KNOWLEDGE MAP
Knowing and Acting on Your Rights
IDEA and its Organization
IDEA stands for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. IDEA is the federal law that governs the provision of early intervention, preschool, and school-aged services. If you child is an infant/toddler (birth to three), Part C of IDEA entitles you and your child to early intervention services. If your child is a preschooler (three to six) or school-aged (six through 21), Part B gives your child a right to a free appropriate public education.
Purposes of Part C
- enhance children’s development
- minimize their potential for developmental delays
- minimize their need for special education
- maximize their ability to live independently
- enhance families’ capacities to meet their children’s needs
- enhance state and local capacities to meet these goals (20 U.S.C. Sec. 1431)
Parent's role: Be partners with educators
- be involved with professionals in carrying out these purposes (U.S.C Sec. 1436)
- be active in the entire process related to their child's education, the "cooperative process" being the "core" of IDEA
Board of Ed. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 (1982), and Schaffer v. Weast, 126 S. Ct. 528, (2005)
Organize around IDEA's six principles
You can organize your and your child’s rights and your questions about them according to IDEA’s six principles, as we describe them below:
- Zero Reject –Under Part B, ages 6-21, no child may be excluded from school if the child qualifies to receive IDEA benefits; under Part C, birth to three, a child has no such right but instead but instead must meet certain eligibility requirements that are set by states.
- How do I learn whether my daughter has a right to early intervention?
- What do I do if my son’s pediatrician tells me that there is an agency that does “child find” but the agency has not contacted me?
- If the early intervention program in my community does not accept my son, what steps I should I take to enroll him?
- If a center-based program accepts my child and later terminates my daughter’s enrollment, what steps should I take to learn why it terminated her enrollment and how I can challenge the decision?
- What do I do if a program says it does not have the capacity to serve her because of the extent of her disability?
- Nondiscriminitory Evaluation – Once an early intervention program accepts my child for services, the program has to be fair in evaluating my child for services; the program must determine what my child needs by using techniques that do not discriminate in any way.
- How do I know if I have a choice in the evaluations and follow-up decisions being made about my child’s education?
- How do I justify a re-evaluation if I think my son has changed significantly and it is not yet time for the annual re-evaluation?
- How do I persuade the agency to use a process yields the best returns for my family and my son?
- What recourse do I have if I believe the agency’s evaluation is not sufficiently multi-disciplinary or contains inaccurate information about my son and my family?
- Appropriate Education – Once a program accepts my child, the program has to benefit my child. That means it must provide services that carry out the purposes Congress declared.
- What should I do if the services offered do not reflect the services my daughter needs, as identified by her evaluations?
- What’s the role of the service coordinator and how do I find out if that person is qualified and doing the job properly?
- What should I do if my child needs some services and the Part C program has not yet completed all of the evaluations but has enough information to start offering some benefits to my child?
- How should I approach the agency if I believe my daughter is not making progress toward the outcomes identified in her IFSP?
- My daughter is turning 3. What steps do I need to take to learn my rights and make the best decisions in her transition planning meeting?
- Least Restrictive Environment – IDEA favors educating my child in the same places and programs where children without disabilities receive their education to the maximum extent appropriate. When my child is an infant or toddler, that means the “natural environment” (usually home) and, if not there, in an inclusive program. For preschoolers it means being in an inclusive program with same-aged peers if my child’s special needs can be met with the use of supplementary aids and services.
- How can I maximize my son’s participation in the community activities that other children of his age, who do not have disabilities, enjoy and benefit from?
- How should I respond if the agency’s staff tell me that I should keep my daughter home and I want her to attend a center-based program that includes infants and toddlers, some of whom do and others of whom do not have disabilities?
- What steps should I take if agency staff they tell me my son should attend an “integrated” center-based program but I want him to go to a specialized center that brings to bear a larger range of professional services and where I can develop relationships with other parents who have children with disabilities?
- How should I respond if the agency’s staff tell me that I should keep my daughter home and I want her to attend a center-based program that includes infants and toddlers, some of whom do and others of whom do not have disabilities?
- How can I maximize my son’s participation in the community activities that other children of his age, who do not have disabilities, enjoy and benefit from?
- Procedural Due Process – If I disagree with the program my child is eligible to enter or has entered, I should have a way to resolve my disagreement with the program. I can do that by mediation, other means outside a legal process, or within the legal process (administrative hearings and courts).
- Having just read a five-page statement of my “rights” in early intervention, I found that it really does not communicate to me anything useful about rights so I am wondering: What should I do? What resources exist? Where can I find them? Whom do I turn to?
- How should I proceed if I disagree with an agency, for example the one that tells me it provides five different services but I want my daughter to have only three of them or I want my daughter to get a service that agency doesn’t provide (the “sixth” service)?
- What’s my best course of action if I have accumulated a lot of research articles and have talked with other parents about how they got what they wanted from an agency that tries to dismiss me or thinks I am telling them how to do their job?
- What’s the difference between mediation and a “due process hearing”? Do I incur any expenses in each of these?
- How do I learn the benefits and down-sides of taking the agency into an impartial due process hearing, especially if I think agency staff might “retaliate” against me by doing even less for my daughter?
- Parent Participation – I am responsible for my child. That’s basic law. I am responsible for educating my child. That’s part of the basic law. IDEA gives me the right to be a member of the team of people who make decisions about my child’s education. That is how IDEA makes it possible for me to carry out my responsibilities to raise and educate my child.
- What’s my best strategy to stop the “draft” of the IFSP from being created before I meet with my child’s professional team and then being treated as the “final” at the IFSP meeting?
- What’s my best strategy for telling the agency that I want to bring other members of my family to the IFSP meeting, especially when the agency makes it clear that it expects to deal with only me?
- How do I tactfully let the agency know I want copies of all of the records it maintains about me, my daughter, and our family, especially if the agency has been reluctant to share copies of its staff notes and internal reports about me and my child?
- How shall I proceed if I learn that agency staff is giving information about me and my son to other agencies without my consent?
[Transition Knowlege Bank Experienced-based knowledge Research Policy]