The History of IDEA:
For most of our nation’s history, schools were allowed to exclude
and often did exclude certain children, especially those with disabilities. Since the 1960s,
however,
there has been a great deal of Federal legislation that relates directly or indirectly to
individuals
with disabilities, particularly children and youth.
IDEA, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, mandates that eligible children with disabilities have available to them special education and related services designed to address their unique educational needs. The IDEA, and most especially the provision of special education, has its roots in the past. The laws from which the present-day IDEA has sprung include:
P. L. 89-10, The Elementary and
Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA).
Provided a comprehensive plan for readdressing the inequality of educational
opportunity for economically underprivileged children. It became the statutory
basis upon which early special education legislation was drafted.
P. L. 89-313, The Elementary and
Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1965.
Authorized grants to state institutions and state operated schools devoted to
the education of children with disabilities. It was the first Federal grant
program specifically targeted for children and youth with disabilities.
P. L. 89-750, ESEA Amendments of 1966.
Established the first Federal grant program for the education of children and
youth with disabilities at the local school level, rather than at state-operated
schools or institutions. It also established the Bureau of Education of the
Handicapped (BEH) and the National Advisory Council (now called the National
Council on Disability).
P. L. 90-247, Elementary and Secondary
Education Act Amendments of 1968.
Final Federal special education legislation of the 1960s, established a set of
programs that supplemented and supported the expansion and improvement of
special education services. These programs later became known as
"discretionary."
P. L. 91-230, The Elementary and
Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1970, which included Title VI, the
Education of the Handicapped Act.
Established a core grant program for local education agencies, now known as part
B, and it authorized a number of discretionary programs.
P. L. 93-280, The Education Amendments
of 1974.
Established two laws. One was the Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments of
1974, which was the first to mention an appropriate education for all children
with disabilities. It also reauthorized the discretionary programs. The second
law, the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act, gave parents and students over
the age of 18 the right to examine records kept in the student’s personal
file.
P. L. 94-142, The Education for All
Handicapped Children Act of 1975.
Mandated a free appropriate public education for all children with disabilities,
ensured due process rights, and mandated IEPs and LRE. As such, it is the core
of Federal funding for special education. This law was passed in 1975 and went
into effect in October of 1977 when the regulations were finalized.
P. L. 98-199, Education of the
Handicapped Act Amendments of 1983.
Reauthorized the discretionary programs, established services to facilitate
school to work transition through research and demonstration projects;
established parent training and information centers; and provided funding for
demonstration projects and research in early intervention and early childhood
special education.
P. L. 99-457, Education of the
Handicapped Act Amendments of 1986.
Mandated services for preschoolers and established the Part H program to assist
states in the development of a comprehensive, multidisciplinary, and statewide
system of early intervention services for infants.
P. L. 101-476, The Education of the
Handicapped Act Amendments of 1990.
Renamed the law the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. It reauthorized
and expanded the discretionary programs, mandated transition services, defined
assistive technology devices and services, and added autism and traumatic brain
injury to the list of categories of children and youth eligible for special
education and related services.
P. L. 102-119, The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1992.
Primarily addressed the Part H (Infants and Toddlers with Disabilities) Program.
P. L. 105-17, The Individuals with
Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997.
The current law!
"P. L." stands for Public Law. The first set of numbers stands for the session of Congress during which the law was passed. The second set of numbers identifies what number the law was in the sequence of passage during that session. Thus, P. L. 94-142 was the 142nd public law passed, and signed by the President, during the 94th session of Congress."
Procedural Safeguards
The Individuals with Disabilities
Education Act includes an entire section entitled
"Procedural Safeguards." These safeguards are designed to protect the rights of parents and their
child with
a disability, as well as give families and schools a mechanism for resolving disputes.
Procedural
safeguards under the prior legislation include:
- the right of parents to inspect and review all of their child’s educational records;
- the right of parents to obtain an independent educational evaluation (IEE) of their child;
- the right to written prior notice on matters regarding the identification, evaluation, or educational placement of their child, or the provision of FAPE to their child;
- the right to request a due process hearing on these matters, which must be conducted by an impartial hearing officer;
- the right to appeal the initial hearing decision to the State Education Agency (SEA) if the SEA did not conduct the hearing;
- the right of the child to remain in his or her current educational placement, unless the parent and the agency agree otherwise, while administrative or judicial proceedings are pending (this provision has come to be known as the "stay-put" provision); the right to bring civil action in an appropriate State or Federal court to appeal a final hearing decision;
- the right of the parent to request reasonable attorney’s fees from a court for actions or proceedings brought under IDEA (under certain circumstances);
- the right of parents to give or refuse consent before their child is initially evaluated or placed in a special education program for the first time.
- Many of these procedural safeguards remain unchanged. Some have been amended, and some are new, as described below.
Changes to Procedural Safeguards
Areas of Change
Procedural safeguards are a critical area of the law, for these ensure that the rights of parents and children are protected. IDEA 97 makes the following changes to the procedural safeguards section.
- Rather than always sending a detailed description of the procedural safeguards available to parents under the law, public agencies may now, in certain, well specified instances, merely provide to parents, as part of written prior notice, a statement that the parents of a child with a disability have protections under the procedural safe- guards and indicate where parents might obtain assistance in understanding these safeguards. In other specific instances, the public agency must send parents a copy of a detailed description of the procedural safeguards.
- Parents must now notify the public agency when they intend to remove their child from the public school and place the child in a private school at public expense.
- Parents must now notify the SEA or the LEA, as the case may be, when they intend to file a due process complaint.
- States must now have a voluntary mediation process in place, as a means of resolving disputes between LEAs and parents of children with disabilities.
- Specific requirements have been added to the law regarding the disciplining of children with disabilities. Under certain circumstances, such as the child bringing a weapon to school or a school function, the child may be removed from his or her current educational placement and placed in an interim alternative educational setting or suspended or expelled from school.
- Attorneys’ fees may, under certain circumstances, be reduced or denied. Among the circumstances is when an attorney representing the parent did not provide the school district with the appropriate information in the due process complaint in accordance with IDEA. Attorneys’ fees may not be awarded relating to any meeting of the IEP Team unless the meeting is called as a result of a due process hearing or judicial action, or, at the discretion of the State, for a mediation that is conducted prior to the filing of a due process complaint.