“We won’t accept our children being treated like an afterthought, and we won’t accept our laws being treated as optional. We will demand answers in Congress, in the courts, and at the ballot box.”
Washington, D.C., June 16, 2026 – National Parents Union President Keri Rodrigues released the following statement in response to the dangerous shift of civil rights and special education to other federal agencies including the Departments of Justice and Health and Human Services:
“For more than a year, parents have been left in the dark while Washington played musical chairs with our children. Now the music has stopped, and there’s no seat for any of them.
Families have spent this year navigating chaos: filing civil rights complaints with no response, watching oversight shift from agency to agency, and sitting at IEP tables without knowing who is responsible for their child’s education. That’s not efficiency. It’s abandonment.
Now, instead of clarity, the administration is scattering responsibility across the federal government. Moving special education to Health and Human Services risks treating disabilities as medical conditions rather than protecting students’ legal right to a free and appropriate public education. Shifting civil rights enforcement to the Justice Department turns parents seeking support into potential litigants. Families didn’t ask for lawsuits. They asked for their children to be educated.
Congress created and funded these protections, yet these decisions were made without transparency or accountability. That’s not reform. It’s an end run around the law and around the families it was meant to protect.Parents are watching. We won’t accept our children being treated like an afterthought, and we won’t accept our laws being treated as optional. We will demand answers in Congress, in the courts, and at the ballot box.”
About the National Parents Union
The National Parents Union is a network of parent organizations and grassroots activists working to improve the quality of life for children and families across the country. NPU represents more than 1.7 million families through over 1,800 affiliated organizations in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico.