President Donald Trump said he will move special education oversight to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, but the plan is short on specifics and it’s unclear whether he has the authority to do so.

Trump told reporters late last week that Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “will be handling special needs and all of the nutrition programs.”

“Those two elements will be taken out of the Department of Education,” Trump said.

The announcement came less than 24 hours after Trump signed an executive order aimed at fulfilling his campaign promise to shut down the Department of Education and just over a week after the agency said it would slash its workforce by nearly half. The administration’s changes at the Education Department are already facing multiple court challenges.

The Education Department did not respond to questions about exactly what special education programs would be moving to the Department of Health and Human Services, what the process would look like or when it would take place.

Over the weekend, Secretary of Education Linda McMahon was less firm about the plan, telling CNN “the programs for students with disabilities will more than likely rest in HHS.”

Kennedy said in a post on X that his department “is fully prepared to take on the responsibility of supporting individuals with special needs,” but representatives for the health agency similarly declined to comment on details.

The push to move oversight of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act out of the Education Department is now prompting legal questions and other concerns from special education and disability advocates.

“This is not a change that can be made by executive order — it would require Congress to amend the law to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and amend the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act to move the Office of Special Education Programs from ED to HHS,” said Stephanie Smith Lee, co-director of policy and advocacy at the National Down Syndrome Congress, who served as director of the Education Department’s Office of Special Education Programs under President George W. Bush.

The IDEA specifies that “there shall be, within the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services in the Department of Education, an Office of Special Education Programs, which shall be the principal agency in the department for administering and carrying out this title and other programs and activities concerning the education of children with disabilities.”

Even if the president could move IDEA oversight to the Department of Health and Human Services, doing so would be “a step back 50 years,” said Michael Yudin who served as assistant secretary of the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services under the Obama administration.

Most children with disabilities are educated in general education classrooms alongside their typically developing peers, so breaking off special education is illogical, he said.

“This is not a health issue, this is not a medical issue, this is about educating kids with disabilities,” Yudin said. “We’re talking about making sure kids get a free appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. What about health does that?”

Disability advocates are also raising concerns about how prepared the Department of Health and Human Services would be to oversee special education and what message it would send to house special education inside a health agency.

“Moving IDEA to the Department of Health and Human Services would promote a medical model of disability that could only lead to stigmatizing, segregating, and ‘othering’ children with disabilities,” said Robyn Linscott, director of education and family policy at The Arc. “HHS is not equipped to work directly with state education agencies who are delegated the responsibility to oversee local implementation of IDEA in school districts; nor is HHS able to provide essential technical assistance to parents as is currently conducted.”