ACLU files lawsuit filed against Providence for failing to provide required special education services to hundreds of preschool children
A press release from the ACLU of Rhode Island
“We are facing an unprecedented crisis around special education for our youngest learners and we must act with urgency to do right by students and their families.”
Citing “systemic failures to comply with federal law,” cooperating attorneys for the ACLU of Rhode Island and the R.I. Center for Justice have today filed a federal class-action lawsuit against the Providence school district and the R.I. Department of Education (RIDE), alleging that hundreds of children with disabilities between the ages of three and five are not receiving critical special education services they are entitled to. The lawsuit seeks a court order requiring the state and school district to begin directly providing those services or else contract with other school districts and educational providers to do so.
The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) provides for early intervention services for infants and toddlers with disabilities from birth to their third birthday. As a seamless approach to aiding this cohort, the law further requires school districts to offer a “free appropriate public education” to those children beginning with their third birthday. For many children in Providence, however, those services are not being provided.
The lawsuit was brought on behalf of Parents Leading for Educational Equity (PLEE), a non-profit organization that advocates for families in educational matters; three preschool-age children with acute special education needs who are not receiving the services that they should be receiving under IDEA; and the children’s parents.
“We unequivocally stand with parents/caregivers in their pursuit, by any means necessary, of the services their children need and are entitled to under federal law,” said Ramona Santos Torres, executive director of PLEE. “We are facing an unprecedented crisis around special education for our youngest learners and we must act with urgency to do right by students and their families.”
Specific allegations of non-compliance with the law against the defendants include: failure to evaluate preschool children for special education services, or doing so only after months of delay, despite repeated requests by parents; a failure to timely deliver services identified in Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) to address the children’s specific educational needs, leaving hundreds of eligible children without necessary services; and terminating infants and toddlers with disabilities from early intervention services on their third birthday without smoothly transitioning to the services that are mandated to be available to them after reaching that age.
In emphasizing the importance of district compliance with that law, the lawsuit notes:
“It is critical that children with disabilities be identified in their preschool years or earlier so that they receive special education and related services that can ensure that they will have educational opportunities in elementary and secondary school consistent with their needs and abilities. Defendants’ actions have harmed and continue to harm hundreds of current and future preschool students in Providence by adversely affecting their educational opportunities, learning, and well-being.”
The lawsuit argues that RIDE and the school district “have been well aware that Providence has not been providing mandated federal special education services at least since March 2022, but they have not taken the steps necessary to come into compliance with federal law.” In responding to admissions from the defendants that they do not have enough staff to comply with the law, the suit argues that “Providence could provide many members of the class with effective preschool programs by placing students in private day care, Head Start and preschool programs and providing supplemental special education and related services as well as training for staff at these programs.”
The suit was filed by ACLU of RI cooperating attorneys Ellen Saideman and Lynette Labinger, and Jennifer Wood from the R.I. Center for Justice. The complaint asks the court to certify the lawsuit as a class-action and order provision of the special education and related services that federal law requires the defendants to provide.
“Today, children with disabilities in Providence stop getting desperately needed special education and related services on their third birthday and their parents are told to wait patiently, for months and even years when we all know that timely services are needed to maintain the progress made through early intervention,” said ACLU of RI cooperating attorney Ellen Saideman. “It is heartbreaking that such young children are regressing and failing to make progress when the law clearly requires timely special education services.”
“There is a reason that the federal special education law mandates and prioritizes a ‘seamless’ transition from infant/toddler services to pre-school services for the most vulnerable children with disabilities,” said R.I. Center for Justice executive director Jennifer Wood. “These children are depending on the public education system to provide essential services that support them in achieving critical developmental progress. Educational services delayed are educational services denied for pre-school age children who need the immediate support that this lawsuit seeks in order to achieve basic developmental stepping stones.”
Court Hears Arguments in First Amendment Challenge to Federal Arts Funding Restriction
Attorneys argue that changes to NEA policy in response to the ACLU lawsuit do not solve the problems for arts organizations or deprive the court of jurisdiction.
On behalf of art organizations, the ACLU and the ACLU of Rhode Island argued today that an ideological restriction from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) on grant funding violates the First Amendment, the Fifth Amendment, and the Administrative Procedure Act.
In response to an executive order from the Trump administration earlier this year, the NEA imposed a new requirement that forced grant applicants to attest that they would not use funds to promote “gender ideology” and that blocked any projects that the government could perceive as “promoting gender ideology” from being eligible for funding.
The ACLU and the ACLU of Rhode Island filed suit in March. In response to the lawsuit, the NEA agreed to drop the certification requirement until the case was decided. It subsequently extended the application deadline to April 7 and temporarily removed the funding block until the agency determines how to implement the executive order by April 30. The government has not disavowed to reimpose the same eligibility prohibition, and any prohibition will retroactively apply to current applicants, who must submit by April 7 and will have no opportunity to alter or amend their applications. The judge indicated he hopes to issue a decision by April 4.
“The government is playing games with our clients’ First Amendment rights,” said Vera Eidelman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project. “We are in court today to ensure that the NEA can’t pull a bait-and-switch on arts organizations by allowing them to apply free of restrictions, only to disqualify them later. To safeguard artistic expression and First Amendment protections for all, the temporarily suspended rules must be struck down.”
The contested NEA requirements are based on a January 2025 executive order signed by President Donald Trump stating that “[f]ederal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology.”
“We have used NEA funding to provide a safe haven for censored queer artists around the globe since 2019,” said Rose Oser, Producing Director of National Queer Theater. “Losing the right to compete for that funding does not just impact our budgets. It sends a message that trans artists and trans stories do not deserve to be heard. But we will not be silenced. We will not entertain this administration’s aggressive efforts to push trans people out of public life, and we won’t allow them to bend the arts world to fit their narrow definitions of gender.”
The ACLU, the ACLU of Rhode Island, David Cole, and Lynette Labinger, cooperating counsel for the ACLU-RI, filed suit earlier this month in the U.S. District Court of Rhode Island on behalf of Rhode Island Latino Arts; National Queer Theater; The Theater Offensive; and the Theater Communications Group.
"Rhode Island Latino Arts would like to apply for a grant that could potentially run afoul of the ban on ‘promoting gender ideology,' however the NEA defines that nebulous term,” said Steven Brown, executive director of the ACLU of Rhode Island. “Because the NEA has now declared that they will not let applicants know whether they will impose this condition until after the grant application deadline has passed, RILA has been placed in an impossible position in applying for funds. Without a court order barring the NEA’s use of this unconstitutional criterion, Rhode Island arts groups — and arts organizations across the country — will be left in an intolerable state of limbo."