Special Education Law Blog

Guidelines for Better Classroom Acoustics

The U.S. Access Board, a little known Federal agency that facilitates access to public  buildings,  has published guidelines and presented resources to make public spaces, specifically schools, more  acoustically sound for students with disabilities. It is easy to overlook the importance of acoustics which center on two key concepts, Signal to Noise Ratio ("SNR") and Reverberation Time. SNR deals with how available sound is to a listener in an environment (classroom) and reverberation rates deal with the amount of sound reverberation that occurs even after a given sound stops. Download AcousticsTR.pdf

Illinois Home Schooling Resources

I often receive questions about requirements and resources for home schooling. These questions are a byproduct of the fact that parents sometimes withdraw their children from school instead of fighting annual battles with their local school district. I recently discovered this resource for Illinois homeschoolers, it may also be useful for others outside of Illinois as well except the statutory provisions will likely differ.  This site does not deal with the limited obligations of school districts to parentally placed children under IDEA 2004.

Next Stop Special Education

According to the law special education is a set of services and is not a place. Well truer words were never spoken. It is not a place for many children that I represent, it is many places from year to year.  I have numerous children who I represent that come to me having been in five different buildings, albeit in the same "program" in five years. It gives new meaning to the phrase "mobile classroom".  When the parent protests they are of course told that special education is not a  place...

Many Special Education Students Mislabeled

Mislabeling students as mentally retarded is rampant in Fitchberg, Massachusetts according to the State Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Education. [Download Mislabeled_Students.doc] Nearly one-fourth of all students in the district have been labeled mentally retarded which is nearly four times the state average.  One investigatory report concluded the number of students who were mislabelled was "extraordinary."

Guidelines for Evaluating Placement for Children with Cochlear Implants (Part 2) by Deborah Pergament

In this posting, my colleague Deborah Pergament will detail the factors to allow parents to determine if a placement is indeed an aural/oral setting for a child with a cochlear implant, and the necessary criteria to determine the appropriateness of a placement.

Guidelines for Evaluating Placement for Children with Cochlear Implants (Part 1) by Deborah Pergament

The following is the first of a two part posting from a colleague of mine. Deborah Pergament is an attorney in Chicago, Illinois who has dedicated her professional life to serving the needs of children in the area of special education, family law and juvenile justice.  She has successfully tried and won a recent case on behalf of a child with a cochlear implant and has several more pending.  This posting should enable parents to make more informed decisions in determining the appropriateness of a school placement for their son or daughter who has a cochlear implant ("CI").

The Rights of Children with Disabilities Enrolled By Their Parents in Private School

Numerous parents who unilaterally enrolled their children in private schools (including religious schools) have raised many questions regarding their children's rights under the new IDEA.   In response, I have drafted the following summary of recent Federal guidance on this subject.  This summary is general in nature and is not meant to provide specific legal advice.   This posting addresses only the changes to the provisions of IDEA 2004 that took effect on July 1, 2005 regarding children with disabilities who are enrolled by their parents in private schools.  The relevant IDEA provisions can be found at 20 U.S.C. § 1412 (10)(a).   This posting does not address a related set of issues regarding when a parent unilaterally places a child and then claims the offered program in school was not a FAPE.   That situation is subject to its own set of requirements, including notice to the school, which is a critical prerequisite not discussed here.