up for the fact that, for those five or six months delay, they didn’t get the support they needed,” she said. This lack of support threatened and likely slowed the student’s progress in school.

Parents should prioritize frequent communication with their kid’s teachers

CPS’s struggles to provide IEPs for students with disabilities predates the pandemic. As Yun put it: “Denial of special education services is a product of CPS culture.” As far back as 2015, CPS was found to be in violation of federal standards that require schools to provide IEPs to their students. Cohen, a parent of a former CPS student with disabilities, said it’s hugely important for parents to communicate with their children’s teachers as much as possible. 

“Teachers have always appreciated the communication and the troubleshooting we can do together,” Cohen said. “I think [that relationship] leads to better IEPs.”

Get everything in writing, and request documents you can use to show which services you’re owed

“Whatever you do, get it in writing,” Cohen said. “If you just [verbally] say to a teacher or case manager that I think I’d like to have my child evaluated...officially, it never took place.” Emails are best because they have the date on them. 

Hazel Adams-Shango, an attendee at the Public Newsroom who advocates for students with disabilities in New York City, said that right now is the time to request a copy of attendance and service logs, which you’ll need whenever you request makeup services from CPS.

Word choice matters; consult free legal services before you file any complaints

You don’t need a lawyer to file a state complaint, but it helps to have someone who knows special education law look over your complaint before you send it in. That’s because slight wording changes can make a big impact. “The law doesn’t require a school to do what’s best for your child,” Shapiro said. If you tell officials that a one-on-one aide for your child is what’s best for them, they have no legal obligation to make it happen. Instead, Shapiro says, tell educators and officials that your child “needs” a one-on-one aide or other service.

Equip for Equality provides free services for folks at (866) 543-7046.  

If you’re interested in advocating for yourself, your student, or want to help make a difference in your local CPS network, here are a few places to start:

Screenshot of the Zoom meeting where our Public Newsroom took place. A grid of smiling faces, including our panelists, moderator, organizer and interpreter, Barb Williams.

This event is part of the Public Newsroom, City Bureau’s free monthly workshop series. Learn more or support City Bureau’s workshops and events by becoming a recurring donor today.

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