Melissa in the Morning: Special Ed and Out of State Facilities

Disability Rights of Connecticut, a federally mandated agency advocating for individuals with disabilities, and the state's Office of the Child Advocate looked at out-of-state placements for Connecticut special education students during three school years, from 2021 to 2024. And that report revealed tens of millions of dollars being spent to send kids out of district. But more importantly, some of these kids are going to facilities out of state without Connecticut oversight and sometimes even oversight from the state where they operate. We wanted to dive into this report more so we connected with Christina Ghio, Acting Child Advocate for the Connecticut Office of Child Advocate and Tom Cosker of Disability Rights Connecticut.

To read the full report: https://portal.ct.gov/oca/-/media/oca/oca-recent-publications/2026-publications/out-of-state-report-special-education-placements-report-feb-2026.pdf?rev=454bc141a6204a869288d20b3cd619e0&hash=B51C51A952E555D2329F253936CB0B46