Parents of disabled children keep the right to approve use of their insurance

The US Education Department has withdrawn a proposal that would have removed the requirement for public schools to get parental consent before using a child's public benefits or insurance to pay for special education services. This means parents will continue to have the final say on whether their child's health insurance or public benefits are used to cover costs that schools are legally obligated to provide.

This withdrawal means that a long-standing protection for families of children with disabilities remains in place. Schools will still need to ask parents before tapping into their child's Medicaid or private insurance to pay for services like therapy or assistive technology. Without this consent, schools might have shifted more of their financial burden onto families' insurance plans, potentially exhausting benefits or increasing out-of-pocket costs for other medical needs.