Archdiocese of Chicago, public school system spar over halt in special education services

The archdiocese and the Chicago Public School system have offered conflicting accounts of how the funding dried up.

Some services for students with disabilities are being halted in the Archdiocese of Chicago due to a lack of federal funds, with the archdiocese and the Chicago Public School system offering conflicting accounts of how the funding dried up.

The Archdiocese of Chicago says the city’s public school system abruptly cut off federal funding for the services without warning, while officials with Chicago Public Schools say the archdiocese made the decision to cut services internally, after receiving repeated warnings that it was running through its allotted federal funds too quickly.

St. Barnabas Catholic School in Chicago. Credit: St. Barnabas School / Facebook.

For decades, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has helped fund special education services for students with disabilities.

Under the law, local public school districts receive funding for student services. The school districts must give a proportionate share of that funding to private schools enrolling students with special needs.

The Archdiocese of Chicago said in a statement Friday that CPS had abruptly informed it that a number of support services would be discontinued, beginning April 13.

More than 800 students with a wide range of disabilities and learning differences in archdiocesan schools will be affected by the loss of support services, the archdiocese said. Discontinued services include support in math, reading, and writing.

“Inexplicably, CPS appears to have terminated IDEA services only in Catholic schools,” the archdiocese said. “We are not aware of any other non-public school system or individual school, religious or secular, whose IDEA services have been terminated.”

“It is not clear why Catholic schools are being treated differently, but our schools and our students have the right to be treated equally under the law. Any attempt by a government entity to unfavorably single out one religious group raises serious constitutional concerns.”

Chicago Public Schools rejected the archdiocese’s characterization of the situation.

CPS said in a statement that its officials “repeatedly alerted Catholic school administrators that their spending trajectory was outpacing the funding allocation; they were on track to exhaust their allocated share of federal funds before the end of the school year.”

As a result, “the archdiocese made the decision to wind down academic interventions and retain focus on social work, speech, and other services,” CPS said.

“Any claim that the District has remained unresponsive or uncooperative is patently false and ignores months of direct consultation.”

A CPS official told The Pillar on Tuesday that the public school system has provided monthly budget updates to non-public school affiliates that receive federal IDEA funding.

Those budget updates have been provided to the Archdiocese of Chicago and other non-public school affiliates each month since September, the official said, with the most recent budget update given March 24.

The IDEA funds given to non-public institutions “are subject to reduction or termination once the allocated federal funds are exhausted, the official said.

The Archdiocese of Chicago did not respond to The Pillar’s request for comment.

However, the archdiocese said in its statement that it only received notification about services ending “during the Holy Week holiday.”

“As recently as March 25, CPS informed the Archdiocese of Chicago’s Office of Catholic Schools that services would be provided through the end of the year,” the archdiocese said.

The archdiocesan statement suggested that CPS may have mismanaged its funds.

“Under the IDEA, it is the responsibility of CPS to properly manage the funds supplied by the federal government. CPS assured us on March 25 that this program was fully funded through the end of the school year. CPS’ sudden claim two weeks later that it has no funds and must terminate the program raises serious questions about whether these federal funds have been properly managed,” the archdiocese said.

The Archdiocese of Chicago said its attempts to contact the CPS superintendent have gone unanswered. The archdiocese said it would consider legal action if the funding is not restored.

CPS, for its part, reiterated the claim that the cut in services was a decision made by the archdiocese, after repeated budget alerts from the public school system.

“[T]he Archdiocese—exercising its independent authority—made the internal decision to reallocate their remaining funds. This meant ceasing contracted classroom instruction (via Catapult Learning, Chicago Home Tutor, and United Stand) in order to prioritize social work and speech services,” CPS said in its statement.

The Chicago Public School system said that the problem reflects a broader shortage of federal funds for special education services, combined with an increase in students who need the services.

Data has shown a significant national increase in post-pandemic diagnoses of learning differences and disabilities in school-aged children. Almost 8.2 million children in the United States were eligible for special education services in 2024, an increase of more than 900,000 since 2019.

“Federal IDEA funding has not increased for several years and this year related Title funds dropped by nearly $10 million for non-public affiliates,” CPS said in its statement.

“This drop in funding has been combined with an ongoing surge in students with disabilities across systems. The number of students requiring special education services among the non-public affiliates, primarily the Chicago Archdiocese, has grown by 200–300 every month.”