Parentally-Placed Private School Students under IDEA
The upcoming reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), scheduled to occur during the second session of the 107th Congress beginning January, 2002, provides an important opportunity to parents, educators, and administrators to effect changes in how the law currently serves students with special needs.
For the private and Catholic school community, this opportunity is critical. Because of clarifications made to the law during the last reauthorization of IDEA in 1997, services to "parentally-placed" private school students have been substantially curtailed by local school districts throughout the country, and in many cases, eliminated entirely. At a time when many Catholic school communities are striving to find new and creative ways to accommodate students with special needs, these changes have caused great hardship to families and administrators. Their active and persistent involvement in the upcoming reauthorization of IDEA will be a vital necessity to securing the improved access to services that our special needs students deserve.
Background on 1997 Reauthorization
The main cause for the recent change in the provision of special education services to private school students lies in the overly strict interpretation which local school districts have applied to the 1997 IDEA law, and to regulations which were issued by the U.S. Department of Education subsequent to the 1997 reauthorization. Specifically, the regulations stipulate that "No private school child with a disability has an individual right to receive some or all of the special education and related services that the child would receive if enrolled in public schools." §300.454 (a)(1). However, many local school districts have interpreted this regulation to mean that private school students as a group have no right to services.
As a result, though the law still retains certain requirements regarding the provision of services to private school students, and also allows districts to voluntarily provide services to private school students, many local school districts discontinued services they had offered in the past. Instead, many local districts have recently notified parents and private school administrators that the only means through which their special needs students could access services was to enroll in their local public school. Other districts have chosen to provide only limited services to private school students, such as speech or language therapy.
It is important to note that the IDEA statute, prior to the 1997 reauthorization, did not in fact mandate that services should be provided to parentally-place private school students. However, because the law was not as specific about the obligation of local districts to serve private school students, prior to the 1997 reauthorization, many districts chose to provide a broad range of services to students attending both public and private schools rather than risk legal challenges from private school parents.
Current IDEA Requirements
It is also important to keep in mind the obligations that the current IDEA law retains with regard to private school students. Current law still requires that local school districts, through the Child Find process, locate, identify, and evaluate all private school students suspected of having a disability. This Child Find process must be conducted in consultation with private school representatives to ensure equitable access for private school students.
Each year, either on December 1 or the last Friday in October, all children identified through Child Find must be included in the count of students with disabilities used to determine the amount of federal dollars that will be generated for serving that population. The total number of private school students identified through the Child Find process serves as the basis by which local districts must calculate the proportionate amount of their federal IDEA funding which they are required to use to provide services to the private school population. This total is based on the number of private school students identified as having a disability, whether or not they actually receive services through the local school district. These funds may not be used to conduct private school student evaluations conducted as part of the Child Find process.
Because federal funds provide only a small percent of the total funds needed to serve all students with disabilities, the private school allocation of federal funds will not be sufficient to serve every student identified as having a disability. The determination for how the private school allocation of IDEA funds will be used to provide services to private school students must, therefore, be made by local school districts in consultation with representatives of private school children.
Full Funding of IDEA
This issue relating to the funding of IDEA affects the private and public school community alike. Although the federal law mandates that all students needing special education and related services must be provided with a free and appropriate public education, the federal government currently provides less than 15 percent of the approximate total per pupil cost of educating a student with special needs. State and local governments are required to provide the remaining costs for students attending public schools, while parentally placed private school students are eligible only to receive their proportionate amount of federal funds.
Because the law, when originally drafted in 1975, authorized the federal government to provide up to 40 percent of the total cost for special education, the the issue of increasing current funding levels for IDEA will be central during the reauthorization process. Any increase in IDEA funding will especially benefit the private school community, since an increase in federal funds would directly increase the proportionate amount of federal funding available to provide special education services to private school students.