How we verify

Special Education School Finder is compiled from public records, not from who paid to be listed.

Sources

• NCES Private School Universe Survey 2023-24 — Public-use data file of U.S. private schools with location, grades, enrolment, teachers and school type, collected by the U.S. Census Bureau for NCES.
• NCES Private School Search — NCES's own school lookup, linked from every profile.
• PSS 2023-24 codebook — Definitions of the survey items and recodes we use.

We load the NCES 2023-24 Private School Universe Survey public-use file and keep schools whose answer to survey question 12 (type of school) is Special Education. This includes every school in NCES's typology 9, nonsectarian special education.

Grades come from the survey's lowest and highest grade recodes. Students are the K-12 and ungraded head count for fall 2023; teachers are K-12 full-time equivalents; students per teacher is NCES's calculated ratio, which we hide when it is above 50. Religious orientation and reported association memberships are shown as reported.

Verified means only that the school appears in the federal file as a special education school. It does not confirm state approval, accreditation, licensing, staff qualifications or the disabilities served, and we publish no complaints or ratings. Schools may have changed since fall 2023.

Lists are alphabetical. We do not rate or rank. Featured schools appear in a labelled box and never change the order.

What a badge means

In the NCES survey: the school reported itself as a special education school in the 2023-24 NCES Private School Universe Survey public-use file. The survey does not verify licensing or accreditation. We only publish positive matches. A listing without a badge is not an accusation — most gaps are name variations between registries.

Freshness

Data was last refreshed on 2026-09-30. NCES publishes the survey every two years; we update when a new file is released.

Corrections

Email sabrsystemssoftware@gmail.com or claim your listing on the for-business page. We fix verified errors within two business days.