By Kevin Hardy, Stateline.org

NORTH CONWAY, N.H. — The conversations in French having given them away, the group of motorcyclists immediately stood out as foreigners over a Saturday breakfast in the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

In the restaurant, the server was pleased, thanking them for coming. Because these days, tariffs and White House rhetoric have left Canadians a rare breed of visitors in New England, usually a hotspot vacation destination from the nearby province of Quebec.

“There’s a lot of people staying in Canada because of that,” said Dave Gingras, a 35-year-old biker from Saguenay, about two hours north of Quebec City.

While other Canadians are avoiding buying American products or traveling to the States, the group of 11 decided to leave politics behind on their road trip through New England.

“We are just keeping it neutral and trying to enjoy,” Gingras told Stateline.

After breakfast, they donned helmets and mounted an assortment of dusty Yamaha, BMW and Triumph bikes.

“We drive and when we’re tired, we stop and raise up a tent and relax with a beer,” Gingras said before pulling into a line of crawling traffic on the White Mountain Highway, the scenic byway dotted with quaint inns, old-timey stores and Colonial and Victorian homes.

Canadian Dave Gingras prepares to mount his Yamaha adventure bike on Aug. 2 in North Conway, New Hampshire. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline/TNS)

Across Northeastern states, business owners and state officials have labored to maintain key economic connections with Canada despite the rhetoric coming out of the White House. President Donald Trump’s trade war, aggressive immigration enforcement and talk of making their country the 51st state has offended many Canadians. While concerns are acute in New England, tourism hubs from Hawaii to New York are reeling from a decrease in Canadian visitors.

To quell tensions, Maine leaders erected signs in French to welcome Canadian visitors and New Hampshire’s governor just returned from a Canadian trip she took to strengthen trade and tourism.

But hospitality businesses this summer reported a sharp decline in visitors from the North — Canadian travel to New Hampshire is down about 30% this year, according to state officials. Border crossings into Vermont hit their lowest levels since 2021, according to federal data, as the Canadian government reported a 34% drop in the number of August car visits into the U.S. compared with the same month last year.

New England businesses remain concerned as the region turns the page on the summer vacation season to its vibrant autumn, known for luring leaf-peeping travelers from across the globe.

Tourism is vital for White Mountain Valley communities like North Conway. While it’s home to only about 2,300 people, the village is a historic travel hotspot known for outdoor activities, tax-free shopping and family-friendly theme parks.

While many people think of the area as a winter ski destination, summers are actually the largest travel draw, said Chris Proulx, executive director of the Mt. Washington Valley Chamber of Commerce.

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The drop in Canadian tourism has been especially evident during less popular travel times for Americans. For example, Canada’s Victoria Day, a late May holiday celebrating that queen’s birthday, has traditionally brought big crowds to the Northeast.

“Our retail outlets are a very, very popular destination for them during that time,” Proulx said. “And our retail outlets have reported that it was basically nonexistent this year.”

Proulx said local businesses have tried to lure travelers from close-by regions like the Boston area to help make up for the loss of Canadian tourists, “so it’s not an unrecoverable loss.” But the absence of visitors from parts North is hard to ignore.

“It almost feels like a birder might feel if they find a rare species,” he said. “If you see someone with a Canadian license plate, you notice it right away. It gives you a little bit of a smile.”

Aside from the economic loss, Proulx said he worries about longstanding relationships.

This scenic valley is nostalgic for many visitors from the U.S. and Canada alike. He said many people return again and again, sharing fond memories of their first camping trip along the Saco River, childhood trips to the Santa’s Village amusement park and picturesque rides on the Conway Scenic Railroad.

“So we just don’t want anybody thinking that they’re not welcomed here. That’s our biggest thing,” he said. “We want everybody to be able to call this their second home, to be able to visit and reconnect and feel welcomed.”

‘Towns are quieter’

In the heart of North Conway, tourists picnic on the grass in Schouler Park, look into the 1874-era train station and meander into shops selling hokey souvenirs and homemade fudge. Framing the village is the imposing Mount Washington, which at 6,288 feet boasts the tallest peak in the Northeast.

At one of the town’s busiest intersections, the crowds come in waves to the North Conway 5&10 Store. But even as families line up, employee Polly Howe said she hadn’t seen many Canadians this summer.

