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Important decision on Special Education made by the US Supreme Court today.
In a new Supreme Court ruling today, it was decided that parents who send their special needs children to private schools due to a public school district's inability to fulfill the child's needs will be eligible for reimbursement of the cost of the private school from the public school district that is supposed to serve them.
Federal law has required districts to reimburse families for these education costs since IDEA 1997, but schools have argued that the law says parents must give public school special education programs a chance first. Special education advocates say that the problem with this is that these students, to whom a single wasted day of learning is precious, can be made to languish in sub-par programs that are detrimental to their health and learning until the school district agrees that it can not support that child.
The issue came before the Supreme Court because of a child who had ADHD, severe depression, substance abuse problems, and failing grades. The child was denied access to special education classes by his school district. When his parent's enrolled him in a private school that specializes in children with his needs, the parents sent a bill to the public school district.
That school district argued that since the student in question was never part of their special education program, he wasn't eligible for reimbursement under this law. The Supreme Court disagreed.
Justice John Paul Stevens said, "We conclude that IDEA (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act) authorizes reimbursement for the cost of special education services when a school district fails to provide a FAPE (Free Appropriate Public Education) and the private-school placement is appropriate, regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school".
While this is a major victory for under served special needs children, especially those who are poor, it will be a major blow to many school districts across the country. The cost of private special education varies greatly, but for the student in question it came to approximately $5,200 per month.
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Alert about the ruling from wrightslaw.com Supreme Court Issues Decision in Forest Grove School District v. T.A. |
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Comments
As a victim of sub-par special education programs. All I have to say is about bloody time. I finally overcame my own learning disability when I adjusted to learning though concept and association vs. memorization. The State program did not even try to identify how I learned. It took a first time technical instructor with no formal training to point out my leaning methods verbally.
I was denied the college trac in high school because I was in the State's special education. Sub-par indeed. All learning disability students are to public education is revenue generators. God forbid if someone who learns differently actually wants to be in a environment where they can , gasp, learn.
The State in question for me, GA, Class of 1989.
I have lived through the heinous meetings with school officials for years, for many children. Florida ranks either 49 or 50 in the US as far as mainstream schooling....can't you just imagine what they do for special needs kids...they throw them in a room....the first funding cut....special needs because they will never amount to anything.....okay...well, Einstein, Beethoven, Churchill, Lincoln, Franklin, Edison....any of these names sound familiar....their parents were all told their children weren't normal...good thing they were smart enough to know that these icons of history weren't normal like the idiots who judged them.....parents scream from the rooftops for your rights...google for everything...in Fl they don't even know the state statutes when you go into IEPs, let alone federal law! Let's see..tomorrow the appeals will start or the districts will claim there is no funding...they will find a way to scam their way out of it...they always do.
While I agree that all children should get the education they need I also feel that our local school districts cannot afford this mandate. There should be federal support for such programs so that the local school districts are not overly burdened thus reducing their ability to provide good services to anyone. ALL children (those with special needs and those without) deserve a great education and our local public schools are already overburdened and underfunded. When is the federal government going to start funding or at least reimbursing school districts for this unfunded mandate?
jg: While I understand your point and agree that school districts are going to have a hard time funding this, the problem with your solution is that schools will turn their backs on special ed students because they'll know that the someone else will pick up the slack. Then, if a school needs to cut their budget, they'll cut special ed services and tell the ones who don't like it to find a private school. In fact, the whole reason the student in this case needed a private school was that his public school district refused to acknowledge his needs and would not put him in an appropriate program.
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