Students With Disabilities
Welcome!
This site was created as partial fulfillment of the requirements of Legal Issues and the Educator, a required course in the Instructional Design and Technology Graduate Program at Philadelphia University.
Students with disabilities have made enormous gains in their legal rights to education in the last 40 years. Prior to 1971, only “normal” students attended public school. Students who had difficulties walking, talking, thinking, seeing or breathing, were kept at home, or worse, institutionalized. Schools were simply not required or equipped to accept those students, or, if the students did manage to attend school, the kids were left to cope on their own. Schools were not required to accommodate the special needs of these students in any way (Looney 98).
Much has changed. This website reviews the most important legal decisions shaping the education of students with disabilities, and will examine current legal issues faced by students with disabilities. Additionally, there is a page dedicated to defining common but essential special education terminology.