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Chrystal Bell lives in New York City with her son Caleb, who is deaf, blind and nonverbal. When the pandemic closed schools, he lost access to tactile special education that he needs in order to learn.
Special education services were severely disrupted when schools closed in spring 2020. In many places, they have yet to fully resume. Now, families are demanding schools take action.
Roughly 7 million children in the U.S. receive special education services under a decades-old federal law or
did, until the pandemic began. Many of those services slowed or stopped when schools physically shut down in spring 2020. Modified instruction, behavioral counseling, and speech and physical therapy disappeared or were feebly reproduced online, for three, six, nine months. In some places, they have yet to fully resume. For many children with disabilities, families say this disruption wasn t just difficult. It was devastating.
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