CENTER FOR LAW AND EDUCATION

www.cleweb.org

 

      43 Winter Street                                    1875 Connecticut Ave., N.E.

Boston, MA  02108                                  Washington, D.C. 20009

617-451-0855                                            202-986-3000

Kathleen B. Boundy                                    contact:  Larry Searcy

 

IDEA ALERT –before it is too late!          

 

Parents and advocates please urge your Senators to oppose harmful changes to the existing procedural safeguards of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) that currently protect parents and their children with disabilities, including provisions on disciplinary exclusion.   Act now before it is too late.  Act now before your rights are eliminated --the rights that helped you become an informed and effective advocate for your child are now at risk.  These rights are critical to ALL parents, and especially those without legal representation, those whose native language may not be English, and those who may be isolated and without necessary community supports. 

 

The IDEA is before the Congress for reauthorization.  H.R. 1350 has passed the House.  Next week the Senate bill will likely be introduced. If enacted, proposed amendments to the IDEA based on HR 1350 as well as other amendments being discussed in the Senate will eliminate key protections for children with disabilities.  

 

Proposed changes designed to reduce paperwork (aka poor management and administration) will detrimentally affect students with disabilities and their parents by:

 

·        Denying parents their right to give informed consent by eliminating required written notices with a full explanation in clear, easily understood language, what action the school proposes to take with respect to the child with a disability, the reasons why, what alternatives were considered, and why they were rejected ---a provision that has been in the law for more than 30 years!

 

·        Denying parents the right to written notice that provides a full explanation of their rights under IDEA; instead parents are to be provided a description of procedural safeguards; and

 

·        Deleting the legal mandate that parents be provided a copy of the procedural safeguards to which they are entitled when they are notified of an IEP meeting about their child, their child’s reevaluation, and when they choose to file a complaint about their child’s identification, evaluation, education or placement.      

 

Furthermore, proposed changes under H.R. 1350 or Senate amendments currently being discussed, will, if enacted into law, detrimentally affect the education of students with disabilities by:

·        Expanding the authority of school personnel to remove unilaterally from his current educational placement a student with a disability who is charged with violating his school’s disciplinary code (e.g., smoking; using profanity), and to place the student in an alternative interim education setting for up to 45 days or more than 6 weeks of school, where the code violator shall remain even when the charge is being contested; [Note: current law limits such unilateral removal by school personnel to instances when students possess weapons or drugs or are substantially likely to cause injury to self or others] 

 

·        Further authorizing school personnel to remove a student whose behavior may result in “serious bodily injury” (but who somehow does not qualify as “substantially likely to cause injury to self or others”) to an interim alternative placement – and thus NOT having to demonstrate, as required by current law that such continued exclusion from the mainstream is warranted because the student’s behavior has been determined by an independent hearing officer to be substantially likely to cause injury to self or others;

 

·        Eliminating the process for determining whether the behavior at issue is related to the student’s disabling condition – i.e., whether the student’s conduct for which he/she is being punished is a “manifestation” of his/her disability or the school’s failure to develop and/or effectively implement an appropriate IEP;

 

·        Eliminating currently required functional behavioral assessments and positive behavioral interventions that were written into the IDEA Amendments of 1997 to provide students with the kind of supports they need to better understand and address their own behaviors, to help them maintain and improve self control, and to anticipate the need for timely and effective interventions;

 

Additionally, proposed amendment(s) that would provide mental health support services to those students with disabilities who have been removed to interim alternative educational placements will have the effect of re-segregating students and violate the least restrictive environment provision of current law.  Such proposed amendment(s)create a ‘removal for services’ incentive – the type of “quid pro quo” (referral for services) that has historically contributed to the over-representation of minority youth being mis-identified and placed in substantially separate special education settings.

 

Any such proposal to target the delivery of necessary mental health services in interim alternative placement will similarly have the effect of  re-segregating students whom we know from federally collected disciplinary exclusion data are disproportionately Black and Hispanic, poor, and with disabilities.  Moreover, any such proposal that encourages segregation of students with disabilities –whether through funding of services or placements - violates the least restrictive environment provision of the IDEA.  Students, who need and/or might benefit from mental health support services under IDEA and/or Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, must under current law be provided such services to the maximum extent possible in the regular classroom.    

 

PLEASE ACT NOW.

• Tell your Senators that these amendments do NOT improve the education of students with disabilities.  Tell your Senators that parents of ALL children have a right to full and informed notice so they may know what actions, including exclusionary actions or other removal to so-called “interim alternative educational placements” are being proposed, the reasons for such proposed changes in their child’s placement, and what less restrictive alternatives have been considered, tried and/or rejected, and the reasons for such rejection. 
• Tell your Senators NOT to set the clock backwards by passing legislation that will re-segregate students with disabilities, in particular minority students with disabilities who are still disproportionately subject to disciplinary exclusion. 
• Tell your Senators that in 2003 you expect them to focus on improving the education and instruction of students with disabilities, who based on the evidence, are academically behind their non-disabled peers because they have NOT been adequately taught what they need to know. 
• Tell your Senators that we will accept NO retreat from the promise of No Child Left Behind and our children’s RIGHTS under IDEA to receive high quality public education.  It is a cynical and cowardly act to make it easier to push out those children who are the most vulnerable to school failure and to retreat from holding schools and school districts accountable by denying parents knowledge and information about their children’s rights to learn and opportunities for parents to build their own capacities.   

 

CONTACT YOUR SENATORS at THEIR DISTRICT OFFICES WHILE THEY ON RECESS AND THROUGH THEIR SENATE STAFF IN D.C.:

capitol switchboard 202-224-3121

Members of the senate health, education, labor and pensions committee are:

202-224-6770