New Jersey students with disabilities are the least likely in the nation to spend their days surrounded by peers without disabilities.
One underlying reason: a sprawling network of separate schools that allows districts to outsource educating them.
New Jersey has more than a hundred private schools, plus eight county-run districts specifically for students with disabilities.
Districts spend hundreds of millions of dollars placing students in private schools rather than investing in their own staffing and programs — placements that cost New Jersey taxpayers $784 million in 2024, not including transportation. That’s up from about $725 million the year before. This can create a self-perpetuating cycle that increases reliance on separate schools and, experts say, may violate students’ federal right to spend as much time as possible learning alongside students without disabilities.
In many cases, parents say school administrators are too quick to send children out of district and pressure families to agree to those settings. Other times, parents choose to send their child to a separate school, sometimes feeling that they have no choice after repeatedly failing to get their kids the help they need in their local school.
“Whatever it is that their kids need within the district, they’re not getting,” said special education parent and advocate Amanda Villamar, who works with families throughout New Jersey. “The question becomes: Why are these services in private schools and not necessarily integrated into our public school system?”
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In all, about 30,000 students with disabilities in New Jersey — or 13 percent— attend separate private or public schools, according to The Hechinger Report’s analysis of federal data. That’s the highest percentage in the country. Nationwide, 4 percent attend separate schools.
New Jersey’s history of failing to include children with disabilities in public school classrooms dates back to the 1910s. That’s when the state began promoting separate schools for students with disabilities as a more humane alternative to barring them from schools altogether.
Nationwide, only 1 in 5 students with disabilities were enrolled in the public school system in the 1970s, when Congress passed the Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act or IDEA. The law enshrines integration by saying students with disabilities have a right to learn alongside students without disabilities to the “maximum extent” possible and that they should be placed in the “least restrictive environment.”
Across the nation, parents and children fought state laws excluding students with disabilities from public schools — with fights in Washington D.C. and Pennsylvania fueling the passage of IDEA. It wasn’t until 1992 that New Jersey repealed its statutes allowing public schools to exclude “untrainable” children with disabilities. By then, separate schools were an integral part of the state’s highly decentralized education system, which today comprises roughly 600 districts.
New Jersey Department of Education officials said the state is committed to ensuring students with disabilities are in the most appropriate school setting based on individual needs, and that includes out-of-district programs.
“New Jersey is uniquely positioned in this regard, with a longstanding infrastructure of out-of-district options and many small local public school districts,” department spokesman Michael Yaple said in an email. “These and other factors have contributed to the state’s historical reliance on a wide array of specialized programs designed to offer diverse, individualized educational options for students with disabilities.”
The rate at which New Jersey school districts place students in separate schools has declined over the past two decades. In the same period, however, more parents chose to send their children to private schools, sometimes because they felt they had no other viable options.
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Some parents say there are significant trade-offs when their child leaves their district school.
Ellen Woodcock’s son, a fifth grader, attends a county-run school for students with disabilities where she says teachers understand his autism much better than they did in her home district.* Despite her son’s fascination with geography, however, teachers spend little time on science or social studies. The school has no library, and the day ends an hour earlier than his district elementary school. School staff focus on teaching social skills, but he’s lost the chance to model the behavior of peers without disabilities.
Left out
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“I feel like he’s not being challenged, like he’s kind of pigeonholed,” Woodcock said. “We just felt like we didn’t have a choice.”
Her son spent kindergarten through second grade learning in general education classrooms at his local neighborhood school in Haddonfield, New Jersey, and she was happy with the social and academic progress he was making. In third grade, however, things changed. The school shifted him into a separate classroom for significant parts of the day. Woodcock said school staff seemed unable, or unwilling, to address how his autism affected his learning and provide the right support to account for it. She felt he was unwanted.
In the middle of fourth grade, she said she reluctantly transferred him to a specialized school where he spent his day with other students with autism.
“It was almost out of desperation,” Woodcock said. “It was like, let’s get him out of the school district, because we feel like they can’t support him. It was a fight all the time to get him what he needed.”
Haddonfield district officials said privacy laws prevent them from commenting on individual students but noted that the percentage of students with disabilities who spend almost all of their time in general education classrooms is significantly higher than the state’s average. About 69 percent of Haddonfield students with disabilities spend at least 80 percent of the school day in general education classrooms, compared with 45 percent statewide, according to state Education Department data.
“We are proud of our inclusive practices and the strong sense of belonging we strive to create for all students,” district officials said in a statement. “The least restrictive environment can look different for each student.”
In Haddonfield, 19 percent of parents with students with disabilities choose to enroll their children in private schools, compared with 7 percent statewide.
