Education Department Shift Puts Special Education, Civil Rights, and Student Privacy in New Federal Hands

Kentucky schools and families now face a more divided federal map for special education, civil rights, and student privacy.

Jun 17, 2026

The Lyndon B. Johnson Building in Washington, D.C., headquarters of the U.S. Department of Education. Photo by Coolcaesar via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0.

On June 16, 2026, the U.S. Department of Education announced four new interagency agreements with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the U.S. Department of Justice.

IDEA, federal civil rights laws, and FERPA remain in force. The change is that key administrative and enforcement work will now involve HHS and DOJ alongside the Education Department.

For Kentucky, the change impacts public schools, special education offices, local school boards, district data reporting, college compliance offices, and families who rely on federal rights when local answers fail.

What the Education Department announced

The U.S. Department of Education announced four interagency agreements on June 16, 2026. The department said the agreements are designed to reduce federal bureaucracy and improve the delivery of federally funded programs.

Secretary of Education Linda McMahon authorized the announcement. The press release names HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche as federal partners in the shift.

The first agreement pairs the Education Department with HHS on special education and rehabilitative services. The second pairs the Education Department with the DOJ on civil rights enforcement. The third gives the DOJ a role in protecting student privacy. The fourth gives DOJ a role in training and advisory services related to desegregation.

The department’s public statement says HHS will partner with ED on special education and rehabilitative services, while DOJ will partner with ED on civil rights enforcement, student privacy protection, and training and advisory services.

The source of the authority is also important. The fact sheets cite the Economy Act, 31 U.S.C. § 1535, which permits one federal agency to obtain services from another. That means the administration is not using Congress to abolish the Department of Education. Congress created the department, and dissolving it entirely would require congressional action. The administration is using interagency agreements to move major daily functions to other departments.

The Education Department still exists. Federal education laws still apply. But the offices and agencies responsible for carrying out parts of the work are changing.

What HHS and DOJ will now help handle

The special education agreement gives HHS a significant support role in programs currently managed by the Education Department’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS).

The ED-HHS fact sheet says HHS will support stakeholder outreach, grant administration, enforcement, compliance, monitoring, annual performance determinations, data collection, data reporting, data analysis, and federal fund drawdowns. It also says that fiscal year 2026 grant awards will still be made through ED’s G5 grants platform, while later awards will be managed through HHS’s GrantsSolutions and Payment Management System.

That is a real administrative change. Special education is not only a classroom issue. IDEA depends on grants, state plans, district reporting, student counts, monitoring, compliance findings, annual performance reporting, and federal determinations about whether states meet requirements.

The fact sheet also says ED-OSERS will continue to manage and lead OSERS programs, coordinate policy and grant documents, and handle matters that require final authority assigned by statute to the Secretary of Education. In plain language, ED says it keeps legal authority, while HHS helps administer and monitor parts of the work.

The civil rights agreement works differently. DOJ already has civil rights enforcement authority in many contexts. The new agreement gives DOJ a larger role alongside ED’s Office for Civil Rights.

The ED-DOJ civil rights fact sheet says students, parents, and advocates may still file complaints with ED-OCR. It says ED-OCR retains authority to investigate discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, disability, or age. It also says DOJ will help strengthen enforcement procedures, align civil rights policy requirements, and increase enforcement capacity.

For student privacy, the DOJ’s role is even more direct. The ED-DOJ student privacy fact sheet says DOJ will primarily review complaints alleging privacy violations, conduct investigations, and recommend potential resolutions. ED says it will continue to manage the Student Privacy Policy Office and will retain final authority over enforcement decisions, policies, practices, and personnel decisions.

The training and advisory services agreement places DOJ in a position to perform work authorized by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That law allows federal assistance to school boards and other public bodies developing or implementing desegregation plans. Under the agreement, DOJ will provide assistance to school boards and other responsible government agencies on desegregation-related plans, while ED retains leadership over policy guidance, rulemaking, Federal Register notices, and budget justifications.

The administration presents these agreements as coordination. The real change is that Kentucky schools and families may now be dealing with federal education rights administered through more than one federal department.

How this impacts Kentucky classrooms and families

Kentucky is directly affected because Kentucky receives and administers federal special education funds, submits IDEA reports, monitors local districts, and supports students with disabilities through the Kentucky Department of Education.

The Kentucky Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Early Learning oversees special education regulations, district support, public reporting, monitoring, and data collection. KDE’s public reporting page says IDEA requires states to submit a State Performance Plan and an Annual Performance Report. KDE says that the report is submitted around February each year.

KDE’s special education data page says the Office of Special Education and Early Learning collects data from local school districts, parents, and other sources. Those data are reviewed, interpreted, and reported in Kentucky’s Annual Performance Report.

That makes this federal shift local very quickly. Kentucky’s district directors of special education verify child count data. They review IDEA reports. They help ensure that students with IEPs appear correctly in district records. They work with parents, principals, teachers, related service providers, and Admission and Release Committees.

KDE’s 2025-2026 Special Education Reporting Manual shows how specific this work becomes. District personnel use the IDEA Dec. 1 Count Extract report and the IDEA Dec. 1 Federal Submission Validation report to verify students with IEPs. The district Director of Special Education must review the validation report, confirm the data, and complete the child count verification process.

That reporting affects more than paperwork. Child count data, placement data, discipline data, and performance indicators shape how Kentucky reports compliance with IDEA and how federal agencies evaluate whether Kentucky is meeting its obligations.

