Problem Resolution System Office

Temporary Public Reporting of State Complaint Data

On January 16, 2025, the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) received a letter from the United States Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) in response to the monitoring activities conducted by OSEP in February and March 2024. OSEP's letter and accompanying monitoring report identified certain areas of non-compliance in the state's system of general supervision and required certain corrective actions to be taken by DESE. One such action includes a requirement for the Department to temporarily publicly report the following state complaint data metrics on a quarterly basis.

As of April 14, 2025, the Department reports that:

  • PRS received 374 new state complaints1 filed within the last three months.
  • PRS has 528 state complaints pending.
    • Of the total number of state complaints pending:
      • 195 are complaints within the 60-day investigation timeline.
      • 333 are complaints beyond the 60-day investigation timeline.
        • Of the complaints beyond the 60-day investigation timeline:
          • 310 are the number of complaints with Local Reports requested.
            • 277 are the number of complaints with Local Reports received.
          • 17 complaints are beyond the 60-day timeline subject to allowable extensions, which includes matters set aside because of a pending Bureau of Special Education Appeals matter.
  • PRS has 200 state complaints in the corrective action stage with open required actions.
    • Of those open state complaint decisions, 14 have overdue required corrective action. Overdue corrective action is defined as corrective action that has been unresolved within one calendar year of the identified non-compliance.

The Department anticipates that it will post its next public reporting update on or about July 16, 2025 unless directed otherwise by OSEP. Please note: the Department will continue to provide its temporary quarterly public reporting as mandated and will do so as long as the requirement remains in effect. Upon completion of the ordered corrective action, as determined by OSEP, the Department will no longer publicly report complaint metrics of this nature.

1 PRS handles complaints filed pursuant to the IDEA Part B, its implementing regulations, state special education laws, and state regulations ("special education complaints"), and also investigates other general education-related complaints ("general education complaints"). The data reported on this page reflect that matters that have been deemed special education complaints.

Last Updated: April 16, 2025