The lawsuit alleges that New York schools are failing to meet the needs of students with disabilities

NEW YORK — The New York City Department of Education is facing a new lawsuit from the Legal Aid Society and a group of city public school parents. It is alleged that children who need special education programs often do not attend school because city schools do not have what they need.

According to city school data, 46.1% of students with disabilities were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year. This means that over 86,000 students are staying at home.

The lawsuit claims it’s because they just don’t want to, but in some cases it’s too traumatic.

“The Department of Education has no program (or policy) in place to really address the problem…And it’s the parents, the families who don’t have the resources, who are kind of left to fight on their own,” said Jeffrey Metzler, Co-counsel in the lawsuit at Pillsbury Law Firm.

A spokesperson for the city schools told CBS News New York in response to the lawsuit that they are committed to the issue of attendance and providing the support and resources some of their most vulnerable students need.

“They don’t have the resources.”

“They had no answer. They had no behavior plan,” said parent David Castro.

Castro’s son Ian is autistic. He stays home from school every day and has no plans to change that. While attending public school, Ian experienced a series of mental health crises, some of which turned violent. Castro remembers picking Ian up the day after an incident and seeing school staff lying on top of his son, holding him down.

“Even the principal once told me, ‘You better pick him up. If not, I’ll call 911,'” Castro said.

Castro says Ian’s schools either called him to pick Ian up or didn’t tell him about an incident at all. As a result, he and his wife are still learning about the severity of their own son’s illness. They believe that the schools Ian attended traumatized him and produced these episodes that Ian would take home with him.

“What could the Department of Education give you and him to make him feel more comfortable?” asked Doug Williams of CBS News New York.

“He can’t go back to the DOE because the DOE is not prepared… They don’t have the resources,” Castro said.