ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) - More parents are taking legal action against Georgia school districts over special education disputes, with cases often involving school officials accused of not following the law by allegedly failing to provide necessary resources for children.

The numbers tell the story. According to the Georgia Department of Education, due process hearing requests — which ask a mediator to formally decide whether a school violated special education law — have surged 141% over the past five years. The first two months of 2026 alone saw 111 hearings requested, nearly double all of 2021, which had 73 total.

Heather Kinsinger knows the frustration firsthand. While she did not file or pursue a due process hearing, her case illustrates similar frustration with parents fighting a school district to get their child resources required under special education law.

Kinsinger’s daughter, Katie, now 15, is an honor student today. But a few years ago, her mother played a long game of offense against their former school district in Fayette County, fighting to help her daughter who struggled to read.

Katie has dyslexia and wrestles with other learning disabilities. After Katie’s dyslexia diagnosis, Kinsinger said her school, Braelinn Elementary, knew she struggled to read but refused to provide the necessary reading instruction tailored to dyslexic children.

“The longer you let it go on, the worse it is,” Kinsinger said. “The longer it takes to remediate, the more mental [stress], and the more expensive …We spent tens of thousands of dollars in private services.”

Kinsinger said she spent months meeting with district officials to find a solution. She hired an education attorney to help. Nothing worked.

Then, Kinsinger got word the district finally did take action, but it wasn’t something she ever expected.

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The Fayette County School District filed a police report with the Peachtree City Police Department, accusing Kinsinger of fraud for forging a medical evaluation of her daughter. The report showed Katie’s condition “causes blurred or double vision.” An expert suggested the school provide Katie with reading materials that “use enlarged font.”

School officials told police the “18 point” size was fraudulently added. The felony carries up to five years in prison in Georgia.

Kinsinger’s reaction was “angry. Scared. We went through so many emotions just trying to understand because nobody understood what this was about.”

After confirming the expert did suggest the 18-point font size, police dismissed the case.

“It’s such a shocking story that when you tell it, people have a hard time believing a school district would do this,” Kinsinger said.

Dr. Brandi Tanner, a school psychologist and former teacher who runs Your IEP Source, a metro Atlanta company that helps parents advocate for special education services, said the numbers reflect a perfect storm.

“The due process hearing is going to be the highest level of dispute resolution that you can go to,” Tanner said.

“There has been a significant increase in the number of complaints and the number of due process hearings, because we’re in a perfect storm of more students needing help and less people to be able to provide it due to staffing shortages,” Tanner said.

“I knew that they would probably trend in this direction, but I am surprised about the magnitude of it,” she said.

According to the Georgia Department of Education presentation from December 2025, due process hearings are the most adversarial dispute resolution process available under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. They can be filed by parents or school districts and are heard before an administrative law judge.

The hearings are related to the identification, evaluation or educational placement of a child with a disability or the provision of a free appropriate public education to the child.

Formal complaints are more common than due process hearings. The Georgia Department of Education said formal complaints can be filed on behalf of a single student or a group of students by anyone, including parents, advocates and attorneys. The state conducts an investigation and issues a final decision. If a district is found out of compliance with federal special education law or state rules, corrective action is required.

As of December 2025, the state had 180 formal complaints filed for fiscal year 2026 to date. The most common findings of non-compliance in formal complaints for fiscal year 2025 to date involved failure to provide a free appropriate public education, failure to implement individualized education programs and failure to properly develop, review and revise individualized education programs.

The presentation noted that more complaints are being filed by current school staff and more complaints are being filed in districts that have not historically had complaints.

After two years fighting with Fayette County School District, Kinsinger said she settled the score. The district paid her family $332,000, money she said barely covered moving her three children out of the district.

She also received an apology from Superintendent Dr. Jonathan Patterson, who wrote: “I am sorry this situation caused your family distress. I also regret that you felt that the district did not serve your children’s education needs.”

Kinsinger demanded the letter after declining to sign a confidentiality agreement, a rare move in education litigation.

“Here’s the bottom line: they were looking for a way to shut us up,” Kinsinger, who today helps other parents navigate similar problems, said. “We are not people who shut up.”

Kinsinger is not the only parent who claims the district retaliated against them after aggressively advocating for their children. Atlanta News First Investigates spoke to at least four other parents who made similar claims.

Fayette County School District officials declined to comment.

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