The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in partnership with other federal agencies, has announced that it is developing a national autism elopement alert system for missing children and adults with autism. The goal of the project is to strengthen response coordination among emergency personnel, first responders and…
On August 24, 2026, the Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development, Department of the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) published proposed rules in the Federal Register that would give itself more leeway in how and why it cancels federal grant funding. The rule changes would codify methods for cancellation of grant…
In an August 20, 2026 Dear Colleague letter (DCL) issued by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE), the agency defended technology use in classrooms, saying the use of educational technology is a separate issue from the use of recreational technology. The letter acknowledged the growing concerns from parents, educators, and…
As reported by K-12 Dive, on August 19, 2026 a federal judge partially blocked the Trump administration's effort to overhaul the Teen Pregnancy Prevention Program, saying its new emphasis on abstinence instead of contraception for pregnancy prevention and termination of grants that don’t align with that approach was implemented without…
According to a report by the Children’s Equity Project at Arizona State University, which included a 50-state policy analysis of state childcare licensing standards, as researchers compared states’ licensing standards to existing federal Head Start quality standards they found the quality of early care and learning programs with regard to…
On August 18, 2026, The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) Office for Civil Rights (OCR) issued a Dear Colleague letter (DCL), providing school discipline guidance for district leaders, rebuffing previous attempts to reduce discipline disparities for Black and other historically marginalized students and calling for schools to “stop racial balancing.”…
E-rate, which provides discounted internet services to build connectivity for schools, gave $10.5 billion to districts between 2021 and 2025. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has begun to accept public comment on a proposed rule weighing changes to, including the discontinuance, of the federal E-rate program. The E-rate program, which…
School districts and states under federal investigation from the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) may soon see their cases narrowed or dropped as a result of the USDE’s recent announcement that it was formally walking back some systemic race-based discrimination investigations. The types of cases most likely to be affected…
Students, particularly those adolescents in military families face, unique issues, such as frequent moves and parental deployments, that can present barriers to learning. In fact, a survey released on August 10, 2026 by the National Military Family Association (NMFA) shows 22% of teens in military families reported low mental well-being,…
According to survey data collected by the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and the National Association of State Directors of Special Education (NASDE), during the 2024-25 school year there were 7,907 written state complaints and that number rose to 11,523 in the 2025-26 school year. The 46% jump in the…