“It’s a shame,” she said, bouncing between the cash register, the candy counter and stocking staples like toys and hats.

In a building listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the souvenir shop has been around for 86 years and features a false-front facade, the kind made famous in boomtowns of the Old West. Manager Terri Johnson said she had encountered a good number of Canadians inside the shop, but said she didn’t blame any who felt put off by the political climate.

“I’m thankful they still come after all that,” she said.

It’s not just international relations that have changed tourism here.

A rainy start to the summer season didn’t help, and business owners say anxiety over the domestic economy and inflation have pinched travel budgets.

Mark Lahood says family travel has dipped at the three hotels he operates in the area.

“Towns are quieter,” he said this summer. “They’re not quiet, but they’re much quieter than years’ past.”

Some summer weekends, which traditionally sell out entirely, the three hotels had 30% vacancies, he said. And travelers are more keen for weekend trips than their weeklong road trips of previous seasons.

“With a seven-day trip, by the time they were all in, it’s a lot of driving, it’s a lot of gas money, it’s a lot of meals, it’s a lot of hotels,” he said. “And I think it’s just too much.”

To help with rising costs, he ran a free breakfast promotion for kids earlier in the summer. And he increased an existing international discount for Canadian guests.

“Did it help anything? Probably not. But you know, when you view it from a Canadian traveler, at least you made an effort.”

The decline in Canadian visitors has allowed for more local, spontaneous travel, said Genn Anzaldi, who owns J-Town Deli & Country Store in Jackson, New Hampshire.

“More day trippers for sure,” she said. “So maybe not as many people spending the night or as many nights.”

Shoppers walk outside the North Conway 5& 10 Store on Aug. 2 in North Conway, New Hampshire. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline/TNS)

The scent of sizzling bacon and toasting panini fills her shop, which offers hot meals along with handmade gifts and convenience store staples.

Anzaldi, who also runs a cooperative marketing effort for a group of independent restaurants, said the local restaurant business was down, but not significantly.

The reason?

“Canadians,” she said. “I wouldn’t say it’s the economy. That seems to be going well.”

About nine miles away from North Conway, things are a bit quieter in Jackson, home to a famed one-lane covered bridge. With its spas and boutique hotels, Anzaldi said the community is more known as a destination for weddings, romantic stays and outdoor getaways.

While Anzaldi said she hopes Canadian tensions settle soon, she noted that the matter lies in the political domain and there’s little business owners can do but carry on.

“We have to run, right?” she said. “We’re not personally going to go up and advertise.”

States try to ease federal tension

To maintain tourism and trade, Democratic and Republican politicians in the Northeast have made overtures to their counterparts in Canada.

Since Trump’s inauguration, Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills has met with Maine businesses near the border, embarked on a diplomatic Canadian tour and even installed “Bienvenue Canadiens” welcome signs near border crossings. But on her trip this summer, she was reminded that it’s not just tariffs that have irked Canadians — many are also worried about the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement.

“Lots of people don’t feel safe in the U.S. right now and for good reason,” Susan Holt, the premier of the New Brunswick province, told Mills, according to local news accounts. Holt has encouraged her constituents to avoid traveling to the United States.

Last year, the state said some 800,000 Canadians visited Maine. On her June trip, Mills asked Canadians to remember those who rely on the tourism industry.

“To the extent people feel angst about coming to Maine, just remember that if they aren’t coming to Maine, the ones that they’re hurting are the small mom and pop businesses,” the governor told News Center Maine while in Halifax.

Mills’ office did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.

Similarly, New Hampshire Republican Gov. Kelly Ayotte said ahead of a trade mission that she aimed to welcome Canadians to the Granite State, the New Hampshire Bulletin reported.

“That’s one of the things I’m going to just continue to promote on behalf of New Hampshire,” Ayotte said last month. “Not only that they’re welcome here — the Canadians — but we have open arms to them.”

Polly Howe stocks the shelves with merchandise on Aug. 1, at the North Conway 5& 10 Store in North Conway, New Hampshire. (Kevin Hardy/Stateline/TNS)

Ayotte’s office did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment about her trip.

René Sylvestre, the Quebec province’s delegate to New England, said those gestures are appreciated. He spends much of his time meeting with state and business leaders. Last month, he met numerous state lawmakers at the annual meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures in Boston, where he is posted.

But he said calming federal tensions will be key to seeing a rebound in tourism.

