Summary of case:
The supreme court ruling regarding special education was about a student who was in high school and suffered from attention issues which his parents believed was a learning disability. The school evaluated him and decided he did not qualify for special education. In the students junior year the parents grew tired of the lack of support and pulled their student out of the school and placed him in a private residential school with a tuition of $5,000 a month. When the parents moved the student from public to private school they did not notify the district in their decision. The family then hired an attorney to address the situation and decided to sue the school district to pay for their child’s tuition. Before the case could be heard it had to go to the supreme court in order to determine whether or not the parents could sue the school district for the tuition.
Supreme court justice John Paul Stevens wrote the 6-3 majority opinion: "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 and 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."
The decision did not rule on the outcome case it simply determined that it was legal to try the case in federal district court. It is now up to the federal judges interpretation of the supreme court ruling to decide if the school district failed to provide the child with the appropriate education and the private school was able to meet the students needs.
The family is suing the district for $65,000 in the total cost of tuition and additional legal fees which is estimated to amount to $500,000. The case has been appealed by the district because the superintendent (Jack Musser) believes the outcome could be a landmark case and set precedent for future lawsuits. No ruling has been made on the five year old case and I could not find any information supporting a final decision on the case.
Research used from the following websites:
Oregon Live - http://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/index.ssf/2009/06/us_supreme_court_rules_against.html
Do you support the decision?
In this case based upon the information that I have researched I do not support the supreme courts decision. I do not support this because of the language used in the description of the majority opinion: “regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school.” This makes an extremely dangerous blanket statement that essentially supports any student and their parents to leave a public school without exhausting all options or opportunities available.
As a public educator I have experience teaching students with and without disabilities. Through this experience I can recall numerous examples where parents have asked for their student to be tested for learning disabilities and were determined to not have a disability. If the student has continued to struggle and has needed any help to be successful we, as a staff, working cooperatively with the parents have designed different accommodations to ensure success of the students involved. This has been successful in all circumstances and it has not been necessary to provide special education services for the child to be successful.
When ruling in favor of the family the supreme court, in my opinion, supported the lack of collaboration between a students parents/guardians and their teachers/support staff. Collaboration and open communication between parents and their school is an essential part of the process when educating students. This ruling allows parents to go around the school district without trying to take other possible steps which could result in success. Parents no longer need to exhaust their options before leaving a school district instead they have been empowered to leave if they don’t feel their child is receiving the proper support without even needing to notify the district of their frustration and choice.
I actually agree with the Supreme Courts decision. I do not think that the decision the Supreme Court made will hurt any good school or school district that are following all of the EC guidelines. With a little more research you would have seen that the Supreme Courts decision “regardless of whether the child previously received special education or related services through the public school.” had two addendums to it. First the courts have to look at whether the school provided FAPE and whether the parents provide notice and opportunity for the school to evaluate the child. This law will only affect schools who are not meeting EC compliance. If school are not providing ALL students with appropriate education than parents should have the right to take their child to a school that will. In this case the state ended up reversing the original decision and Forest Grove school district did not pay for T.A’s tuition reimbursement. The reason the decision was reversed was because the parents did not give adequate notice to the school. I think that this law protects parents and students from schools who are not doing their job.
ReplyDeleteI see where Andy is coming from. I had a hard time trying to decide my opinion of this case. I do think in what I saw, some information is missing. Again, I would want to know what happened to TA during his K-8 years. I do feel that IF the public school does not meet the student’s needs the public school should be held accountable. In this situation, the school system did take a few steps to begin the process but they did not complete the process because they did not continue with the test to properly diagnose TA.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Andy however with the parent collaboration. It seems as if the parents were not included in all the steps in the TA situation. I also agree that this ruling now opens the door to allow parents to just pull their student if they are not happy with the public education their child is receiving and the parents may not consider other options within the public school.
This was definitely a hard case to comment on! I had a hard time forming an opinion as well. I think that the parents should have tried to work with the school before leaving. I think it could lead to a problem especially with all the students being diagnosed with ADHD daily. Schools and parents have to find a way to work together to make sure the children are receiving the services they need. If the school is not providing the resources necessary to meet the child's needs then the parents may need to find another option to help their child.
ReplyDelete