PL 93-112, section 504

• ''Rehabilitation Act of 1973''

  • rights of individuals with disabilities to participate in, and have access to, program benefits and services.

  • a law that's the first of its kind

  • protects qualified individuals from discrimination based on their disability.

  • regulations require a school district to provide a "free appropriate public education" (FAPE) to each qualified student with a disability who is in the school district's jurisdiction, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability.

PL 110-325

• "Americans with Disabilities Act Amendment" 2008

  • make it easier for an individual seeking protection under the ADA to establish that he or she has a disability within the meaning of the ADA.

  • overturns a series of Supreme Court decisions that interpreted the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 in a way that made it difficult to prove that an impairment is a "disability."

  • School professionals have spent nearly two decades trying to implement Federal and State mandated provisions of ADA.

  • If a district determines that a student has a disability under these new legal standards, it must also evaluate whether, because of the disability, the student needs special education or related services as described in the Section 504 regulation.

PL 94-142

• "Education for All Handicapped Children Act" 1975

  • The EHA guaranteed a free, appropriate public education, or FAPE, to each child with a disability in every state and locality across the country.

  • provides special education and related services that meet the individual needs of a child with a disability.

  • In the 1970s, nearly 2 million children with disabilities couldn't attend public schools.

  • By 2021, more than 7.5 million children with disabilities attended school and had access to special education and other accommodations to help them learn along with their non-disabled peers.

PL 99-457

• "Education of the Handicapped Act Amendments" 1986

  • reauthorize the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA) and include a rigorous national agenda to more and better services to young special needs children and their families.

  • provides a challenge to the field of education of the deaf and to early childhood educators to re-examine basic assumptions about the range of services, the professionals providing those services, and the role of families who have children with hearing impairments.

  • early intervention and mandated that individual states provide services to families of children born with disabilities from the time they are born.

PL 101-476

• "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)" 1990

  • added traumatic brain injury (TBI) and autism to the category of disabilities.

  • The law mandates special education services for children ages three to twenty-one and extends services for infants from birth to age two.

  • no more children with disabilities could be turned away from school and required that they have available to them “a free appropriate education which emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs.”

    
    

PL 105-17

• "Individuals with Disabilities Education Act Amendments of 1997"

  • reauthorization articulated a new challenge to improve results for children with disabilities and their families. This included an emphasis on access to the general curriculum.

  • the expansion of when an interim alternative educational placement can be used.

  • These amendments are the most comprehensive and significant changes made to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) since its enactment in 1975.

PL 108-446

• "Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004"

  • increased the focus on accountability and improved outcomes by emphasizing reading, early intervention, and research-based instruction by requiring that special education teachers be highly qualified.

  • requires public schools to provide special education services to eligible students. IDEA covers 13 disability categories.

  • providing training for both regular education teachers and special education teachers to address the needs of students with disabilities

PL 107-110*

• "No Child Left Behind Act of 2001"

  • Every child can learn, we expect every child to learn, and we must hold ourselves accountable for every child's education.

  • The law held schools accountable for how kids learned and achieved. The law was controversial in part because it penalized schools that didn't show improvement.

  • required states to implement minimum performance benchmarks for students, schools and school districts based on standardized testing. School districts were required to meet performance goals as a prerequisite to receive federal funding.

  • Nearly one million more students have learned basic math skills since the law was passed.

  • Together, NCLB and IDEA provisions and requirements combine to provide both individualized instruction and school accountability for students with disabilities.

  • progress and performance of students with disabilities is now a shared responsibility of general and special education teachers.

PARC V Pennsylvania - 1972

• The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania was sued by the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Citizens (PARC), now The Arc of Pennsylvania, over a law that gave public schools the authority to deny a free education to children who had reached the age of 8, yet had not reached the mental age of 5.[1]

• The law had also been used by the state in multiple occasions to deny free public education to children who had a hard time integrating into classroom environments and schools. This was the first major legal case to provide equality to students with disabilities.

• What was the impact of Parc v Pennsylvania?

  The case quickly settled before the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pa., resulting in a consent decree in which the state agreed to provide a free public education for children with mental retardation.

Board of Education v Rowley - 1982

• the Court held that public schools are not required by law to provide sign language interpreters to deaf students who are otherwise receiving an equal and adequate education.

• he U.S. Supreme Court's first interpretation of what was then called the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (now the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, “IDEA”).

• nstruction and services are appropriately designed, considering the individual student’s needs and strengths, to give the student a reasonable opportunity to access the curriculum and make progress toward appropriate annual academic goals.

Daniel R.R. v State Board of Education - 1989

• a case that was brought on due to a school denying a student with disabilities placement in a classroom with nondisabled peers.

• Daniel R.R. was influential in the movement to favor mainstreaming students with disabilities rather than excluding them.

• The Court found that schools must place the student in a learning environment where they interact with their nondisabled peers to the maximum extent possible.

Oberti v Board of Education - 1993

• The Oberti family sought to overturn the school districts original decision to keep Rafael in a segregated special education classroom. The school district believed that a combination of behavioral problems and Rafael's disability barred him from gaining from participating in a regular educational setting.

• This case determined that if a student can succeed in the general education classroom with needed extra support, that is where they should be placed.

• This case is important and continues to be referenced because the Court concluded that schools were required to make satisfactory efforts to mainstream disabled students or be able to explain why not

Cedar Rapids v Garret F - 1999

• At issue is whether the IDEA requires the Cedar Rapids Community School District to provide Garret F. with continuous nursing services while he is in school.

• In a 7-to-2 decision, the Court held that if the services in question are "related" to keeping the child with disabilities in school and able to access educational opportunities available to others IDEA funded school districts must provide such services.

• In Cedar Rapids v. Garret F, the Supreme Court issued a favorable decision on behalf of child who needed medical services to attend school.