“What we can see right now is people in Quebec are really sad with the whole situation,” he told Stateline. “But they’re saying, ‘Maybe we should stay and spend more time in Canada these days.’ So this is really the impact that we’ve seen, and we think that it’s going to take a while before it’s back to normal.”

A decline in international travel has hit border communities across the country — from New York state to Washington state. North Dakota estimated that Canadian visitors spent about $14.4 million less in the first half of the year compared with last year, as the number of personal vehicles crossing the border from Canada declined by 30%. Other hubs for international visitors, including Las Vegas and Hawaii, are also seeing significant declines.

“Right now, it’s hard to turn back federal policy,” Hawaii state Sen. Ron Kouchi told Stateline in August.

Kouchi, a Democrat and president of the state Senate, said Canada has traditionally been among Hawaii’s top five travel markets. The state has sent tourism officials to trade shows and is trying to show Canadians, like all visitors, the Aloha State’s iconic hospitality. But he said that message hasn’t been persuasive, even coming from leaders of the solidly liberal state.

“While we argue about Republicans or Democrats, in other nations they simply look at Americans and they don’t see it as an R or a D thing,” he said. “It’s an American thing.”

A stormy beach season

Old Orchard Beach in Maine is a favorite of New Englanders and Canadians alike.

Part of the Portland metropolitan area, the vacation town sports a seaside amusement park and seven miles of sandy beaches. But some Canadians started to cancel their summer reservations to the area early on in Trump’s term.

Sean Nickless, who co-owns the 30-room Crest Motel with his family, said Canadians began calling off trips in January and February,

Those cancellations and poor weather foretold a slower summer. “It’s not as steady,” Nickless said, noting business had been inconsistent with shorter stays.

Like many of the other beachfront properties here, the retro Crest Motel relies heavily on repeat customers, filled out by the occasional road tripper who ducks in from the angled carport to ask about an available room.

“The best you can do is let Canadians know they’re still welcome here,” he said from the motel’s small lobby scented with the aroma of a drip coffeemaker and a bright popcorn machine.

At the height of summer, rain ushered in what should have been a booming weekend along the Atlantic’s Saco Bay. Crest Motel guests swam, but only under the cover of the pool’s rolling roof.

Down the way, five teenagers stood listlessly inside a walkup Dairy Queen with no customers to serve. On the pier, arcade games, $1-per-visit restrooms and barstools sat idle. Few took up heavily advertised offers for pizza by the slice, $15 lobster rolls or fried clam cakes.

“I’ve never driven around Old Orchard Beach in the summer and seen ‘vacancy signs.’ I have this year,” said state Sen. Donna Bailey, who represents the community. “I mean, you just never see that in the middle of July — all you see is ‘no vacancy’ signs.” A Democrat, Bailey emphasized that Canada isn’t some far-off destination for Mainers. People routinely cross the border for health care and work. They have friends and family on both sides.

“I mean, there’s some places up in northern Maine that the nearest hospital is in Canada, as opposed to in the United States. You know, some people have their babies over in Canada.”

But aside from emphasizing existing bonds, Bailey said Maine residents and officials were largely at the mercy of the federal government’s actions.

“I think it’s helpful to remind the Canadians of our personal relationship and that we are Maine and we’re Mainers, and so we’re not necessarily the same as the federal government,” she said. “But, yeah, it does only go so far.”

Stateline reporter Kevin Hardy can be reached at khardy@stateline.org.

©2025 States Newsroom. Visit at stateline.org. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

By DEE-ANN DURBIN, Associated Press

The Federal Trade Commission and a bipartisan group of state attorneys general sued Ticketmaster and its parent company Thursday, saying they are forcing consumers to pay more to see live events through a variety of illegal tactics.

The FTC said Live Nation and its subsidiary, Ticketmaster, have deceived artists and consumers by advertising lower ticket prices than what consumers must pay and falsely claiming to impose strict limits on the number of tickets consumers can buy for an event.

In reality, the FTC said, Ticketmaster coordinates with ticket brokers who bypass those ticket limits. The FTC said brokers use fake accounts to buy up millions of dollars worth of tickets and then sell them at a substantial markup on Ticketmaster’s platform. Ticketmaster benefits from the additional fees it collects from those sales, the FTC said.

