ATLANTA — After petitions from parents, the Georgia Department of Education is now walking back a proposal that would have impacted students with disabilities and with medical needs.
The proposal would have made changes to the hospital and homebound rules.
Parents told Channel 2’s Eryn Rogers that this is a win for students.
Public comment about the proposal ended last week, and by Friday, the State Board of Education told Rogers that they’d no longer be moving forward with the change.
Everything started in June, when the State Board of Education proposed several changes to their hospital and homebound program.
The program helps students who have to miss several days of school because of a mental or physical illness.
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The board of education wanted to change the number of days a student has to miss before they qualify for the program on a temporary status from 10 to 15.
Right now, children lose around 70 hours of learning before they qualify for the program.
But parents and education advocates say upping it to 15 days would’ve caused students to miss around 100 hours of schooling before they got services to fill in the gaps.
Parents told Rogers that it’s nice to have their voices heard.
“The power is with the people; it’s with the parents. The parents just have to recognize that they have power and form these coalitions and take their lived experience, their lived expertise to the people making the rules,” Lola Green said.
The board of education said they got an overwhelming amount of feedback on the proposal.
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