Please join us in a rally demanding that the Albany Unified School District rebuild the Special Education department and provide educational equity for all students. For years now, the District’s Board of Education & Administration have neglected the Special Education Department with dire consequences for AUSD students with disabilities. While this neglect predates school closures under shelter-in-place, the pandemic has exacerbated these issues and shed a light on the District’s default policy of defunding Special Education programs first and supporting AUSD students with disabilities last.
The latest steps in this long, unfortunate trend has seen AUSD Administration proposing Special Education staff layoffs and the Board of Education giving the Administration carte blanche to do so. The result is a Special Education program near collapse, with extremely demoralized Special Education teachers and staff, underserved students with disabilities, and families forced to fight tooth and nail to claw back basic services their children are entitled to by law under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Albany Disability Squad 