Stipulation Of The IDEA In Public Schools

The third stipulation of the IDEA is that districts provide a free, appropriate education (FAPE) in public schools for all disabled students. The districts must pay for the cost of a student’s education and it must be based on a plan that is specialized for the student, based on their needs. The extent to which a district must go concerning this stipulation was challenged in the landmark case of Board of Education vs. Rowley. Amy Rowley a deaf Kindergarten student was receiving a hearing aid and personal tutor after school to help her with her academic success per the current IEP on file. In preparation for the next school year, the parents asked for a sign language interpreter to accompany her in all of her classes beginning the next school year. The interpreter was placed in Amy’s kindergarten class for a two-week experimental period, but the interpreter had reported that Amy did not need his services at that time. The school administrators likewise concluded that Amy did not need such an interpreter in her first-grade classroom (Rehnquist, 1982). The district denied the request and the parent sued. The first 2 courts sided with Amy because she was not performing as well as she would without her disability. However, the Supreme Court sided with the schools stating that the law does not say the student has to be totally …show more content…
The definition was broad compared to most peoples thinking, which consisted of a definition simply containing obvious physical and mental obvious disabilities. To the contrary, disabilities included more subtle disabilities like academic learning disabilities and other health impairments. I believe that this may have been one more effort to desegregate education. This inclusion opened the door to students of minority status with low academic abilities to be evaluated and assessed and thereby receive services for the discrepancies found in