Background

Special needs services are not just a quality of life system for children with developmental disabilities but they are a necessity. Early intervention has been proven to increase pass rates in elementary level courses (Alday, 2022). Receiving services such as speech therapy and physical therapy are a necessity and what the school system and personal insurance provides is just not enough to ensure the child will succeed. The system Florida has set in place to take care of funding third party services is inadequate to handle the amount of students on the waitlist (Alday, 2022). The waitlist time can range up to 18 years leaving students with only 3 years of eligibility remaining (Griffin, 2022). The effects of these students not receiving what they need include: lower pass rates, increased homlessness rates, higher family stress, and services required past eligibility causing more financial stress (Alday, 2022)

As a testament to the problems regarding access to special services, A student JJ Holmes, who was diagnosed with cerebral palsy at the age of 18 has still yet to receive special services from the state (Griffin, 2022). His mother Allison Holmes at the age of 60 is his primary caretaker, including lifting him out of his wheelchair multiple times a day. JJ, if he does not receive services soon, will be moved to a state-run institution which he says, “I’m scared,” he said, “I want to live independently at home instead of being in an institution. I couldn’t imagine what my life would be like. I would have no life, to be frank” (Griffin, 2022). Not only will this impact his health, this will also impact Allison. Allison mentions in regard to the institution, “is going to cost 10 or 20 times more than it would just to get the med waiver." (Griffin, 2022). JJ is not an unusual case in Florida, many students go years without the state providing services that the children of the state need to live a fulfilled life.

The issues surrounding the special education system in Florida are frequent and significant. Although these issues almost exclusively stem from a lack of adequate funding, funding is not an issue we can solve without a legislative overhaul. As appealing as passing a bill that provides more money for special education and related services in Florida is, this is not a realistic solution. Instead, we will focus on what we can solve, such as the lack of an adequate website directing people to third-party services and the issues with schools and psychiatrists not being required to help students find services that will benefit them. These are each critical issues for their reasons. In Florida, nearly 30% of the population does not speak English as a first language; this amounts to over 6.5 million Florida residents who don’t speak English at home (Bureau, 2020). This becomes problematic because the federal website should direct residents to third-party services that cannot be read by 3/10 of the state’s population. This is problematic for because it places an unnecessary roadblock to many students. We will also focus on fixing issues revolving around schools and psychiatrists not being required to help students to find third party services. This is problematic because many issues regarding if and how students receive third party services is how educated their parents are on the matter. Although some parents know relatively large amounts about developmental disability and know to get additional services as early as they can, parents who are uninformed or who are not directed to do so by an authority figure might not be quick to acquire third party services.