Many AJE families might have seen stories in the news about an OCR investigation into DCPS. This blog post is intended to give families the information they need to understand that news, and what it means for their children.
We also link to the OCR investigation Report, the Agreement between DCPS and OCR, and a Summary of the Agreement.
What the OCR Investigation Means for DC Families: Understanding the Findings and Resolution Agreement
Families of students with disabilities in Washington, D.C., have spent years raising concerns about delays, inadequate services, transportation problems, and the barriers they face when trying to secure the educational supports their children are entitled to receive. In December 2024, the District of Columbia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights found the District has received more complaints per 10,000 students in the purview of education for students with disabilities than any other state or territory in the U.S. https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-educations-office-civil-rights-concludes-dc-public-schools-discriminates-against-students-disabilities
In March 2025, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) opened an investigation into D.C. Public Schools (DCPS) to determine whether the District was discriminating against students with disabilities. This investigation was not in response to a single complaint filed by a student, but it was undertaken based on OCR’s general oversight authority. One year later, on March 18, 2026, OCR announced its findings: DCPS had violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) by denying students with disabilities a free appropriate public education (FAPE). But the investigation report and resulting agreement were not released until later in the year.
For many DC families, this investigation was significant. It provides validation from a federal agency that many of the problems families have been raising are not simply individual disputes or isolated experiences or even figments of their imagination. OCR found systemic problems that require DCPS to make systemic changes. Here are the important pieces of the OCR investigation that DC families should know.
What Is OCR?
OCR stands for the Office for Civil Rights, a division of the U.S. Department of Education. OCR enforces the federal civil rights laws that apply to schools across the country as well as other institutions that receive financial assistance from the U.S. Department of Education. OCR’s mission is to ensure equal access to education and promote educational excellence through enforcement of federal civil rights laws.
OCR investigates complaints and other allegations of discrimination involving areas such as disability, race, national origin, and other federally protected rights. It also publishes information about investigations and case resolutions.
Learn more about the Office for Civil Rights
Learn more about the Office for Civil Rights
Can a Family File a Complaint With OCR?
Families and individuals can file a civil rights complaint with OCR when they believe a school has discriminated against a student. The discrimination must violate a federal civil rights law such as the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). The OCR website provides information about where and how to file a complaint, as well as what happens after a complaint is submitted. Families can also check AJE’s YouTube for a virtual walkthrough of the OCR complaint form.
An important note about the OCR complaint process is that a complaint must be filed within 180 days from when the incident occurred. There are circumstances where OCR can waive the 180 day deadline if a complainant files late. OCR has the discretion to decide whether to accept the waiver request.
What Did OCR Investigate in DCPS?
After hearing and receiving numerous complaints about DCPS from DC families, OCR investigated whether DCPS was meeting the needs of students with disabilities, independent of any one specific complaint. December of 2024 the District of Columbia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, which identified significant concerns about special education in the District. The report found significant concerns about special education in the District. Some of the concerns included an unusually high volume of due process complaints and issues with transportation for students with disabilities which is sponsored by the Office of the State Superintendent of Education (OSSE).
The OCR investigation that was started in 2025 and published in 2026 included information from due process complaints, interviews with DCPS staff, DCPS-created materials and guidebooks, and other information submitted to OCR, along with publicly available information. OCR’s investigation concluded that DCPS’s policies and practices violated Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (Section 504) and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
What Did OCR Find?
OCR found that there are significant systemic barriers that are preventing DCPS from fully meeting its obligations to provide a Free Appropriate Public Education to students with disabilities. OCR identified problems within DCPS’s systems for serving students with disabilities.
Some of the more notable findings made by OCR during its investigation were:
** Students waited four months or longer for evaluations which delayed those students’ access to necessary disability-related supports.
** DCPS allowed untrained staff members to make decisions about the educational needs of students with disabilities.
** Some students with disabilities were experiencing their educational services being removed from their plans or programs without proper consideration. Many of these removals were found to be inconsistent with the DCPS’s obligations.
** The District’s transportation system for students with disabilities failed to adequately and safely transport students to and from school.
** DCPS’s policies and practices resulted in students with disabilities being denied timely evaluations and individualized services.
