Today, Joining Forces, along with the Department of Defense and Department of Education (ED), announced new actions to support military children with disabilities and ensure they receive the services they need when they move schools. Together, these actions will address delays in services due to issues with transferring special education records from one school district to another, often across state lines.
Over the last four years, First Lady Jill Biden has met with military families who have shared the challenge of transferring their children's Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) between school districts and across state lines as they move. Due in part to delays in transferring IEPs, some military families report waiting, on average, over 120 days-over half of most school years-for their children with disabilities to receive the services they need at their new school. This loss of critical services is compounded with every move-which, for military children, will be an average of six to nine times throughout their K-12 education.
Under the First Lady's leadership through her Joining Forces initative, the federal government and private and non-profit sectors are working to ensure military children with disabilities, and all highly mobile students with disabilities, can receive the services they deserve in a timely manner.
"Through my Joining Forces initiative, I've traveled to bases across the country and around the world, and have met with military families to learn about their experiences and challenges. I've heard from parents of military kids with disabilities who have shared how hard it is to transfer their child's individualized education program when they move to new schools," said First Lady Jill Biden. "These new commitments are a critical first step in helping military children with disabilities, and all students who move frequently, get the specialized services they need when they move schools - without delay."
Department of Defense Education Activity
The Department of Defense Education Activity (DoDEA) in collaboration with the non-profit InnovateEDU and the Project Unicorn initiative announced a first-of-its-kind effort to participate in a working group with state and local education agencies and school data management software companies to seamlessly and securely transfer IEP-related data of students moving into and out of DoDEA's federally-operated school system.
DoDEA and InnovateEDU signed a Letter of Intent to support the working group in its efforts to develop the processes, governance structures, and legal agreements needed to facilitate transparent and confidential data transfers with a goal of reducing gaps in special education services for military children resulting from challenges in transferring student records.
DoDEA operates 161 schools across 7 states, 11 foreign countries, and 2 territories, serving more than 64,000 military-connected children.
In addition to DoDEA's efforts, the Department of Defense's Office of Special Needs (OSN) updated enrollment criteria while streamlining the role of Exceptional Family Member Program (EFMP) Family Support providers. These revisions aim to provide military families with a more cohesive and consistent experience, ensuring smoother interactions and improved support.
Private Sector Commitments
Top school data management software companies serving millions of students across the country, including ClassLink, Clever, D2L, IEP&Me, Mindex, PowerSchool, and SIRAS Systems, are collaborating with the nonprofit InnovateEDU to take historic actions to address special education data transfer issues.
Through Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs), these companies are aligning their products and services to a standard set of key special education data fields by the end of the month. In addition, for the first time, they have committed to piloting seamless and secure transfers of data within these standard fields, between at least two school systems by the end of their 2024-2025 school years-intending to make these data transfers available to all school systems served by these companies by fall 2025.
InnovateEDU is coordinating across these companies and school systems to develop the processes, governance structures, and legal agreements needed to efficiently and safely transfer IEP-related student data with parental consent.
Department of Education
To support Joining Forces' efforts related to facilitating records transfers, the Department of Education (ED) has engaged key organizations through the Interoperability, Efficiency, and Portability Commitment, which asks signatories to reimagine data-sharing infrastructure and processes.
These new actions complement ED's recent announcements related to military students with disabilities, including providing grant funding for projects that will develop school-level strategies to better engage military families who have children with disabilities and releasing tools to assist states in reviewing their current practices for supporting military children with disabilities. ED also released guidance urging Vocational Rehabilitation programs to implement flexible and proactive processes to support seamless transfers of job training and employment support services for military families with youth, students, and adults with disabilities when moving between states.
Background on the First Lady's Joining Forces Initiative:
Joining Forces is Dr. Biden's initiative to support military and veteran families, caregivers, and survivors. Guided by the life experiences and the perspectives voiced during in-person and virtual listening sessions with military-connected families and stakeholders, the work and priorities of Joining Forces centers on the needs of this population in the areas of: Economic Opportunity; Military Child Education; and Health and Well-Being.
As First Lady, Dr. Biden has visited over 30 military installations; worked with Joining Forces partners to support over 80 engagements with the military-connected community; and helped coordinate the Administration's efforts to increase and raise awareness of resources and support for military and veteran families, caregivers, and survivors.
