Children With Autism Miss Out as School Districts Make Their Own Rules

Two New Jersey towns, Rutherford and Secaucus, are five miles apart. Students with autism in Rutherford have gotten far more in-person instruction.

Eric Alarcon, who will be 4 next month, has autism. He can say a few words and identify a variety of dinosaurs. He lives with his parents in Secaucus, N.J., a 10-mile drive from Midtown Manhattan. Eric and his peers in a special-education class have had about 100 hours of in-person instruction in the first eight months of the school year. Five miles away in Rutherford, a neighboring New Jersey town, young children with autism have spent more than 700 hours in class since September.