When Silence Hurts: How Schools and CPS Failed Students with Disabilities and Mental Illness

The Department of Education Must Be Held Accountable

For years, families across the nation have demanded answers about why children with disabilities and mental illness continue to vanish into the CPS system, even though federal laws were created to protect them.

Evidence from federal guidance, peer-reviewed research, and lived experience proves that schools and agencies have failed to uphold the rights guaranteed under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). These failures have destroyed families, denied children education, and caused long-term trauma.

It is time for accountability.

Suppression of 504 and IEP Protections During Removals

Under FERPA and Section 504, schools must maintain and transfer every child’s educational records, including 504 Plans and Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), whenever CPS intervenes or foster placement occurs (U.S. Department of Education, n.d.). Yet across the country, families report that these protections disappear the moment child welfare agencies arrive.

The U.S. Department of Education’s 2024 Nonregulatory Guidance revealed that only 71 percent of youth in foster care graduate by age 21, compared with 88 percent of their peers (U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2024). Lost records and disrupted accommodations are key causes. When schools fail to transfer or honor an IEP during CPS involvement, they erase legal protections and directly contribute to educational decline.

This is not neglected by oversight. It is a system that has turned its back on those it was meant to protect.

Schools Used as Reporters Instead of Defenders

Teachers are mandated reporters, but data show that the education system has turned them into agents of enforcement rather than advocates for students. Schools initiate about 20 percent of all CPS reports, yet educator training on abuse identification remains inconsistent (Pietrantoni et al., 2023).

Glouchkow, Weegar, and Romano (2023) found that teachers’ accuracy for detecting physical abuse was only 27 percent compared with 93 percent for sexual abuse. This shows how misjudgment and bias lead to unnecessary investigations. States that expanded universal mandatory reporting laws produced more total reports but no increase in confirmed abuse cases (Ho, Gross, and Bettencourt, 2017).

When schools act as extensions of child welfare surveillance, families raising children with disabilities or mental illness become the first targets.

Stolen Children by CPS (2024) documented these failures in When Love Becomes a Crime: How CPS Harasses Parents of Children with Autism and When Love Becomes a Crime: How CPS Targets Families Living with Schizophrenia. Both reports expose a pattern of parents who asked for help being accused of neglect rather than being supported. This is a collapse of compassion and a failure of compliance.

Silence After Wrongful CPS Actions

Once children are wrongfully investigated or removed, silence takes over. McTavish et al. (2019) found that children and caregivers report fear, retraumatization, and a lack of communication after CPS involvement. Educators who witness injustice rarely intervene, often out of fear or confusion about legal boundaries.

Font, Kennedy, and Littleton (2023) showed that students with CPS contact, even when allegations were not substantiated, were more likely to be suspended or expelled. Stigma becomes policy, and silence becomes complicity.

Every educator who looks away allows harm to continue. Every administrator who refuses to challenge CPS misconduct adds to the cycle of injustice.

Disability, Mental Illness, and Systemic Bias

Children with autism or intellectual disabilities face two to three times higher odds of maltreatment than their peers without disabilities (McDonnell et al., 2019). When mental illness is part of the picture, the risk grows even greater. Childhood maltreatment is one of the strongest predictors of lifelong psychiatric disorders such as depression, anxiety, and posttraumatic stress (Teicher, Gordon, and Nemeroff, 2022).

Su, Meng, Yang, and D’Arcy (2022) found that maltreatment in childhood drastically increases the likelihood of major depressive episodes, generalized anxiety disorder, and suicidal ideation. These findings confirm what families have long known. When systems fail to protect children with mental illness, the consequences last for generations.

Families raising children with conditions such as autism or schizophrenia experience the heaviest discrimination because CPS often mistakes symptoms of disability or psychiatric distress as signs of parental neglect.

The Raw Truth

The facts are clear:

• Schools are failing to enforce 504 and IEP protections during CPS removals.

• Educators are being used as tools of child welfare enforcement rather than advocates for students.

• Silence after wrongful removals continues to cause trauma instead of accountability.

This is not child protection. It is institutional profiling. Children from low-income, disabled, or mentally ill families are disproportionately targeted, while confirmation rates of abuse remain low (Ho et al., 2017; Font et al., 2023).

Until the Department of Education demands transparency, requires trauma-informed training, and enforces accountability for preserving 504 and IEP rights, this cycle will continue.

Conclusion: A Call for Reform

The relationship between education and child protection was created to defend children, not destroy families. Yet schools too often serve as the first link in a chain of injustice. The Department of Education must confront this national crisis, enforce its own laws, and restore trust in the systems meant to protect our most vulnerable children.

Every child deserves safety, education, and dignity. Silence is no longer acceptable.

References

Font, S. A., Kennedy, R., and Littleton, T. (2023). Child protective services involvement and exclusionary school discipline. Child Development, 94(6), 1625–1641. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13941

Glouchkow, A., Weegar, K., and Romano, E. (2023). Teachers’ responses to child maltreatment. Journal of Child and Adolescent Trauma, 16(1), 95–108. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40653-022-00473-2

Ho, G. W. K., Gross, D. A., and Bettencourt, A. (2017). Universal mandatory reporting policies and the odds of identifying child physical abuse. American Journal of Public Health, 107(5), 709–716. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2017.303667

McDonnell, C. G., Boan, A. D., Bradley, C. C., Seay, K. D., Charles, J. M., and Carpenter, L. A. (2019). Child maltreatment in autism spectrum disorder and intellectual disability: Results from a population based sample. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60(5), 576–584. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcpp.12993

McTavish, J. R., Kimber, M., Devries, K., Colombini, M., MacGregor, J. C. D., Wathen, N., and MacMillan, H. L. (2019). Children’s and caregivers’ perspectives about mandatory reporting of child maltreatment: A meta synthesis of qualitative studies. BMJ Open, 9, e025741. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2018-025741

Pietrantoni, Z., Chitiyo, J., Chitiyo, A., Quintero Peña, J., and Fernandez, K. (2023). Perceived preparedness of school practitioners to identify and report child maltreatment. Social Development Issues, 45(3), 18–29.

Stolen Children by CPS. (2024). When love becomes a crime: How CPS harasses parents of children with autism. https://www.stolenchildrenbycps.com/post/when-love-becomes-a-crime-how-cps-harasses-parents-of-children-with-autism

Stolen Children by CPS. (2024, October 31). When love becomes a crime: How CPS targets families living with schizophrenia. https://www.stolenchildrenbycps.com/post/when-love-becomes-a-crime-how-cps-targets-families-living-with-schizophrenia

Su, Y., Meng, X., Yang, G., and D’Arcy, C. (2022). The relationship between childhood maltreatment and mental health problems: Coping strategies and social support act as mediators. BMC Psychiatry, 22, Article 359. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04001-2

Teicher, M. H., Gordon, J. B., and Nemeroff, C. B. (2022). Recognizing the importance of childhood maltreatment as a critical factor in psychiatric diagnoses, treatment, research, prevention, and education. Molecular Psychiatry, 27(6), 1331–1338. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-021-01367-9

U.S. Department of Education. (n.d.). FERPA general guidance for students. Student Privacy Policy Office. https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/ferpa

U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2024). Nonregulatory guidance: Ensuring educational stability and success for students in foster care. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.