Boston Education Committee Demands Answers on Pre-K Special Education Compliance

BOSTON — September 23, 2024 — Boston City Council Education Committee grills administrators over special education gaps in Universal Pre-K. Councilor Erin J. Murphy, a former BPS early childhood educator and special education coordinator, led a September 23 hearing on Docket 0651, charging that evaluation requests from UPK families are being ignored and that children who do obtain IEPs are being told no BPS placement exists for them — a potential violation of federal law requiring evaluation within 30 days and an IEP within 45. Neither Superintendent Mary Skipper nor the district's chief of specialized services appeared, despite being invited. Tiara Diaz, BPS executive director of early childhood, and Kristen McSwain, director of the Office of Early Childhood, acknowledged the city "ran out of classroom space" at the end of last year and has since added 111 new K-0 and K-1 inclusion seats. The program currently serves roughly 4,700 students — about 22 percent of the city's three-year-olds and just over half of its four-year-olds — with 6 percent of community-based UPK students and 27 percent of BPS UPK students carrying IEPs. Murphy tied the compliance failures directly to the district's $1.7 billion budget, saying "there's no financial excuse."