Dear IACC.

Six years after COVID‑19, the federal response to the collapse of disability supports remains inadequate. Autistic students — especially those with high support needs — lost access to therapies, communication supports, and recreation, and those systems have not recovered. There has been no national post‑COVID impact study on disabled students, so the scale of regression remains unmeasured and unaddressed.

GAO‑20‑448 found the Department of Education lacks “reasonable assurance” that states meet IDEA requirements. GAO‑19‑348 documented wide variation in state implementation. GAO‑21‑87 found no mechanism to correct long‑standing noncompliance. These oversight failures enable the ongoing opacity in Special Education funding, where there is still no standardized, transparent, public line‑item accounting of how IDEA dollars are used.

We see the consequences in ASD identification: wealthy districts show flat numbers while mid‑ and low‑income districts track the national increase. That disparity is structural, not biological. And families are even told they cannot learn classmates’ names “because of HIPAA,” though HIPAA does not apply to schools. This misuse of privacy law isolates the very students who most need support to build relationships.

I urge the IACC to acknowledge the post‑COVID collapse, the absence of federal impact data, and the need for transparent funding and monitoring. Adaptive recreation, communication access, and equitable identification must be treated as federal priorities, not local discretion.