Woodcock decided to move her son back to the district next year, where he’ll start sixth grade at the local middle school. She understands that her son may need to be pulled out of class to learn a subject like math in a special education resource room — but she believes he can, and should, learn in general education classrooms as well.
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Under IDEA, students with disabilities should be placed in separate schools or classes only if their disability makes it too difficult for them to learn in a regular classroom, even with extra help and support. A team made up of a child’s parents, teachers, school district officials and, when appropriate, the child, decide on a placement together and must review it each year.
The federal Department of Education says those teams have to make this decision based on an individual child’s needs — not solely because of the kind of disability, how significant the child’s needs are or whether the school has the money or the staff. In New Jersey, however, some parents say schools too often determine placement on a child’s diagnosis alone.
Observers, including special education advocates and attorneys, say school districts and leaders of separate schools tend to argue it would be too difficult for all of New Jersey’s hundreds of public school districts to provide services for all types of disabilities. That’s fueled a reliance on private and county-run separate schools, many of which have classrooms or programs focused on a specific disability, such as autism or dyslexia, with specially trained teachers.
Districts sometimes launch specific special education programs — applied behavioral analysis classrooms for students with autism, for example — only to abandon them after challenges paying for them or finding qualified staff, said Paul Barger, a special education lawyer in Irvington, New Jersey.
“Instead of continuing to develop their own programs in the districts, they went ahead and just said they’re placing out into state-approved private school programs,” Barger said.
Returning some students with disabilities to in-district schools would require more money. Lawmakers in New Jersey are debating the governor’s proposal to boost funding for special education services in public schools by $400 million for the next school year. Advocates say that’s an opportunity to build stronger special education systems in public schools. The governor also proposed flat funding of $420 million for private school tuition payments for students with disabilities.
Related: OPINION: Students with disabilities should not lose their rights when they are placed in private settings by public school systems
Some parents, unhappy with the services they see in public districts, prefer private schools: A growing number pay for their children to attend. That’s despite the fact that those parents who choose private schools lose federal protections, including the rights to raise formal complaints.
ASAH, the group representing New Jersey private schools for students with disabilities, which enroll more than 10,000 students, points out the lack of special education services in public districts. It tells parents that poorly trained paraprofessionals in public schools can be stigmatizing, and placing students in self-contained classrooms doesn’t make students feel valued or included. The group, formerly known as the Association of Schools and Agencies for the Handicapped, argues private schools may not be more costly to the state than public schools once pensions are factored in.
Students with disabilities have the right to options like private schools, the association’s executive director John Mulholland said in an interview.
“It really is an individualized determination, and merely just being a part of your home district isn’t always a least restrictive environment,” he said.
Unlike for public schools, the federal government doesn’t collect data from private schools about how often their students interact with peers without disabilities. According to the association’s recent study of 5,300 students served by ASAH schools, 262 students planned to leave their private schools in the 2022-23 school year to return to their home district. That report suggests such a move was less likely for children with autism and multiple disabilities.
Mulholland said private schools may offer some interaction with students without disabilities through community service or sporting events. His association’s analyses have found that students who start at a private school earlier are more likely to return to their public school district.
“If students come to us younger, they can get the intensive support they need or return to their school districts — many of our members pride themselves on that turnaround,” Mulholland said.
Nicole Lannutti, of Washington Township in Gloucester County, said her daughter Sophia, who is non-verbal and has multiple disabilities, attended a private preschool for one year at a cost to the district of roughly $90,000. (New Jersey requires school districts to provide preschool for students with disabilities.)
Lannutti pushed to get Sophia into the public school system for a second year of preschool and then elementary school, where she said her daughter thrived in a school that prioritized inclusion. But that changed in middle school, where her mom says she’s had to push to have her daughter included even in lunch, recess and extracurricular activities. Washington Township school district did not respond to requests for comment.
Lannutti said her local public school is still the most appropriate setting for her child, who will enter seventh grade in the fall and has made friends by participating in the school play. The school agrees, and said as much in her education plan. Lannutti said private schools play an important role, but public schools should work harder to serve more students and fulfill their civil right to an education. “When it comes to my kid, it’s not that she should go because this district can’t handle it,” Lannutti said. “They should learn how to do it.”
*Correction: This story has been updated to correct Ellen Woodcock’s son’s current grade level.
Contact investigative reporter Marina Villeneuve at 212-678-3430 or [email protected] or on Signal at mvilleneuve.78
Contact senior investigative reporter Meredith Kolodner at 212-870-1063 or [email protected] or on Signal at merkolodner.04
This story about special education and inclusion was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger newsletter.
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