{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398498", "Parents, educators, school districts, nonprofits, Coloradans rally around Poliss bill to fully fund special education", "2017-12-07", "2017", "2017-12", "Democrat", "House", "CO", "Jared Polis", "P000598", "polis.house.gov", null, null, "legacy", "Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., introduced legislation today to provide teachers with the resources they need to effectively serve students with disabilities.\u00a0 The Defending Special Education Students and Families Act fully funds the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA).\u00a0\u00a0\r\nCongress introduced IDEA in 1975 and committed to contributing 40 percent of the additional costs of educating students with disabilities, sharing the cost with states and districts.\u00a0 Today, 42 years later, the federal government covers less than 16 percent of those costs.\u00a0 The shortfall has dramatically impacted school budgets, causing some districts to cut or underpay teachers.\u00a0 In Colorado, districts scramble to cover 70 percent of the costs of special education on average.\r\n\u201cEducation is the single best investment we can make in our future, but for decades we have underfunded our public schools,\u201d\u00a0said Polis.\u00a0 \u201cOur failure to fully fund special education has left too many students without the tools they need to succeed and dramatically impacted school budgets.\u00a0 All students in the U.S., regardless of ability, have the right to a top-notch education.\u00a0 Meeting the needs of all students should not be an unfunded mandate. Schools should have the resources to meet the learning needs of all students. It\u2019s time for Congress to fulfill its commitment to all students.\u201d\r\nPolis drafted the bill after hearing from parents and teachers:\r\n\u201cMy son Brady benefits from his education to be supported with his general education peers, which is the intent of LRE within IDEA. In order for Brady to access this level of educational inclusion and provide the special education supports that will help him realize his full potential and live the most independent life possible, IDEA needs to be fully funded. This funding benefits not only my son, but all of the students he goes to school with,\u201d\u00a0said Tena Green, mother of Brady, a 7th grader who lives with Down Syndrome.\u00a0\r\n\u201cEvery child should have what he/she needs to reach their full potential - including our son who lives with autism.\u00a0\u00a0 The support he and other children with autism would receive from IDEA being fully funded would not only benefit him, but his classmates, his school, and the entire community.\u00a0 We need to fully fund IDEA,\u201d\u00a0said Cari Brown, mother of Craig, a 2nd grader who lives with Autism.\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe hardest part of my day, as a parent of a child with special needs, is not in the act of providing care for him.\u00a0 It's the nagging question that I ask myself when I lie down to sleep every night; \u2018have I done enough?\u2019\u00a0 Until the Individuals with Disabilities Act receives full funding, the answer will always be no.\u00a0 Until financial support is received that provides the tools and services required for true access to their education, our children will always be disadvantaged in ways that would never be acceptable for children without disabilities,\u201d\u00a0said Misty Gregory, mother of Jake, a 4th grader who lives with Cerebral Palsy, Legal Blindness, and a Global Developmental Delay.\u00a0\r\nSeveral school districts and nonprofits are also advocating for the legislation and have been asking for additional IDEA funding for years.\r\n\"As the world's wealthiest and most powerful nation, I believe it is an ethical and moral imperative that we provide every child with an excellent education.\u00a0 Currently, resources for our special needs children under IDEA are severely lacking. Accordingly, I believe the time is now for our nation's leaders to act decisively. Acknowledging this critical funding deficit matters, acting on this extremely important issue matters more,\u201d\u00a0Don Haddad Ed.D, Superintendent, St. Vrain Valley Schools.\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe Poudre School District Board of Education strongly supports increasing IDEA funding to 40% as originally agreed in 1975 from the current 16%.\u00a0 Districts have long been forced to spend general education dollars to support unfunded mandates to the detriment of their ability to provide an adequate education to all students.\u00a0 We are excited at the prospect that Congress will fulfill this promise,\u201d\u00a0Board of Education, Poudre School District.\r\n\u201cOne in 10 children in Colorado accesses special education services to receive the supports and interventions that help them thrive. Schools and districts absorb an increasing share of the costs for these services, at the same time they are experiencing funding cuts from the state. Ultimately, children and families are the ones being shortchanged. Additional federal support is needed to boost the quality and range of services available to students with disabilities. We applaud Congressman Polis\u2019s commitment to fulfilling the promise of IDEA and providing every child with the resources they need to succeed,\u201d\u00a0Kelly Causey, President and CEO, Colorado Children\u2019s Campaign.\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u201cThe underfunding of IDEA has pushed school districts to figure out how to provide individualized instruction without having the fiscal resources to support the identified needs of their students. Under the spirit of IDEA, if we are expecting students to have better educational outcomes and school districts are going to be held accountable for providing appropriate special educational access at a level of the expectations in the new Supreme Court of the United States ruling, IDEA will need to be fully funded legislation,\u201d\u00a0Matt Cloven, Lead Advocacy Specialist, The Arc of Larimer County.\u00a0\u00a0\r\n\u201cPoliticians continue to call our public schools \u2018failing,\u2019 when it is they who are failing our schools.\u00a0 It is time for Congress to step up to the plate and fund what they require of our schools.\u00a0 Rep. Polis's bill would be an excellent start,\u201d\u00a0Cathy Kipp, Poudre School District Board of Education Member.\u00a0\r\n\u201cRep. Polis's bill will begin to provide schools with the resources they need to educate all students.\u00a0 The lack of funding for IDEA has led our district to divert general fund money away from other programs and offerings and into special education and as a result, all programs and students suffer.\u00a0 Fulfilling a promise is not only the right vote to make, but for the sake of all children in each of your districts, it is the smart decision as well,\u201d\u00a0Frank Reeves, Superintendent, East Grand School District.\u00a0\r\n\u201cFor decades, the federal government has failed to fund special education \u00a0sufficiently.\u00a0 During the years I served in Congress, I tried, just like Rep. Polis is doing now, to elevate the funding priority for students who so desperately needed it.\u00a0 Years and years later, students with disabilities are still waiting.