The Arizona State Schools for the Deaf and the Blind violated federal disability law last spring when it restricted placement options for students and predetermined where they should attend, the Arizona State Department of Education says.
As it prepared to shut its west-side Tucson campus and move 15 miles away to Oro Valley, ASDB told its blind and low-vision students, along with those who lived in ASDB’s school dorms, they must attend a school within their home district starting in the 2026-27 school year.
In a July 10 letter to ASDB Superintendent Annette Reichman, the state says families were not given all the options for where to place their students this coming school year, and that ASDB did not comply with the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.
According to the letter, the department of education “concludes that (ASDB) predetermined the placement of students and similarly situated students who are blind, visually impaired or receiving residential services for the 2026-27 school year in violation of the regulations that implement the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.”
The Department of Education appointed a “special monitor to oversee implementation of all corrective actions,” the letter says.
ASDB, which moved the deaf and hard of hearing students to a vacated Oro Valley elementary school earlier this month, has until Aug. 28 to respond to the state, the letter says.
“The state findings mean a victory for us. I think it’s a little bit of validation,” said Derrall Peach, dad of fourth-grader Nani Peach, who has a visual impairment and has autism. “We’ve been going and fighting this for six months.”
ASDB Policy and Government Relations Director Maria Murphy told Arizona Luminaria via email, it is reviewing the report findings “with legal counsel to determine the feasible next steps.”
Families of the displaced students filed a lawsuit in February to delay the school closure. A Pima County Superior Court judge denied that request.
In May, the University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law’s Education Advocacy Clinic worked with families to file a complaint with the state. The clinic, which usually has about nine students, provides free legal help and works to support students’ rights in area schools by providing legal representation in school discipline and special education matters.
The redacted investigative report within the letter documents some ASDB student and family experiences as each student was evaluated for their Individual Education Program. That IEP is crucial for any student with special needs. Usually evaluated yearly, it is a written document for public school students who qualify for special services. It outlines student needs and goals and the support and instruction a school will provide.
Parents, therapists, counselors and teachers were also in these meetings with ASDB representatives and the student’s home district. The UA clinic observed families were not told all the options under the law.
“IEP teams are supposed to consider a full continuum of services to determine where to serve a student,” said UA Associate Clinical Professor of Law Diana Newmark, the clinic’s director.
“But in this case, parents were going into meetings being told essentially ‘You don’t get the full menu. You don’t get all of the options that should be on the table,’” she told Arizona Luminaria. “‘We decided we’re sending you back to the school district. A specialized school like ASDB is just not one of your options. And it’s very clear under special education law that’s not the way that these decisions are supposed to be made.
“It’s abundantly clear under the law that the decision should be driven by the students’ individual characteristics and their individual need. It should not be driven by programmatic decisions, administrative choices and so on.”
The state says ASDB must re-examine the cases for each student who was found to have a predetermined decision. Some ASDB students came from areas throughout the state, including Sierra Vista or Whiteriver on the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, where services may not exist.
Other options for the displaced students include incorporating blind and visually impaired students into the Oro Valley campus or placing students at the new Tucson School for the Blind with their IEP.
“The ADE decision means that we will hold an IEP meeting for each student who was referred to TUSD from ASDB to review the continuum of placement options and to make a final decision regarding the student’s least restrictive environment,” Sabrina Salmon, TUSD’s executive director for exceptional education told Arizona Luminaria. Currently, TUSD has five former ASDB students enrolled at three campuses for next school year, including Maxwell K-8, Pueblo High School and University High School, Salmon said.
The case reviews are welcome, current and former ASDB families say, acknowledging it’s been a roller coaster year of unknowns for their students.
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In January, staff and families were told ASDB faced a projected $3 million deficit and must cut costs. Reichman cited lack of federal and state funds, declining birth rates resulting in lower enrollment, more complicated student needs, and deteriorating buildings and infrastructure as the primary reasons for all the changes.
ASDB had 114 students last year. Its 56-acre campus on West Speedway Boulevard was built for about 400 students more than 100 years ago. A second ASDB campus operates in Phoenix. The Oro Valley campus includes grades K-12.
“We’ve had so much uncertainty and blatant disrespect by the ASDB administration in regards to our family and our family’s needs and taking care of our kids,” Peach said. “They just ignored us. They ignored the community, they ignored our families, and they just kept doing what they were gonna do, knowing they were violating the law.”
The state also found school placement sites seemed predetermined for students, the letter states.
“If the school district or local education agency like ASDB makes a decision about where the child will be placed prior to the meeting, then that’s called predetermination,” Newmark said. “When the agency predetermines the student’s IEP, that denies the parent meaningful participation. The idea is that no matter how the parent might participate, no matter what kind of information they could provide, no matter what the teachers might say or what information the related service providers might share, it doesn’t matter.”
At Nani’s first IEP meeting of 2026, 13 people were in the room, her dad said. It took two hours to go through her recommendations.
“It was a very tense conversation,” Derrall said. “No answers to any questions were given, but a lot of promises were made: ‘We’re gonna have all these things in place for your child.’ Pretty much telling us we’re gonna have a mini-ASDB ready for our kid.”
The second meeting in April “we left sad and hopeless,” Nani’s mom, Denise Peach said.
Even though the staff and teachers that work with Nani daily, disagreed verbally in the meeting with ASDB’s plan of pushing Nani to a Tucson Unified School District school (her home district), the school itself ignored the recommendations “because they already predetermined where she was going to go,” Derrall said.
Nani, who loves math and music and played Dorothy in “The Wizard of Oz” school musical in April, will attend the Tucson School for the Blind beginning next month. The new nonprofit private school for students who are blind or visually impaired was started by former ASDB teachers and staff.
The idea for the school at 149 N. Stone Ave. was born in February. It will serve grades K-12 beginning Aug. 3 and has about 15 students registered, nearly all former ASDB learners. The school has nine staffers so far — from speech and occupational therapists to instructional aides and full-time teachers — many of whom have worked for ASDB, which last spring also laid off about 60 employees here.
“There’s more to this,” Derrall said. “I don’t know honestly that Nani can fully comprehend what’s going on. Because we’ve been telling her about it — not to overwhelm her — but she is excited about her new school. But she is not happy that she is not going to ASDB anymore.”
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