There are a lot of things 12-year-old G likes about school. She likes gym class; she likes to help other students; she likes to craft with her teacher.
But when you ask what she doesn't like, G doesn't hesitate.
"The blue room," she says, sitting in her home outside Fort Wayne, Ind.
That's a padded room G's family says school staff sometimes lock her in.
"It feels like close spaces, and it's like — it's, like, scary in there."
Her mother, Amy Cupp, says G has disabilities, and because of them, she sometimes has tantrums at school — lying on the floor; refusing to follow instructions; and trying to leave the room. Sometimes when this happens, school staff seclude her.
Cupp keeps track of every time educators put G in a room alone, based on reports and emails from the school. So far this school year, she's counted more than a dozen incidents, according to a lawsuit Cupp recently joined.
"As soon as they go to lock the doors, she freaks out," Cupp says. "It's beyond sickening."
G has fetal alcohol syndrome, autism, ADHD and a mild intellectual disability. Cupp and her husband adopted G as a toddler, and Cupp asked that NPR use only G's first initial because this story describes the symptoms of G's disabilities and her school's response.
Cupp says that after weeks of trying to get G's school to change the way it handled her daughter's behavior, she filed a complaint with the U.S. Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, or OCR, which investigates discrimination in schools.
That office recently lost more than 40% of its staff after the Trump administration launched a massive downsizing of the department.
Now, Cupp and other parents say their civil rights complaints aren't being investigated. Last week, Cupp joined a lawsuit that aims to force the federal government to act on complaints like hers. The lawsuit claims the layoffs have undermined OCR's "ability to fulfill its statutory and regulatory mandate to enforce civil rights laws in schools."
"I just can't fathom that anybody would cut something so vital," says Cupp, a devout Christian. She says she voted for President Trump and thought he shared her beliefs. "But I can't understand why they're doing what they're doing, because that is not what God would intend."
The White House referred NPR's request for comment to the Education Department. In a statement, the department said, "The Office for Civil Rights is working vigorously to protect all Americans – and especially our most vulnerable – from unlawful discrimination."
It said OCR has been actively processing disability discrimination complaints for weeks, and pointed to a recently opened investigation into D.C. Public Schools.
"The Department's committed staff will continue to prioritize the educational needs of those with disabilities," the statement continued.
Why OCR investigations are different
OCR attorneys review all kinds of allegations of discrimination in schools – based on race, sex, disability and more. In the short time Trump has been back in office, OCR has pursued high-profile investigations into universities it accuses of using "race-exclusionary practices" and into Maine's policy allowing transgender women and girls to compete on women's and girls' sports teams.
But the majority of the complaints OCR receives have historically been about disability discrimination.
"The loss of a functioning OCR is a huge hit to the disability rights community," says Rachel Perera, a fellow at the Brookings Institution.
OCR lost at least 240 staffers in the recent cuts, and it closed seven of its 12 regional offices, including the Chicago branch that handled Indiana cases.
Even before the cuts, OCR was overwhelmed with a growing number of complaints, with investigations sometimes lasting months. Perera says the Trump administration's changes will likely exacerbate those delays and undermine civil rights protections.
"Children get one shot in education, right? You don't get to do fourth grade over. And so if it takes a year or two years for a state government or federal government to intervene, then you have serious missed education opportunities and a lot to make up for," Perera says.
Parents of children with disabilities have some options if they believe their children are not receiving the education they are entitled to under federal law. But special education advocates say nothing quite compares to an OCR investigation: OCR can examine whether there is a larger pattern of discrimination at a particular school or district, while states often focus on whether schools are meeting the needs of individual students with disabilities. And unlike lawsuits, families can file OCR complaints without legal assistance.
But some people question whether the Education Department should even be handling civil rights complaints.
Jonathan Butcher is a fellow with the Heritage Foundation who helped shape the education sections of the conservative policy playbook Project 2025. He says the federal government should protect the rights of students with disabilities, but OCR's backlog, among other problems, has been getting in the way of that. He believes civil rights investigations would be better handled by the U.S. Justice Department.
"We should be interested in making sure this is done effectively. It wasn't done well before and so now we're looking for a way to do it better," Butcher says.
The Trump administration hasn't yet pursued such a move, but it has made other education policy changes laid out in Project 2025.
"Change is difficult and that's why it doesn't happen very often at the federal level, but this is an opportunity to streamline federal processes," Butcher says.
Nowhere else to turn for help
For Amy Cupp, filing a federal complaint with OCR was a last resort. She says she had tried suggesting other ways the school could handle her daughter's behavior. And she sought help from special education advocates outside her district.
At one point, Indiana's Department of Child Services investigated whether G had been abused at school. A report the agency issued later says the state could not substantiate the allegations of abuse, but the document, which Cupp shared with NPR, describes bruising under G's arm and says "it is believed" the bruising came from being restrained at school. The bruising allegations were also included in the lawsuit Cupp joined.
"I felt lost," Cupp says. "I just could not believe there was nothing I could do."
Part of the challenge is that restraint and seclusion are common, if controversial, practices in schools.
Over 100,000 U.S. public school students were secluded or restrained during the 2017-2018 school year, according to federal data. Most of those students had disabilities.
In the past, the U.S. Education Department has pushed schools to limit the use of restraint and seclusion. Federal guidance published in 2012 says "physical restraint or seclusion should not be used except in situations where the child's behavior poses imminent danger of serious physical harm to self or others."
In 2016, OCR said that in some circumstances, restraining and secluding students with disabilities could be a violation of federal civil rights law.
By Amy Cupp's count, G's school has secluded her 14 times and restrained her 15 times this academic year, according to the lawsuit she joined. Cupp shared records with NPR documenting some of those incidents, but the district did not report all of them as seclusion and restraint.
G's district, Norwell Community Schools, told NPR in a statement that it "implements reasonable and appropriate safety procedures on school property in order to maintain safety for all students, faculty, and staff."
Cupp, a licensed social worker, understands that schools use restraint and seclusion in crisis. But she believes her daughter has been subjected to those practices at times when she does not pose a risk.
Spending less time at school to avoid seclusion and restraint
When Cupp filed an OCR complaint late last year, she says she felt like she had finally found help. OCR investigations can lead to agreements that require schools to change how they educate children. Earlier this year, an OCR attorney told Cupp the office planned to open an investigation into her school district.
But the attorney looking into Cupp's case was laid off in March, as part of the Education Department's downsizing.
Cupp says she hasn't received any updates since. The Education Department told NPR, while it is currently processing disability discrimination cases, it could not confirm the status of individual complaints.
As she waits for the federal government to step in, Cupp says she has cut the amount of time G spends at school to just two hours a day.
She hopes that if G is there less, she'll be secluded and restrained less.
Reporting contributed by Lee V. Gaines
Edited by Nicole Cohen
Visual design and development by Mhari Shaw
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