Using the Iep to Get Appropriate Services for Students With Disabilities

• Publication year: 2002
• Pages: 29

31 Colo.Law. 109 Colorado Lawyer 2002.

2002, October, Pg. 29. Using the IEP to Get Appropriate Services for Students with Disabilities

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29

Vol. 31, No. 10, Pg. 109

The Colorado Lawyer

October 2002

Vol. 31, No. 10 [Page 29]

Children and the Law

Using the IEP to Get Appropriate Services for Students with Disabilities

by Randy Chapman

Randy Chapman is the Director of Legal Services for The Legal Center for People with Disabilities and Older People Colorado's protection and advocacy system for people with developmental disabilities, mental illness, and other disabilities - (303) 722-0300. Chapman has practiced disability civil rights law, including special education, for twenty-five years

This article provides practical information for children's attorneys to help children with disabilities receive a "free appropriate" public education pursuant to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act ("IDEA").1 This article focuses on using the Individualized Educational Program ("IEP") process to obtain appropriate services for students with disabilities. What is appropriate for a particular student is very much like beauty, for it truly is in the eye of the beholder.2 Well-meaning individuals will differ, based on their experience and perspective, as to what is appropriate for a particular student with a disability. This also varies significantly for each student, depending on such factors as the student's age, disability or disabilities, and severity of disability. The law therefore cannot effectively prescribe one program to fit all students

The IDEA seeks to ensure that all students with disabilities receive a free, appropriate public education. Thus, the IDEA puts in place a network of procedures that, when followed correctly, should lead to students receiving appropriate services. The process is based on three premises: (1) the educational program should be designed to meet the unique needs of each individual student;3 (2) a team should design the program, and the team should include the child's parents;4 and (3) parents who have access to adequate due process protections will help ensure that the process works.5

This article reviews the IEP portion of that process. Developing the IEP requires a team, including the student's parents, that focuses on designing services to meet the unique needs of the particular student. To understand why such extensive procedures are necessary, this article first discusses the origin of the IDEA. The legal history of educating students with disabilities is very recent; for the most part, children with disabilities have been excluded in the public education system.

A Brief History

In 1975, Congress passed the Education for All Handicapped Children Act ("Act"), guaranteeing, for the first time, an opportunity for children with disabilities nationwide to receive a public education.6 Congress had been awakened by two landmark cases7 to the fact that children with disabilities were being neglected by this country's public school system. At the time the Act was being considered, Congress had made specific findings that "there were more than eight million handicapped children in the United States."8 Sadly, Congress further found that "more than half of the handicapped children in the United States do not receive appropriate educational services which would enable them to have full educational opportunity"9 and that "one million of the handicapped children in the United States are excluded entirely from the public school system and will not go through the educational process with their peers."10 (Emphasis added.)

To remedy this neglect, Congress put in place a process to ensure that children with disabilities would receive a free appropriate public education. That process prescribes procedures that school districts and local education agencies ("LEAs")11 must use to identify children with disabilities, assesses each student's educational needs, and designs a program to meet those needs. While that process has been prescribed by Congress and is overseen by each State Education Agency ("SEA"),12 how services are provided is determined locally within each school district on a case-by-case basis for each student with a disability. An attorney first may be approached to represent a family in a due process hearing,13 but in the IEP process, the lawyer may be able to resolve the issue in less time and with less financial and emotional cost to the family.

The IEP Process

The IEP outlines what constitutes a free, appropriate public education for any given student with a disability. The...