For many families, the morning battle is quiet but relentless. A child who once loved learning now begs to stay home. There are stomachaches that the pediatrician can't explain, meltdowns at the front door, tears in the car, and, eventually, days, then weeks, of missed school. This is not defiance, and it is not laziness. It is often the outward face of profound anxiety, depression, trauma, or an unmet disability-related need.
Educators and clinicians call it school avoidance or school refusal, and it is far more common than most parents realize. Research cited by the School Avoidance Alliance and published through the National Library of Medicine suggests school refusal affects up to 15% of youth, driven by anxiety, depression, sleep disturbance, and other emotional distress. As the School Avoidance Alliance puts it, "school avoidance isn't about laziness or manipulation. Their distress is real, and their behavior is often a coping mechanism for something deeper."
The consequences are anything but minor. School refusal can be genuinely traumatic—for the child who feels trapped between fear and obligation, and for the family that watches a bright, capable student slip away from the classroom. And make no mistake: intelligence offers no immunity. Gifted and academically strong students lose ground just as surely as anyone else when they cannot access instruction. Every missed day compounds—academically, socially, and emotionally. As Susan Horwitz, director of the Education Law Project at The Legal Aid Society, warned, "The longer students experiencing school avoidance are out of school, the more difficult it becomes to help them return." What begins as a few hard mornings can harden into chronic absenteeism, disengagement, and, ultimately, a lost educational opportunity that is very difficult to recover.
A Lawsuit and Now a Settlement
Those stakes are exactly what drove a federal class action against New York City Public Schools. In C.S. v. New York City Public Schools, Case No. 24-cv-07600 (S.D.N.Y.), four students with disabilities, whose disabilities cause them to avoid attending school, sued the NYC DOE and the Chancellor, alleging violations of the IDEA, the ADA, Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, the New York City Human Rights Law, and the New York State Constitution. At the heart of the complaint was a stark charge: the nation's largest school district had no adequate system to identify, evaluate, and support students whose disabilities prevented them from getting to school, effectively denying them a free and appropriate public education.
The context is sobering. According to district data cited by The Legal Aid Society, roughly 46% of students with disabilities were chronically absent during the 2022-2023 school year. After the district's motion to dismiss was granted without prejudice in September 2025 and the plaintiffs appealed, the parties chose to resolve the dispute collaboratively. The result is a Settlement Agreement executed on July 31, 2026, negotiated by The Legal Aid Society and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP for the plaintiffs. Its term runs from September 10, 2026 through June 30, 2028, with reporting obligations extending into July 2028.
What the Settlement Actually Requires
The agreement is notable because it targets the systems around a child, not just the absences themselves. Key commitments from the DOE include:
- A School Avoidance Liaison in every school. Each school must designate a full-time pedagogue, administrator, guidance counselor, or social worker as its Liaison by October 31 of each school year, with a replacement named within fifteen school days if the role becomes vacant. The Liaison sits on the school's Attendance Committee.
- Real outreach and referrals. When outreach suggests a child may be avoiding school, staff must make live contact with the family, provide mental-health resources (including information about school-based mental health clinics), explain how to request a special education evaluation or Section 504 accommodations, loop in the student's IEP team where one exists, and help build an Attendance Success Plan.
- Smarter special education evaluations. The DOE will revise its Special Education Standard Operating Procedures Manual to remind teams to consider a Functional Behavior Assessment (FBA) and Behavioral Intervention Plan (BIP), and even parent counseling, for students showing avoidance behaviors. Critically, for students whose disabilities make attendance a barrier, psychological updates may be conducted remotely (with parental consent), and evaluations may be arranged at an alternative, home-convenient location in a supportive, controlled setting.
- Staff training and a resource library. By January 1, 2027, the DOE must create training materials for district and school staff (including Liaisons), guidance for parent conversations, and a library of sample Attendance Success Plans and trainings—shared with contracted community organizations and school-based mental health providers.
- Parent-facing resources and regulatory change. The DOE will publish accessible, translated resources for families, and will propose amendments to Chancellor's Regulation A-210 consistent with the March 2025 NYCPS–ACS Joint Guidance.
- Accountability through reporting. The DOE must report to plaintiffs' counsel on Liaison designation and training. If fewer than 85% of schools designate a Liaison in the first year, a second report is required.
What This Means for Families
We see this settlement as a meaningful, if partial, step. It formally acknowledges what our clients have long known: that school avoidance rooted in disability is a special education issue, and that the answer is early identification and individualized support, not blame. The commitments to remote and alternative-location evaluations, FBAs and BIPs, and dedicated Liaisons give parents concrete tools to point to when they advocate for their children.
But a settlement is only as strong as its implementation. Importantly, the agreement expressly preserves every student's and parent's right to pursue remedies under applicable law, it does not replace your due process rights. If your child is struggling to attend school, do not wait for a Liaison to find you. Document the pattern, request an evaluation in writing, ask whether an FBA is warranted, and insist that the reasons for the absences be brought to the IEP team. The earlier the intervention, the better the outcome.
If you are navigating school refusal or chronic absence and are unsure whether your child is receiving the support the law requires, our office is here to help you understand your rights and chart a path forward.
