Why have special education complaints in Maryland increased 200% since 2022?

Maryland parents and advocates filed roughly 630 state complaints about special education last year, a more than 200% increase since 2022.

This spike tracks with a national trend and comes as the Trump administration has gutted much of the federal education department, choking one of the avenues parents have historically turned to when they believed a school violated their child’s rights.

It also coincides with the ubiquity of artificial intelligence tools, which experts say some parents are using to help them draft complaints. Plus, an advocate from Potomac has been on a filing spree.

The reasons behind these filings, which are investigated by the Maryland State Department of Education, run the gamut. Families have alleged that school districts failed to test their child for disabilities, provide required accommodations or ensure a student makes academic progress.

Maryland has among the highest rates of state complaints filed per 10,000 students.

But it’s not alone in seeing a jump: A recent national survey found a roughly 50% increase in special education filings in states across the country.

The survey by the Council for Exceptional Children and the National Association for State Directors of Special Education noted that the uptick makes it difficult for investigators to resolve cases in a timely manner.

Filing a state complaint triggers an investigation, which is supposed to culminate in a “letter of findings” within 60 days. If Maryland officials determine that a school system violated a child’s rights, they must devise a plan for improvement.

The state recently posted a job for a Special Education Complaint Investigation Coordinator. The new hire would be the department’s sixth complaint investigator position.

Maryland education officials said there may be many reasons for the rise in complaints.

“Factors may include increased parental awareness, easier access to filing tools, and evolving advocacy practices,” spokeswoman Cherie Duvall-Jones said in a statement.

There’s another factor: Stacy Ganz Kahn.

The Stacy Effect

During Thomas Taylor’s first year as Montgomery County Public Schools superintendent, Ganz Kahn introduced herself in an email as an MCPS graduate, mother and the person “responsible for the state complaints that have been coming to your desk almost daily since October.”

She added: “I do not say this to be adversarial but to emphasize the urgency of the issues within MCPS, particularly in special education.”

For Ganz Kahn, this is personal. She was diagnosed with a learning disability in kindergarten and her parents were warned that she’d never read beyond a third-grade level.

She went on to earn two master’s degrees.

Ganz Kahn is now a special education advocate and consultant who, since 2024, says she has filed hundreds of complaints — some pro bono or for reduced fees.

“I do the whole state,” she said. “But Montgomery County’s my jam.”

MCPS — the state’s largest district — educates roughly 24,000 students with disabilities, or about 15% of their total enrollment.

Ganz Kahn can rattle off the details of dozens of cases, ticking through the myriad ways she believes children have been harmed by the system. She takes calls from worried parents in the middle of the night and while she’s on trips with her family.

State complaints are her tool of choice because they’re free to file and investigators must generate findings within about two months. Other dispute methods, like filing for due process, can cost parents thousands of dollars and require time off from work.

Ganz Kahn said many of her state complaints have resulted in investigators finding violations of disability law. That can lead to results — or painful frustration.

Second battle

In November 2024, Ganz Kahn worked with Bethesda mother Oz Papados to file a complaint on behalf of her son Joseph, who was then a sixth grader diagnosed with autism.

According to the complaint, school staff repeatedly asked Papados to pick her son up early, sometimes an hour or less into the day. They also failed to provide Joseph with all of his required supports, including consistent speech-language services and help from a one-to-one aide.

Perhaps most frightening to Papados, school staff physically restrained Joseph multiple times. He came home with bruises, she said.

State investigators agreed that MCPS violated Joseph’s rights.

District staff needed to ensure he started receiving proper services and support, state officials ruled. Plus, the district was required to calculate what it owed Joseph in “compensatory services” — extra supports intended to make up for ones the school failed to provide.

Papados was glad to receive acknowledgement of the wrongdoing, but Joseph still “hasn’t been given anything to make up for the years of not having access to a free education,” she told The Banner.

“Yes, we do have violations in writing, which is fantastic,” she said. “But they did not affect anything, really.”

According to state policy, the Maryland State Department of Education requires districts to submit documentation that verifies corrective action.

But Ganz Kahn said she knows of other cases where the state demands remedies but families are left waiting. She worries about parents who file complaints but still have to fight a second battle to get what they’re owed.

AI-powered complaints?

In special education circles, experts are increasingly theorizing that parents are using artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT to craft state complaints.

Some observers have noticed that complaints are growing longer and that they cite more statutes.

Navigating special education can often feel like it requires an advanced degree, as parents sift through legalese and acronyms to analyze reams of paperwork. Wealthier families often turn to paid advocates or attorneys to protect their child’s educational rights.

“There is a level of equity-setting here,” said Chad Rummel, a leader with the Council for Exceptional Children. “Parents that can’t afford the dollars for an attorney can get support through better understanding of the law through AI.”

Still, advocacy groups urge caution.

A federal special education center recently published a document titled: ”A Parent’s Guide to Using AI for Advocacy.”

It warned that while AI can help a parent understand the general process of filing a state complaint, “it often creates filings that are unclear, inaccurate, or missing required information.”

These errors, it added, can lead to delays or dismissals.

In an email earlier this month, The Parents’ Place of Maryland, a nonprofit that supports children with disabilities, warned its families that AI makes mistakes about special education law, tends to agree with the user even if they are wrong, and can store personal data, such as a child’s name, school and disability status.

“AI can be a helpful tool,” the group wrote, “but it doesn’t replace personalized support.”