Specialized Charter Schools for Students with Disabilities. Fast Facts 6

This final of six briefs analyzing data from the U.S. Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), covering the 2020-21 school year, explores the characteristics of the 176 charter schools with a specific focus on students with disabilities. This group, representing 2.3% of charter schools nationwide, is heavily concentrated in a handful of states and is particularly focused on students identified as having autism, emotional disturbances, and intellectual disabilities. With students in these schools spending significantly less time in general education settings, student experiences in specialized charters are fundamentally different in important ways from the experiences of students with disabilities in charter schools on the whole.