From the Wall Street Journal, Associated Press, National Public Radio, Bloomberg and elsewhere:

In a 6-3 ruling decision today, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of a family who argued that their child’s special education costs should be paid by their local school district even though he had not first received special ed services in public school.

The school district had argued that the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act requires parents of students with disabilities to give public special education a chance before seeking reimbursement for private school costs. Parents had argued that forcing kids to try public education first could cause them to lose valuable time in poor situations before getting needed help.

Writing for the majority in Forest Grove School District v. T.A., Justice John Paul Stevens said the IDEA requires a school district to pay for private special ed services even if the district doesn’t have appropriate services, and “regardless of whether the child previously received special-education services through the public school.”

During oral arguments, Justice Stevens suggested that school districts might have an incentive to deny needed services if they are only required to pay for private programs for students who previously received publicly funded services.

Earlier post here.

UPDATE: NY Times says decision could cost districts “millions of dollars.”

This entry was posted on Monday, June 22nd, 2009 at 11:14 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, families, law, special education. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.