\u00a0 They simply shouldn\u2019t have to wait any longer.\u00a0 I applaud Rep. Polis\u2019s efforts to get states, school districts, and students the overdue funding the initial IDEA law promised them.\u00a0 I am hopeful my former Congressional colleagues, on both sides of the political aisle, can see this as the non-partisan issue it is, and support full funding of IDEA,\u201d\u00a0Bob Schaffer, Former U.S. Congressman (R-CO-4), Principal of Liberty Common High School in Fort Collins.\r\n\u201cHaving the federal government provide its full obligation of 40% funding for special education would be especially welcome in Colorado, where the state has the most restrictive Constitutional budget and revenue provisions in the country.\u00a0 This has prevented the Legislature from providing anything close to adequate funding for special education, leaving almost the entire burden on local school districts.\u00a0 We applaud any effort to have the federal government increase its support for children with disabilities.\u00a0 The effect of this bill, should it pass, would benefit all school children in Colorado in a dynamic way,\u201d\u00a0Evie Hudak, Colorado PTA, Director of Public Policy.\r\n\u201cMy family, specifically my sister, has benefited from services accessible through the public school system, which provided equitable access to educational opportunities.\u00a0 I can attest that my sister's success in life would have been significantly limited without these important services.\u00a0 The lack of funding for IDEA consistently created financial hardship for our family as we pursued opportunities to support her.\u00a0 Funding IDEA at 40%, as opposed to the current 16%, would not only be a short-term solution for families who are a part of public education, but more importantly, it\u2019s an investment in the long-term development of independent, productive citizens and happier/healthier families that support the children IDEA serves,\u201d\u00a0Seth Kelley, Executive Director, BASE Camp.\u00a0\r\n\u201cI applaud Congressman Polis\u2019s effort to fully fund the IDEA Act four decades after the commitment was made.\u00a0 The cost of educating a child with special needs can be many times the cost of educating the typical student.\u00a0 The Federal government\u2019s failure to meet its funding commitment results in school boards shifting resources away from the regular population to meet their statutory and moral obligation to special needs children.\u00a0 The result is everyone suffers.\u00a0 Please fully fund IDEA,\u201d\u00a0Brad Rupert, Jefferson County Board of Education.\u00a0\r\n\"Fulfilling a forty year promise to fund the education of students with disabilities is a crucial step forward for rural school districts.\u00a0 Our limited access to resources and support in our rural communities and schools make the work of supporting our students with disabilities and their families more challenging than it needs to be.\u00a0 Districts should not have to make decisions about which students don't get the support they need because we have unfunded federal mandates,\u201d\u00a0Kerry Buhler, Superintendent, Summit School District.\r\n\u201cFor almost 4 decades, our schools have not had the financial backing that the federal government promised to help educate students with disabilities.\u00a0 That has meant school districts needed to divert general education funds to fill in the gap. We take seriously our responsibility to educate every student of every ability.\u00a0 It is time that the federal government do the same and live up to its commitment to fully fund IDEA,\u201d\u00a0Rob Petterson, Board of Education Member,\u00a0Poudre School District.\u00a0\r\n\u201cI am happy to hear that Congressman Polis is requesting funding IDEA at the level promised by Congress when the law was adopted in the 1970\u2019s.\u00a0 IDEA helps provide equity in education, allowing all students to have an opportunity to succeed regardless of needs,\u201d\u00a0Kristen Draper, Board of Education Member, Poudre School District.\u00a0\u00a0\r\nIDEA funding would be fully offset by collecting the excess revenue from President Trump\u2019s funding request for the Department of Defense (DoD). For FY2018, President Trump requested $603 billion dollars for the DoD, but the spending bill in the House of Representatives would give the DoD $658 billion, far exceeding the amount requested by the President. Under the Defending Special Education Students and Families Act, that additional money would be used to fully fund special education.\u00a0\r\nIn addition to Colorado school districts and nonprofits, the Defending Special Education Students and Families Act is also supported by various national organizations, including:\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0AASA, The School Superintendents Association\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Alliance for Excellent Education\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0American Dance Therapy Association\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Association of Educational Service Agencies\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Association of School Business Officials, International\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST)\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Council of Parent Attorneys and Advocates (COPAA)\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Council of Administrators of Special Education\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Learning Disabilities Association of America\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National Association of School Psychologists\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National Center for Learning Disabilities\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National Center for Special Education in Charter Schools (NCSECS)\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National Rural Education Advocacy Consortium\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National Rural Education Association\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0National School Boards Association\r\n\u00b7\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0School Social Work Association of America\r\nPolis serves on the Committee on Education and the Workforce.\u00a0He is the top-Democrat on the\u00a0Early\u00a0Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education Subcommittee and a member of the Higher Education and Workforce Development Subcommittee.\u00a0Polis is the former chair of the Colorado State Board of Education, and the founder and former superintendent of The New America School - a network of charter schools in several states serving new immigrants and English-language learners - as well as the Academy for Urban Learning for homeless and at-risk youth. The district he represents today includes Colorado State University and University of Colorado.\r\n###", 1, "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z", "2026-03-30T12:14:52Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://polis.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398498"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 0.9154758881777525, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}