Oversight of Education for Students with Special Needs
By Tami Lewis
Senior Director of Government Affairs
DC Charter School Alliance
Good afternoon Chairman Mendelson and members of the Committee. My name is Tami Lewis, and I'm the Senior Director of Government Affairs at the DC Charter School Alliance, the local non-profit that advocates on behalf of public charter schools to ensure every student can choose high-quality public schools that prepare them for lifelong success. I'm also a nearly 30 year Ward 5 resident, the proud mother of a remarkable young woman with autism who was educated in DC schools, and I've spent much of my career working to improve opportunities and outcomes for students with disabilities.
Thank you for holding this hearing and for your continued attention to the students we are here to discuss today.
A growing population, real progress, and a long way to go
Students with disabilities make up about 19 percent of DC's public school students - across both sectors - and that number is growing. Over the last three years, enrollment of students with disabilities in DC grew by nearly 20 percent, from about 14,400 to about 17,300 students. We are hearing from school leaders that this growth is most pronounced in the early grades. DC is not alone: nationally, the number of students with disabilities has continued to rise at a rate of nearly 3% per year with the largest increases among students with developmental delays, autism, and multiple disabilities. We encourage the city to dig into this data to understand which grades, disability categories, and services are driving the growth, and to learn from how other states and cities are responding.
Public charter schools now serve 48 percent of DC's students with disabilities, more than 8,300 students. And there is real progress to report. Citywide, the share of students with disabilities who are proficient has exceeded 11% percent for the first time. In the charter sector, the share of students with disabilities approaching, meeting, or exceeding expectations has risen every year since 2022, from 17.2 to 27.6 percent in ELA and from 13.0 to 22.1 percent in math. For the first time, those rates are above pre-pandemic levels in both subjects. Charter schools also reduced chronic absenteeism among students with disabilities by nearly 12 percentage points since school year 2021-22, bringing it below the citywide rate.
These gains matter, and they show what is possible. But outcomes for students with disabilities remain far too low and that shapes opportunities for their independence and stability as adults. We must hold high expectations for academic achievement and apply the same urgency for every child in this city, including students with disabilities.
Building for students with disabilities from the start
The most important point I want to leave you with today is this: special education cannot be a separate strategy that we develop outside of our citywide literacy and math improvement plans. Most students with disabilities learn in general education classrooms alongside their peers, taught by general education teachers. If we want outcomes to rise, we have to design for diverse learners from the start, through strong core, Tier 1 instruction that supports every student for success.
That means high quality teachers in every classroom and strong, data-driven multi-tiered systems of support that identify students' needs early, connect them to the right interventions, and adjust quickly when something isn't working. When core instruction is built to reach students with disabilities, it serves every student in the classroom better.
What schools need to make it work
To make that vision real, schools need practical support. We offer three recommendations.
First, we urge OSSE to provide more practical guidance and hands-on professional development for both general and special educators. Every general education teacher should have baseline training in how to support students with disabilities, and that preparation should start before they ever lead a classroom. We urge OSSE to ensure teacher preparation programs provide explicit training for early career general education teachers in how to support students with disabilities, and to give LEAs guidance on how to build that capacity in the teachers they already have. And because knowledge only matters when it turns into practice, that support must also reach the instructional coaches and administrators who work with teachers every week. Through regular feedback, setting professional development goals, and often with the authority to make key scheduling decisions, these educators also have an outsized impact on students. When leaders and coaches are equipped to support students with disabilities, they can help every teacher they work with do the same.
Second, schools need structures that let general and special educators work as a team, including dedicated time to co-plan and co-teach. Strong collaboration should be consistently built into the school day.
Third, schools need schedules that protect students' access to both core content classes and intervention. When services are scheduled during core classes, students miss the grade-level instruction they need to catch up and grow academically. This is less about new policy and more about leaders centering students with disabilities when they build master schedules, and having the knowledge, examples, and best practices to do it well.
This work aligns directly with OSSE's new Strategic Plan, Priority 3, Initiative B: building schools' capacity to educate students with disabilities in their own buildings. That goal is also central to conversations about overreliance on non-public placements. We strongly support these goals, and the Alliance is doing our part. We are embedding attention to students with disabilities across all of our academic work with member schools, and we will support school leaders with the knowledge, examples, and best practices they need to design academic programs and schedules that maximize support for students with disabilities.
The people and resources to carry it out
Of course, this work depends on having the right people and resources in place. Schools continue to face real challenges recruiting qualified special education teachers. And funding equity has real implications for students with disabilities: when the public charter sector is consistently underfunded, our teachers and staff have to stretch further and make tougher decisions to serve these students well.
We urge the Council to permanently revise the Special Education School weight, which supports schools like St. Coletta Special Education PCS and River Terrace Education Campus serving the highest population of high needs students. Despite one time adjustments in the FY27 budget, this weight is currently below the weight for a general education high school student. The Level 5 weight recommended by the 2025 UPSFF Working Group also merits continued consideration as the Council looks at special education funding more broadly.
Progress is possible
The good news is that progress is possible, and it is already happening. Eighteen public charter schools improved outcomes for students with disabilities in both ELA and math for at least two years in a row, and five of them posted double-digit gains in both subjects.
At Washington Global PCS, the share of students with disabilities approaching expectations or above rose 19 points in ELA and 23 points in math.
Elsie Whitlow Stokes Community Freedom PCS, Brookland campus, gained 17 points in ELA and 13 points in math.
Friendship PCS Ideal Middle School gained 15 points in ELA and 12 points in math.
Friendship PCS Chamberlain Middle School gained 10 points in ELA and 15 points in math.
What these schools have in common is leadership that treats students with disabilities as a priority from the start who have empowered their teachers and administrators to implement best practices and support systems that allow all their students to thrive.
Moving forward
Students with disabilities deserve schools that are built to identify and meet their needs from day one. They deserve teachers who are trained and supported to serve them well, schedules that protect their time in core classes, and the resources to make it all possible. We ask the Council, OSSE, and every school leader to make students with disabilities part of every academic improvement strategy, not a separate afterthought. When we do, we will see more schools like these, and more students leaving our schools ready for full, independent lives.
Thank you for your time and attention. I'm happy to answer any questions.
