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Inclusive education: what the law requires from your private school with students with disabilities

October 26, 2026 · 5 min read

Denying enrollment, expelling, or conditioning the permanence of a student with a disability is no longer a decision that the school can make alone: the General Education Law classifies it as an infringement, with a fine of up to 117,000 pesos.

A law that had to be rewritten

In 2021, the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation declared invalid the chapter of the General Education Law dedicated to inclusive education, when resolving a constitutional action. The ruling was published in the Official Journal of the Federation on March 13, 2023, and forced Congress to rewrite that chapter from scratch, with prior consultation with people with disabilities and their organizations.

The result came as a decree published in the DOF on June 7, 2024, which amends articles 61 to 68 of the General Education Law. It is not a recommendation or a guide to best practices: it is a current chapter of a federal law, and that law applies to the entire National Educational System, which includes private schools operating with authorization or with official validity recognition of studies (RVOE).

What the law exactly requires

Article 62 establishes that inclusive education must be ensured in all types, levels, modalities, and options of the system, with an emphasis on those who are excluded, marginalized, or at risk of being so. Among the points that establish this obligation are, in the text itself: making reasonable adjustments according to the needs of each student, providing necessary support, and periodically supervising that these actions are fulfilled.

Article 65 translates that principle into concrete measures. Among others:

- facilitating the learning of Braille and other means and formats of augmentative or alternative communication;

- ensuring that deaf individuals can learn Mexican Sign Language, in addition to Spanish as a second language;

- offering students with visual, auditory, intellectual, psychosocial, language, or motor disabilities an education in the languages and media that allow them to reach their maximum development;

- making reasonable adjustments for those who need them, not only for people with disabilities but also for students with outstanding abilities or learning disorders.

"Reasonable adjustment" is not a decorative phrase. In practice, it means adapting something concrete —the format of an exam, physical access to a classroom, the time allotted for a task, the support of an interpreter— so that a student can learn under conditions comparable to those of their peers, without that adaptation depending on whether the school feels like it or has the budget for that school year.

What the law explicitly prohibits

Article 170 of the same law enumerates the infringements that those providing educational services can incur, including private ones, not just public schools. Section XV of that article is explicit: it classifies as an infringement expelling, segregating, or refusing to provide educational services to people with disabilities or learning problems, as well as conditioning the admission or permanence of a student on undergoing medical treatment, or pressuring parents or guardians to accept it. The law leaves a caveat: this prohibition does not apply if there is a duly justified cause in the judgment of the educational authority, meaning the school cannot make that decision on its own.

Article 171 sets the penalty for that section: a fine of 100 to 1,000 Measurement and Update Units (UMA), which can be doubled if the school reoffends. With the value of the UMA effective since February 1, 2026 —117.31 pesos daily, according to the INEGI statement published on January 8, 2026— that fine amounts to a range of 11,731 to 117,310 pesos, and up to double in case of reoffending.

What this means for a private school, specifically

This does not replace what your school is already doing with special education or with a Unit of Support Services for Regular Education (USAER), if it is incorporated into that scheme. What changes is that there is a specific legal standard against which any day-to-day decision can now be measured:

- Denying enrollment to an applicant due to their disability, without a justified cause before the educational authority, is a classified infringement, not just a bad practice.

- Expelling or suggesting a change of school for a student with a disability because the school "is not prepared" falls under the same section.

- Conditioning a student’s stay at the school on following a specific medical treatment, or pressuring the family to accept it, also.

- Not even evaluating whether a reasonable adjustment is possible when a student or their family requests it directly contradicts article 62.

What to do in practice

A short review, applicable this week:

1. Review the admission process: is there any filter, written or de facto, that excludes applicants due to their disability without going through the educational authority?

2. Have a simple procedure for a family to request a reasonable adjustment, and keep a record of what was evaluated and what was decided, even if the final response is that a certain adjustment is not feasible at that moment.

3. Review the basic physical accessibility of the school: ramps, bathrooms, signage, access to classrooms where mandatory subjects are taught.

4. If the school has students with visual or auditory disabilities, check if there are accessible formats for key materials: exams, circulars, report cards.

5. Do not use the argument of "we are not prepared" as a reason for expulsion or not renewing enrollment, without an evaluation from the educational authority, as required by article 170.

None of this requires an overnight overhaul of the school. What the law does require is that the decision to include or not include a student with a disability no longer solely depends on the school’s discretion, and becomes a process that the school can document, and if necessary, defend before the educational authority.