These findings matter because families have often been told that a problem is simply a disagreement between a parent and a school. OCR’s findings demonstrate that, in some areas, the problem was broader: the systems DCPS used to serve students with disabilities were not functioning as federal law requires.
What Did DCPS Agree to Do?
OCR’s resolution process requires DCPS to make changes to the way it provides services to students with disabilities. One of the most important changes is the creation of a Disability Services Division responsible for overseeing the District’s provision of services to students with disabilities. The resolution agreement also requires changes in several key areas.
The agreement calls for district-level oversight of the implementation of the corrective actions and expertise in Section 504 or Title II of the ADA. This matters because compliance cannot solely depend on individual school staff members knowing what the laws require. DCPS needs adequate systems, trained personnel, and accountability mechanisms that operate across the DCPS schools. Training is important, but families should also pay attention to where that training results in actual changes in practice or efficiency of receiving services.
The agreement also calls for DCPS to revise policies involving students with disabilities, including policies related to the identification, evaluation, and placement of students with disabilities. This change is particularly important for families because the evaluation process is often the first step to determining what services a student may need.
Addressing the issues with transportation was a major part of the OCR investigation. The agreement requires the Disability Services Division to create a new process for managing transportation requests, bus delays, and safety incidents. We have more details about the agreement at the end of this post.
What Does This Mean for Families?
Perhaps the most important message for families is this:
You are not imagining the problems you have experienced, and there are real systemic problems with how DCPS meets their obligations to students with known or suspected disabilities.
OCR’s findings provide confirmation, at the federal level, that significant systemic problems existed within DCPS’s approach to serving students with disabilities. The findings validate concerns about timely evaluations, individualized services, transportation, staff qualifications, properly addressing students’ behavioral challenges, and the systems used to provide disability-related services.
Families should not take this OCR investigation to mean that every disagreement that occurred between a family and a school was discrimination. It does mean that families have an important federal document they can use when advocating for their children’s rights. Families can use the OCR findings as a useful resource to prepare for IEP meetings, while raising concerns about IEP or 504 plan implementation, during Due Process hearings and in general to hold the District accountable to its federal legal obligations. The OCR investigation and agreement also outline how DCPS needs to improve.
The Letter of Findings, OCR’s investigative report, is particularly valuable because it explains what OCR investigated, what information it considered, and where it found DCPS’s practices fell short. For parents, understanding these findings can make it easier to recognize when something happening at school resembles a problem OCR has already identified. If OCR has identified a systemic problem involving delayed evaluations, inappropriate decision-making, or transportation families can use that information to ask better questions and request answers when they encounter similar situations. The findings can also give families language for communicating concerns with school and District officials.
Most importantly, families should keep records. Documentation can help establish what happened, when it happened, and what the school or District was told. This is all information that will be useful in case a family must file their own OCR complaint. Families should save emails, meeting notes, evaluation requests, names and titles of the school staff they spoke with, IEPs and 504 plans, attendance records, and other disability related documents.
Families should also read the resolution agreement between OCR and DCPS. It is not simply paperwork between the federal government and DCPS. It provides a roadmap for the changes DCPS is expected to make.
Understanding the agreement can help families ask: Is DCPS actually making the changes it agreed to make?
The Bottom Line
The OCR investigation is an important moment for DC families of students with disabilities. The federal government investigated DCPS and found violations of Section 504 and Title II of the ADA. OCR identified systemic problems affecting the District’s ability to timely evaluate students, provide individualized services, use appropriately trained personnel, and ensure safe and reliable transportation.
Now comes the next, and arguably most important, step: implementation of that plan to improve the problems that OCR found.
Families should know their rights, document their concerns, read the federal findings, and use the resolution agreement as a resource when advocating for their children. And if a family encounters the same problems identified by OCR, it is worth speaking up.
The goal should not be for families to become experts at fighting the school system. The goal should be for students with disabilities to receive the education, services, accommodations, and support they are legally entitled to receive without their families having to fight for them every step of the way.
Where Can Families Learn More?
Families interested in learning more should start with the primary documents (below) rather than relying only on news coverage or social media summaries.
OCR investigation Report, the Agreement between DCPS and OCR, and a Summary of the Agreement.
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