The Associated Press left messages seeking comment Thursday with Beverly Hills, California-based Live Nation Entertainment.

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Ticketmaster controls 80% or more of major U.S. concert venues’ primary ticketing, according to the FTC. Consumers spent more than $82.6 billion buying tickets from Ticketmaster between 2019 and 2024, the agency added.

“American live entertainment is the best in the world and should be accessible to all of us. It should not cost an arm and a leg to take the family to a baseball game or attend your favorite musician’s show,” FTC Chairman Andrew Ferguson said in a statement.

The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Joining the lawsuit were the attorneys general of Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Nebraska, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.

Ticketmaster has been in lawmakers’ sights since 2022, when it spectacularly botched ticket sales for Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour. The company’s site was overwhelmed by fans and attacks from brokers’ bots, which were scooping up tickets to sell on secondary sites. Senators grilled Live Nation in a 2023 hearing.

But reform in the industry has been slow. The Biden administration took action with a ban on junk fees, requiring Ticketmaster to display the full price of a ticket as soon as consumers begin shopping. That rule went into effect in May.

President Donald Trump has also taken aim at the industry. In March, with Kid Rock by his side in the Oval Office, Trump signed an executive order directing U.S. officials to ensure ticket resellers are complying with Internal Revenue Service rules. The order also directed the FTC to “take enforcement action to prevent unfair, deceptive, and anti-competitive conduct in the secondary ticketing market.”

In August, the FTC sued Maryland-based ticket broker Key Investment Group use, alleging it has used thousands of fictitious Ticketmaster accounts and other methods to buy tickets for events, including Swift’s tour.

By BRUCE SCHREINER, Associated Press

Muhammad Ali’s refusal to sign his Vietnam-era military draft card upended the boxing champ’s life and added a powerful voice to the anti-war movement. Now that piece of history is coming up for sale.

There’s a blank line on the card where Ali was supposed to sign in 1967 but refused to do so — a polarizing act of defiance as the Vietnam War raged on. It triggered a chain of events that disrupted his storied boxing career but immortalized him outside the ring as a champion for peace and social justice.

“Being reminded of my father’s message of courage and conviction is more important now than ever, and the sale of his draft card at Christie’s is a powerful way to share that legacy with the world,” Rasheda Ali Walsh, a daughter of Ali, said Thursday in a statement issued by the auction house.

This image provided by Christie’s Auction House shows Muhammad Ali’s draft card. (Christie’s Auction House via AP)

The auction house said it will hold the online sale Oct. 10-28, adding the card came to it via descendants of Ali. A public display of the card began Thursday at Rockefeller Center in New York and will continue until Oct. 21. The document could fetch $3 million to $5 million, Christie’s estimated.

“This is a singular object associated with an important historical event that looms large in our shared popular culture,” said Peter Klarnet, a Christie’s senior specialist.

Ali, the three-time heavyweight boxing champion, died in 2016 at age 74 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. An estimated 100,000 people chanting, “Ali! Ali!” lined the streets of his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, as a hearse carried his casket to a local cemetery. His memorial service was packed with celebrities, athletes and politicians.

The draft card, typewritten in parts, conjures memories from when Ali wasn’t universally beloved but instead stood as a polarizing figure, revered by millions worldwide and reviled by many.

For refusing induction into the U.S. Army, Ali was convicted of draft evasion, stripped of his boxing title and banned from boxing. Ali appealed the conviction on grounds he was a Muslim minister. He famously proclaimed: “I ain’t got no quarrel with them Viet Cong.”

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During his banishment, Ali spoke at colleges and briefly appeared in a Broadway musical. He was allowed to resume boxing three years later.

He was still facing a possible prison sentence when in 1971 he fought Joe Frazier, his archrival, for the first time in what was labeled “The Fight of the Century.” A few months later the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the conviction on an 8-0 vote.

The draft card was issued the day the draft board in Louisville ordered Ali to appear for induction, Christie’s said Thursday in a news release. The card was signed by the local draft board chairman but pointedly not by Ali.

The card identified him by his birth name — Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. — but misspelled his given middle name. Upon his conversion to Islam, he was given a name reflecting his faith, the Muhammad Ali Center in Louisville says on its website. Meanwhile, the top of the draft card reads: “(AKA) Muhammad Ali.”

