Special Education Law Special Educators

Special Education Law

Special educators have to pay attention both to the laws passed regarding special education and the related case law, because special education generates more litigation than any other area in education (USOE).

The first law passed by Congress regarding special education was Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. That was followed by the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (Public Law 94-142) in 1975, which was renewed as IDEA in 1997 and 2004, and ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act), passed in 1990 (USOE). These laws were necessary because school districts were routinely refusing to educate students with exceptional educational needs (USOE).

Of those laws, PL 94-142, which eventually became IDEA, had specific purpose: to ensure a free and appropriate education (FAPE) to all children with disabilities, to protect the rights of those children and their parents, to help local districts and state education departments provide the services, and to assess the effectiveness of these programs (USOE).

While the intent of these laws has been clear to parents who have learned about them, a large body of case law exists because parents had to turn to the courts to fight for their Children's rights. Some of these rulings are especially important for educators. In the case known as Goleta Union Elementary Sch. Dist v. Andrew Ordway, a ruling given in California in 2002, the judge ruled that a school administrator was personally liable under the Civil Rights act for interfering with a mother's attempt to get FAPE for her son (Wright & Wright, 2005).

This was supported by the Ninth District court in 2002, in the case Eason v. Clark County School District (NV), when it reversed a lower court and ruled that school personnel do not have immunity. This allowed parents to hold teachers and administrators financially liable when their child's right to FAPE is violated. While other rulings required schools to pay for private education or expensive programs such as Applied Behavioral Analysis, these rulings magnify school districts' needs to provide FAPE for all special education students.

Such rulings make it clear that personnel, schools and districts must be diligent about complying with federal special education regulations. The three sets of laws -- IDEA, 504, and ADA, certainly create a complex web of rues, parents have considerable rights, including making a formal complaint to the Office of Civil Rights (Zirkel, 2000). Parental remedies provided by law may include repayment of attorney fees, reimbursement for private placement, and having to pay for compensatory education if the school has failed to meet its educational obligation for a child (Katsiyannis & Herbst, 2004).