Georgia: Districts spending thousands fighting parents over SPED evaluations
GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - Georgia school districts are spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on legal battles to fight parents of disabled children over special education evaluations.
District records, uncovered by Atlanta News First Investigates, reveal proceedings have more than doubled costing both families and taxpayers.
Seven-year-old Cylus Fears is a third grader in Gwinnett County who is on the autism spectrum. His mother, Teresa Fears, said he has trouble with reading comprehension.
“We’re working on assignments and he’s in tears because he’s not understanding the work,”
Fears said. “He was not understanding what he was reading. He was reading just to read, but he wasn’t understanding.”
School records show the district knew about Cylus’ autism diagnosis and that he “struggles answering comprehension questions,” according to the records.
Fears asked the Gwinnett County School District to place her son on an academic individualized education program (IEP), a plan tailored to help students learn with a disability. After meeting with school administrators last year, the district said Cylus didn’t need the IEP and denied Fears request for an independent evaluation for a second opinion.
Parents who disagree with districts have a legal right to request independent evaluations, which typically cost districts about $1,500.
“I was frustrated; I was hurt and scared for my child,” Fears said.
Fears recorded herself in her car after the meeting and posted it on TikTok. After the mother of four shared the video, other parents shared similar stories in her comments.
Missy Purcell, a special education advocate, saw the video. “I watched the TikTok and her crying in her car, and I started crying myself, because we all know that feeling,” Purcell said. “I know that feeling of [knowing] my kid needs help and the very people that should be helping are not helping.”
Purcell, a former Gwinnett County school teacher, is a parent of a child with disabilities. Fears asked her to advocate on her behalf and help navigate special education law.
Purcell said she is seeing a troubling pattern in her practice: school districts waiting for students with disabilities to fail before providing them support and services they were already entitled do under the law.
“We wait for kids to crash out either emotionally, behaviorally, or academically,” Purcell said. “You waited for me to fail and now I’m so far behind, it’s going to take an act of Congress to get me to actually where I need to be.”
Gwinnett County Schools denied Fears’ son an independent evaluation and threatened to take her to court if she didn’t accept the district’s assessment. In a letter, the district it district would file a due process hearing request “to demonstrate that its evaluation was valid and appropriate.”
Due process proceedings allow parents and school districts to present their case before an administrative law judge over whether a child receives services. . . .
Records from the Georgia Department of Education show special education due process proceedings have nearly doubled in recent years, from 73 in 2021 to 176 in 2025. The first two months of 2026 alone saw 111 hearings requested In all, there were 727 due process proceedings filed from 2021 to February 2026. . . .
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