After the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic went from a far-flung concern to an existential threat, the world awakened to a seemingly alternate universe.
According to the most recent data, 1.5 billion children around the world (87 percent of Earth’s student population) are affected by school closures. And according to a United Nations agency, 60 million teachers are home as well.
For the almost 7 million students under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), school districts across the United States seemingly overnight had to pivot to remote learning while also figuring out how to provide Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE).
Some school districts that already had the infrastructure to provide remote learning options have settled into the new normal. Yet other districts admit that they weren’t prepared for large scale school closures, and needed time to set up learning management systems.
There is a good possibility that students with disabilities will be without direct instruction for weeks, if not months—and who knows how our educational landscape will change as a result of the fundamental change in instructional delivery.
In her article Teaching Exceptional Children, Special Education: Ready for Cyberspace?, Barbara Ludlow (University of West Virginia) argues that it was always a matter of when, not if, the move to digital learning was going to happen, and that special educators should therefore be focused on the “how” of providing specialized instruction.