The Ali Center features exhibits paying tribute to Ali’s immense boxing skills. But its main mission, it says, is to preserve his humanitarian legacy and promote his six core principles: spirituality, giving, conviction, confidence, respect and dedication.

Now an artifact reflecting how Ali personified some of those principles will be up for auction.

“This is the first time collectors will be able to acquire a vital and intimate document connected to one of the most important figures of the last century,” Klarnet said Thursday.

By Fred Clasen-Kelly, KFF Health News

Devon Price, a 15-year-old boy with autism, has attended the largest school district in North Carolina for 10 years, but he cannot read or write. His twin sister, Danielle, who is also autistic, was bullied by classmates and became suicidal.

Under federal law, public schools must provide children with disabilities a “free appropriate public education,” to give them the same opportunity to learn as other kids.

The twins’ mother, Emma Miller, and tens of thousands of other parents in the U.S. have elevated complaints to the Education Department alleging that schools and states have ignored mistreatment of their children. Those complaints are in limbo as President Donald Trump’s administration has set about dismantling the federal agency.

Trump once mocked a reporter with a disability. Earlier this year, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s inaccurate remarks about people with autism were criticized as perpetuating offensive stereotypes.

Now people like Miller are worried their children will be left behind.

“I want justice for my twins, and to sound the alarm so other special needs children are not suffering or being deprived,” said Miller, 53, who lives with her twins in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

The Education Department, which was created in 1979 and helps oversee schools and colleges in the U.S., has the authority to protect students from discrimination based on race, sex, religion, or disability. Its Office for Civil Rights investigates allegations at schools and negotiates corrective actions.

As the school year begins, families throughout the country are unsure what authority will be left to intervene on their behalf if the office is shuttered, said Hannah Russell, an advocate who works with parents in North Carolina trying to obtain educational services for their children with disabilities.

“Without the Department of Education there is no accountability,” said Russell, a former special education teacher. “Everybody is scared.”

Miller described her twins as her “miracle babies” who survived despite each weighing 1 pound at birth. Danielle Price spent the first five months of her life in a neonatal intensive care unit, and her brother, Devon, the first seven months.

She has spent years fighting for them, repeatedly taking on local and state school officials. But even when she notched victories, she said, her children did not get the help they were promised.

Miller said her children are high-functioning and verbal. She said they could have thrived academically if the school system had given them proper services.

“My children have suffered,” Miller wrote in a complaint she filed in September 2024. “The most vulnerable group of children [is] being denied a basic education.”

‘Unusual and Unprecedented’

Miller says her daughter began to self-harm after classmates teased and tormented her and staff secluded her away from her bullies. The Wake County Public School System assigned Devon to a classroom with an instructional assistant who was not a licensed teacher, a violation of policy, according to state documents.

Last year, Miller filed a complaint against Wake County schools with the federal Office for Civil Rights. She alleged the district did not reevaluate her kids to determine their special education needs, did not respond for months to her records requests, and retaliated against her by wrongly withdrawing the twins from the school district.

Wake County schools violated policy when staff did not address the effects of bullying on Danielle, says an April 2024 letter from the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction.

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The school system’s education plan for Danielle “was not appropriate considering the student’s unmet social-emotional needs, which resulted in the student’s increased anxiety,” the letter says.

State officials concluded in June 2024 that the school system failed to develop, review, and revise an education plan for Devon, assigned him to a teacher assistant instead of a licensed teacher, and did not provide technology that could help him learn, according to documents.

While the decisions validated Miller’s concerns, she said that the district continues to violate her children’s rights and that the state is now ignoring her pleas for help.

“No one is taking responsibility,” she told KFF Health News. “It has been a nightmare.”

But after she appealed to the federal government last year, the Education Department sent her a letter in March saying it would not look into the complaint.

For decades, parents and advocates for people with disabilities have said the system makes it difficult for them to win against school districts, because the process is often time-consuming, confusing, and, if a family hires a lawyer, expensive. Now they say families could soon face even bigger hurdles.

On March 11, the day the Education Department sent Miller’s denial letter, the agency announced it was firing nearly half its 4,133 employees. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said the move was “a significant step toward restoring the greatness of the United States education system.”

Officials shuttered seven of the 12 regional offices of the agency’s Office for Civil Rights, leaving a skeleton staff to investigate thousands of complaints filed each year, according to attorneys and advocates for the disabled.

