Updated March 9, 2026 at 8:09 AM CDT
It's a mid-November day at ASCEND Climbing Gym on Pittsburgh's South Side, and an 11-year-old boy who's afraid of heights just made it to the top of a 12-foot boulder.
"That is the very first time he made it up, I am so impressed," his mom, Melissa, says.
Back on the mats, Melissa's son shakes off the nerves of his new feat.
"It's scary for me," he shares, "because I felt like I was just going to slip my hand off and then fall."
Melissa's son has a few different learning disabilities, and this climbing class is part of Pittsburgh Public Schools' effort to help students with disabilities make up for the supports they lost access to during the pandemic.
NPR is only using Melissa's first name and not naming her son because they don't want his classmates to know about his disabilities.
Federal law guarantees students with disabilities a right to a "free appropriate public education," as well as a right to the specialized services necessary for them to get it. When schools closed during the pandemic, many districts struggled to provide those services online. But the U.S. Education Department made clear in 2022 that schools would have to make that up to students by providing "compensatory services" to help them catch up.
Nationwide, lawsuits and federal investigations have pushed school districts to do just that. And they're trying all kinds of things: Fairfax County Public Schools in Virginia is providing free virtual tutoring. Families in Philadelphia who were owed compensatory services are allowed to use private providers and then bill the district.
In Pittsburgh, district officials have spent more than $2.7 million this school year on its COVID Compensatory Services program, which offers everything from after-school tutoring and specialized art classes to rock climbing, weekend retreats and drone-flying camps.
Program coordinator Maria Paul says some people have questioned how something like rock climbing can help students make up for lost learning time.
"In those moments, too, you're working on following directions, listening to others, getting along with peers," Paul explains. "There are so many other pieces of development that are captured in those moments."
More than 600,000 hours of missed services
Melissa's son was in kindergarten when the pandemic disrupted classes six years ago. During that time, she says, he missed out on 144 hours of speech therapy and individualized learning support.
He's among the about 2,200 former and current PPS students who missed out on about 600,700 hours combined of special education support during the pandemic, according to district data. As of mid-February, the district had made up for only about a tenth of those lost hours.
Paul says school leaders are doing the best they can to provide as many opportunities as possible for families. Still, she says she's unsure the district will be able to make up for all of the hours students missed.
"There are so many kids, and kids are grown and gone now, and don't want to participate in things anymore, or have moved on from then," Paul says. "So I don't think we'll ever be able to close out all of those hours."
Pittsburgh's program isn't working for everyone
Rachel Schlosser says she doubts the district will entirely make up for the services her son, Henry, missed out on.
His family asked that NPR only use his first name because he is a minor and this story discusses his intellectual disability.
The pandemic sent Henry's school online when he was in fifth grade. According to Schlosser, he also went to school on his laptop for nearly all of sixth grade, as well as part of seventh grade. She says PPS owes Henry more than a thousand hours of special education instruction combined.
On a January day at their family home, Henry eats pizza at the dining room table. Schlosser asks him, "Do you remember what it was like when you had to learn on your computer?"
He doesn't always speak in complete sentences, so Schlosser tries to help him along.
"Did you like that or [did] you not like that?"
"No," Henry says.
"No," his mom echoes back. "Was it hard?"
"Yeah, it's hard," he says.
Henry says he missed his teachers during the pandemic, although he was able to get some support over the phone.
Taking advantage of PPS' COVID Compensatory Services program has also been challenging, Schlosser says. When PPS sends Henry's family seasonal lists of compensatory activities to choose from, Schlosser says she's often at a loss. Henry is 17 now, and his needs have changed since sixth grade. Schlosser says it's hard to know what would be a good fit.
"I think it's asking one more thing of parents," she says. "We already did the heavy lifting during COVID and our students lost a lot of instruction. To then ask us to be the ones to now try to figure out what programs would be appropriate is placing the burden in the wrong place. "
Schlosser says the district should also offer parents funds for services of their choosing.
That's similar to the approach taken by the School District of Philadelphia. But there have been drawbacks to that model, too.
Finding providers, arranging transportation and invoicing receipts has been cumbersome for some Philadelphia families, says Margie Wakelin, a senior attorney with the Education Law Center, a group that advocates for underserved students in Pennsylvania.
"That's a lot for a family to do. That would be a lot for me to do, and I don't face those [socio-economic] barriers that many of those other families do," Wakelin explains.
The School District of Philadelphia did not respond to a request for comment.
For Schlosser, those drawbacks provide all the more reason for districts to offer multiple avenues for compensation.
"I think it has to be both," she adds. "I think for parents who have a provider they're already working with or a provider that was recommended to them, it should absolutely be an option."
Patti Camper, assistant superintendent at PPS, said the district resorts to compensatory funds, like the kind Philadelphia provides, only when PPS can't reasonably provide services to a student. That could include students who have moved away from the district.
"Our families often face complex and personal hardships, and we carefully consider all available options, whether through services or compensatory funds, based on each family's specific circumstances," Camper said.
144 hours of recouped services
Back at the climbing gym, Melissa says Pittsburgh's compensatory services program hasn't felt like a burden. She credits its many offerings with helping her son jump multiple reading levels between fourth and fifth grade.
Last school year, her son received dozens of hours of after-school tutoring at his elementary school. Then, over the summer, he attended camps at the local science center and the Pittsburgh Zoo, all paid for by PPS. While he was in the climbing program last fall, he officially hit 144 hours of compensatory services – the amount of hours he had missed during the pandemic.
Shortly after her son started these programs, Melissa noticed some big changes in him.
"He liked school and he wasn't fighting the system," Melissa recalls. "And then, when you need to do practice work at home, he's like, 'Oh, OK.' Instead of it always being a battle."
She says it's that kind of sustained engagement that will help her son and other students with disabilities catch up and thrive in school, long-term.
Copyright 2026 NPR