Enforcing Federal Laws

          What we would really like to see is that the Federal Government decides to begin supporting parents and students with disabilities by enforcing our special education laws, rather than continuing to leave enforcement only to those parents who can advocate successfully.

 

             Is that too much to imagine? It has only been 30 years. How many million students have been passed along through their school careers but failed to get what our special education laws clearly required – therefore passing the burden on to their families and to other social service agencies. 

 

            A very important issue for this writer continues to be for the Feds to actually enforce Prior Written Notice, 20 U.S.C. 1415(c)(1), because it would solve so many problems and misunderstandings right at the beginning of our parent and school interactions.  

 

            Every time you had a disagreement, did your school district tell you in writing what they were proposing to do (or that they were refusing to do something that you had requested); did they explain to you in writing why they refused to do it; did your school describe in writing every evaluation procedure, assessment, record or report that they were using to justify their action; did your school describe in writing all the other options they considered and why they rejected everything other than the one they decided on?  

 

            That is basically what you would get if your school district was following the law.  If they did, don’t you think that would help the communication between parent and school to the point that there might be agreement?

 

             But can you honestly say you have ever gotten the Prior Written Notice that has been required by Federal Law – and required every day since your student started school? If so, we would really like to see a copy of it.

 

             Sadly, in every case in which we have ever been involved, Prior Written Notice has been violated. The only “good news” is that the parent always won on the issue of Prior Written Notice since the school district had no excuse and we could convince the judge that it was a major violation of the clear statute.

 

             The U.S. Department of Education has now promised (again) to publish a written form for schools to use in issuing the required Prior Written Notice. We have no reason to believe that they actually will. And we have no reason to believe that if they do publish such a form that they will get it right.

 

             So keep tuned in to our web site. We will let you know.

 This information is educational and not intended to be legal advice.  Reed Martin is an attorney with over 36 years experience in special educational law and recognized as one of the nation's leading experts.  He can be reached through email at connie@... or www.reedmartin.com