A summary of legal cases that have shaped current Special Education Law
Brown v. Board of Education was not about disabled children. It mandated desegregation of schools. However, the concept that all children deserve an equal education was the springboard that helped launch many court cases involving the rights of the disabled in school.
PARC (Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children) v. the Pennsylvania Commonwealth was the court decision which held that mentally retarded children, (between ages 6 and 21) deserved a free public education. This decision also decreed that mentally retarded students should be mainstreamed, or included with the regular population of typical students whenever possible. Mainstreaming is now referred to as Inclusion. The PARC decision found five specific things related to the education of children with disabilities. First, that children with disabilities had been systematically denied a public education and second, that these children could benefit from an education. Additionally, the PARC decision found that under the constitution, that disabled students were entitled to an education, and that the education should be at the public's expense. Finally, the court found that parents of disabled children had the right to due process. That is, they could question the placement of their child, which according to the last finding, should be in the least restrictive environment. That is, students with disabilities are to be mainstreamed with "typical" students as much as is possible. Out of the PARC decision was born the IDEA, and FAPE.
Mills v Board of Education took the PARC decision further; this court found that all school age students, not just those between ages 6 and 21, had the right to a public education. (This helped to establish Part C of IDEA, which addresses preschoolers and Early Intervention.) Most importantly, this court found that if a school could not meet the needs of a disabled student, the burden was on the school to find an alternative educational opportunity for the student. Prior to this, the burden, and the considerable expense, would have been the parents’.
Jacob Winkleman v. Parma City School District. At issue: Can parents represent their disabled children in court?
This case went all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States. Jacob was an autistic child, and his parents could not reach an agreement on what his IEP should look like. At issue, however, was whether non-lawyer parents were legally allowed to represent their child in a court of law when dealing with a violation of IDEA. The school district’s position was that the parents’ rights were not enforceable under IDEA and that if they had any enforceable rights, that those rights were only derivative rights of their child. The Supreme Court found that parents were allowed to represent their own children, because they do in fact have rights, separate from their disabled children under IDEA. Because they have those rights, they may defend those rights in a court. Previous courts had dismissed Jacob’s case simply because the courts did not feel that the parents had the right to act as the child’s lawyer. Making it clear that parents and children have separate rights under IDEA makes IDEA even stronger.
Schaffer v. Weast, Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools. At issue: Which party is saddled with the burden of proof in an administrative hearing regarding an IEP? This was answered by the Supreme Court of the United States. In this case, a student, Brian Schaffer, had an IEP at a public school, but the parents did not believe the IEP was adequate and enrolled the student in a private school. The parents sought compensation for the cost of the private school. At one point, the administrative law judges, (they handle IEP cases in Maryland) ruled in favor of the school district, on the principle that the burden of proof—proof that the school did not provide a FAPE--rests with the parents. The parents then filed a civil suit. When the Supreme Court heard this dispute, it decided that the burden of proof rests with the party seeking to challenge the IEP in an administrative hearing, regardless of whether that party is the district, or the student.