{"id":314636,"date":"2026-08-05T21:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314636\/"},"modified":"2026-08-05T21:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T21:18:09","slug":"nyc-public-schools-revamp-school-avoidance-policies-in-class-action-settlement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/314636\/","title":{"rendered":"NYC public schools revamp school avoidance policies in class action settlement"},"content":{"rendered":"

New York City\u2019s public school system<\/a> (NYCPS) announced a new system to tackle school avoidance, the term used to describe students who resist attending school, through an agreement that education officials<\/a> signed to settle a class action lawsuit over the issue.<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, the NYCPS will create a stronger method of identifying instances of school avoidance by implementing standardized practices that test for mental health and psychological barriers, training more teachers on how to respond and designating school officials to focus on the issue.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In 2024, the Legal Aid Society and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman filed a class action lawsuit that claimed that the New York City Public Schools lacked concrete processes to address chronic school avoidance, even as the issue had \u201cnearly doubled\u201d in the years since the pandemic.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit, filed in Manhattan federal court, estimated that tens of thousands of public students in the city struggle to attend class because of anxiety, depression and other emotional disabilities. It is alleged that the city\u2019s Education Department has been failing in its duty to accommodate these students under federal and state disability and human rights laws.<\/p>\n

Legal Aid heralded the reforms as affecting 1,600 New York City public schools and establishing one of the first districtwide school-avoidance frameworks in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cStudents whose disabilities make it difficult to attend school deserve individualized supports that address the root causes of their absences, not just the absences themselves,\u201d The Legal Aid Society\u2019s Education Law Project Director Susan Horwitz said. \u201cThe longer students experiencing school avoidance are out of school, the more difficult it becomes to help them return.<\/p>\n

Up to now, the city Department of Education lacked a system-wide policy or program to address the growing issue of school avoidance, according to the suit. The plaintiffs argued that a typical response has been to suggest marginal accommodations like transportation changes, suggest parents apply for city-coordinated homebound instruction, or convince them to homeschool their child.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The school system needed more services and accommodations like behavioral therapy, counseling, transportation to and from school, and training that addresses the root problems and helps students return to the classroom.<\/p>\n

When a student who is in school finds it challenging to enter or remain in their classroom, the school cannot simply ignore the behavior. Instead, the school is required by law to conduct evaluations to determine whether the student\u2019s behavior is related to a disability.\u00a0<\/p>\n

A major part of the agreement is dedicated to standardizing the public schools\u2019 system in instances of school avoidance. New policies will involve the school system\u2019s Individualized Education Program (IEP), which tracks additional services and accommodations with a written plan. IEP administrators will now consider behavioral assessments and interventions as part of the support for school-avoidant students.<\/p>\n

The lawsuit also highlighted a catch-22 of school avoidance evaluations. When students refuse to attend class, schools say they can\u2019t evaluate them for special education support since the child is not on campus. Evaluations are delayed until the student returns to school, but in the meantime, they don\u2019t get any of the services that would make it easier for them to do so<\/p>\n

Under the agreement, schools can allow psychological evaluations to be conducted remotely or can consider alternative evaluation locations for students whose disabilities prevent them from attending school.<\/p>\n

To help facilitate these policies, the school system will designate a \u201cschool avoidance liaison\u201d who can be a teacher or school administrator at every school. It will also develop more publicly available training resources for families and ensure that parents or guardians also get information about their legal rights around special education evaluations, disability accommodations, and school-based mental health services.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New York City\u2019s public school system (NYCPS) announced a new system to tackle school avoidance, the term used…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":314637,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[118770,118771,96441,4337,73011,118772,118773,3782,9,24,63,8229,15545,118774,103767,38371,134,136,135,106551,118775],"class_list":["post-314636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-staten-island","tag-behavioral-health-support","tag-chronic-absenteeism","tag-class-action-lawsuit","tag-department-of-education","tag-disability-rights","tag-education-reform-nyc","tag-iep-services","tag-legal-aid-society","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-public-schools","tag-pandemic-learning-loss","tag-school-attendance-policy","tag-school-avoidance","tag-special-education","tag-staten-island","tag-staten-island-headlines","tag-staten-island-news","tag-student-mental-health","tag-student-support-services"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=314636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/314636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/314637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=314636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=314636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=314636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}