Kentucky’s scale is substantial. In Kentucky’s federal fiscal year 2023 special education reporting, the state reported 102,069 children with IEPs aged 5 through 21. That number does not include every family touched by disability services, early intervention, privacy complaints, civil rights disputes, or higher education compliance.

A parent in Jefferson County, Oldham County, Fayette County, Breathitt County, Warren County, or Pike County may not know which federal agency handles which form. They know whether their child received services, whether the IEP was followed, whether transportation worked, whether discipline removed their child from instruction, whether records were protected, and whether a complaint was answered.

That is where the federal change becomes real. If a family files a civil rights complaint, ED says the family may still file with ED-OCR. If a student privacy complaint is filed, DOJ may now review it and conduct the investigation. If a district needs special education technical assistance, HHS may provide program support, while ED retains legal authority.

Families should not have to become federal agency experts to protect a child’s rights.

When responsibility is divided among ED, HHS, and DOJ, Kentucky agencies and school districts need to clearly explain the path.

Who can answer, enforce, or change course

At the federal level, Secretary Linda McMahon holds authority over the Education Department. ED says it will retain statutory responsibility for the programs and civil rights duties assigned to it by law.

HHS now gains a major administrative role in special education and rehabilitative services. That includes support for grant administration, monitoring, data work, and federal fund drawdowns for programs that include IDEA, Rehabilitation Act programs, Gallaudet University, the American Printing House for the Blind, the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, and related disability programs.

DOJ now gains a larger operational role in education-related civil rights enforcement, student privacy complaints, and desegregation-related training and advisory services. Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche is named in the ED announcement as the DOJ official speaking for that role.

In Kentucky, the first state-level authority is the Kentucky Department of Education. Commissioner Robbie Fletcher leads KDE. The Kentucky Board of Education named him commissioner in March 2024, and he began the role on July 1, 2024, after approval by the Kentucky Senate.

KDE’s Office of Special Education and Early Learning has the most direct state role for IDEA reporting, district support, special education data, and monitoring. Local school boards, superintendents, principals, district directors of special education, and ARC teams implement services in schools.

For colleges and universities, the authority shifts to institutional compliance offices, presidents, boards, and federal civil rights or privacy investigators when complaints are filed. Public colleges in Kentucky also answer to state and institutional governing boards, including the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education in its coordinating role.

For parents and students, the most important question is not which office has the press release. The important question is which office can answer a complaint, correct a violation, release guidance, approve funds, or require a school or college to change course.

Share this with a Kentucky parent, teacher, or school board watcher

Why enforcement capacity deserves scrutiny

The Education Department says civil rights enforcement will continue without interruption. That promise should be tested against agency capacity.

The Government Accountability Office reported that in March 2025, about half of OCR’s 575 staff were placed on paid administrative leave, and seven of OCR’s 12 regional offices were closed as part of a department-wide reduction-in-force and reorganization. GAO also reported that ED had not provided complete public information on the full costs and savings of those OCR actions.

That matters for families and schools because civil rights enforcement depends on people who can review complaints, investigate records, interview witnesses, negotiate resolution agreements, monitor compliance, and answer questions from students and parents.

The new DOJ partnership may increase enforcement capacity in some areas. It may also change priorities, timing, and how complaints are handled. The federal fact sheets do not answer every operational question.

Kentucky families deserve plain instructions from KDE and local districts. Parents should know where to file an IDEA-related concern, a disability discrimination complaint, or a student privacy complaint, and how to track a pending case.

What you can do or watch next

Parents of students with disabilities should keep copies of IEPs, ARC meeting notes, service logs, evaluations, progress reports, transportation communications, discipline notices, and written requests to the district. If services are missed or records are unclear, document the dates and ask the district in writing for the specific corrective step.

Families who may need to file a federal civil rights complaint should check the ED-OCR complaint page and save proof of submission. ED says complaints may still be filed with ED-OCR. If DOJ becomes involved later, families should keep a dated record of every agency contact.

Parents with student privacy concerns should track whether the complaint is being handled by ED’s Student Privacy Policy Office, DOJ, or both. The student privacy fact sheet states that the DOJ will primarily review privacy complaints, conduct investigations, and recommend resolutions, while the ED retains final authority.

Kentucky school board members should ask superintendents whether district staff have received updated guidance from KDE, ED, HHS, or DOJ. District directors of special education should be able to explain whether reporting, monitoring, and technical assistance contacts have changed.

Kentucky legislators should ask KDE whether the department has received implementation guidance on the ED-HHS and ED-DOJ agreements. They should also ask whether Kentucky’s IDEA grant administration, reporting calendar, district monitoring, complaint processes, or federal contacts will change after fiscal year 2026.

Journalists and civic groups should request the signed interagency agreements, not only the press releases and fact sheets. The signed documents should specify the exact duties assigned, the duration of the agreements, the payment terms, staffing expectations, data-handling rules, and termination provisions.

The Kentucky Board of Education should be watched for updates from Commissioner Robbie Fletcher. Local school boards should be watched for changes in special education staffing, complaint procedures, privacy notices, and federal program reporting.

This is not a reason for panic. It is a reason for documentation.

Federal rights are only useful when families know where to go, who must answer, and which agency has the authority to act.

Kentucky families, school districts, colleges, and state education staff now need clearer instructions than a national press release can provide.

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