Trump, acting on a campaign promise to shrink the federal government, later signed an executive order to eliminate the Education Department, which he said had failed children and built a bloated bureaucracy.

The president instructed officials to “return authority over education to the States and local communities while ensuring the effective and uninterrupted delivery of services, programs, and benefits on which Americans rely.”

Parents and advocacy groups say that would allow local authorities to police themselves at a time when schools remain racially segregated, some selective colleges accept male applicants at higher rates than female applicants, and students with disabilities are struggling to recover academically from the covid pandemic, more so than their peers. Also, they note, the federal laws protecting disabled and disadvantaged children emerged because of state-level failures.

Under North Carolina law, children with disabilities should be reevaluated by schools every three years to help determine their individual needs. But Miller said Wake County officials for nearly a decade refused her requests to have her kids reevaluated. She said it finally happened in late 2024.

“I never expected getting an education for my children would be such a problem,” Miller said.

The Education Law Center, the NAACP, and other advocacy groups have sued to stop Trump’s plans, alleging the changes are illegal and pose a threat to the education of students from vulnerable groups. Some 20 states and the District of Columbia sued to halt the plan, but the Supreme Court ruled in July that the Trump administration could move ahead while the case proceeded through the courts.

Russell said she has heard North Carolina school districts are promising to provide accommodations for students with disabilities, such as extra time on tests.

But families who cannot afford to hire an attorney could find themselves at a disadvantage when disagreements arise over services that cost districts more money, Russell said.

The Trump administration has decimated the Office for Civil Rights’ ability to properly investigate a backlog of thousands of complaints, said Robert Kim, who leads the Education Law Center.

The office reported receiving nearly 23,000 complaints in fiscal 2024, the highest number ever. About 8,400, or 37%, involved allegations of disability discrimination.

Black children and those with disabilities may suffer the worst consequences, since they disproportionately face harsh discipline at school, including physical restraint and isolation in seclusion rooms, Kim said.

The Education Department says children with disabilities make up 14% of students but 75% of those secluded and 81% of those physically restrained.

Black children constitute about 15% of students but 42% of those who are mechanically restrained using a device or equipment.

“Something unusual and unprecedented is happening,” Kim said about what he sees as a shift in the federal government’s responsibility to keep children safe and provide a high-quality education.

The Education Department’s press office declined an interview request for this story in an unsigned email that was copied to agency officials Madison Biedermann, Savannah Newhouse, Julie Hartman, and Ellen Keast.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai did not respond to a request for comment.

In a July statement, McMahon said her agency is performing all of its duties: “We will carry out the reduction in force to promote efficiency and accountability and to ensure resources are directed where they matter most — to students, parents, and teachers.”

‘Nothing but Problems’

Danielle and Devon Price entered 10th grade at Wake Forest High School in August. Their mother said she is uncertain what will happen to them.

Danielle wants to go to college, but her math skills are at a fourth-grade level, school records show.

Like many youths with autism, Danielle struggles with changes in routine, and her mother said she became despondent when school officials repeatedly changed her classes to keep her away from a boy who bullied her. Soon after that, Danielle started to self-harm, Miller said, adding that her daughter receives intensive therapy.

“It has been nothing but problems” with Wake County schools, she said. “It is like no one cares.”

Wake County school officials declined to answer questions about Miller’s complaints, citing privacy laws.

In a written statement, district spokesperson Matthew Dees said that “the school district has worked hard to reach agreement with Ms. Miller on many issues” and remedied complaints that were substantiated.

“The district disputes the remaining allegations in the various complaints she has raised, including the many accusations against various staff,” Dees added.

Under federal law, parents have 180 days from the time of the last alleged violation to file a complaint with the Education Department. Miller submitted her complaint Sept. 12, 2024, exactly 180 days after she says her twins were last denied a “free appropriate public education.”

But the Office for Civil Rights said that was too late. Officials declined to waive the time limit for Miller, who had asked for an exception, according to its March denial letter.

She said she spent months fighting with Wake County school officials and did not turn to federal government sooner because she hoped she could resolve the issues locally.

Miller fears for her children’s future unless something changes at school.

“I’m a single parent, and one day I won’t be here,” she said. “My kids are going to be adults soon, yet my son doesn’t know how to read and write. I’m like, ‘Wow.’ There really is no help here.”

©2025 KFF Health News. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.