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MEMORANDUM
TO: Day School & Community Leaders
FROM: Nathan J. Diament, Director, O.U. Inst. for Public Affairs
DATE: December 3 2004
RE: Enactment of New Federal Special Education Law
Today, President George W. Bush signed into law the
reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act
(“IDEA”) which contains language that should improve the
opportunities for students with disabilities attending day schools
and yeshivot to benefit from federally funding of special
education services. (The sections pertaining to children with
disabilities placed by their parents in private schools begins at
Section 612(a)(10), pages 46-55 of the Adobe PDF file accessible
here
IDEA reauthorization, which has taken three
years to accomplish, contains numerous procedural safeguards in
order that students with disabilities enrolled in non-public
schools will receive their fair share of federally funded services
to address their disabilities. The OU/IPA worked over these years
in a leading role with a coalition of organizations and a
bipartisan group of Congressmen and Senators to secure these
improvements for the benefit of our communities’ children.
Improvements in the New IDEA Include:
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Placing the responsibility for identifying
private school children with disabilities and providing
proportional federal services on the public school district where
the private school is located rather than where the student lives.
This change should allow both public and private school personnel
to more efficiently identify and serve students in private
schools.
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Requiring that local authorities administering
IDEA funds must utilize, at least, a proportionate share of the
federal IDEA funds they receive to provide services to students
with disabilities in private schools, and that funds spent for
“Child Find” do not count against that proportionate share.
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Specifying that public school districts must
consult with representatives of private schools and parents about
how Child Find will identify students with disabilities in private
schools and how private school children with disabilities will be
served. The consultation language is similar to that found in No
Child Left Behind.
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Requiring public school officials put in
writing the reason for denying direct services to private school
students if private school representatives request such services
rather than indirect services to teachers.
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Requiring that public schools put in writing
the reason for denying services through a third party provider if
private school representatives request it.
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Initiating a sign-off procedure whereby school
districts must obtain in writing from private school
representatives an assurance that meaningful consultation has
occurred.
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Instituting a requirement that public school
districts keep accurate records of the number of private school
students requesting evaluations, receiving evaluations, and given
services.
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Including a complaint procedure for private
school representatives and parents to use and a bypass authority
for the U.S. Secretary of Education to grant requests denied by
local officials.
It will take six to twelve months for the U.S.
Department of Education to develop and issue implementing
regulations for this new statute, and we will be working closely
with Department officials in that task. Nevertheless, in the
interim, it is worthwhile for school officials in our community to
begin reviewing the new legal landscape and entering in to
conversations among our schools, with similarly situated nonpublic
schools in your community (I would especially recommend the
Catholic schools who have great expertise in this arena and with
whose national representatives we worked closely in Washington on
this legislative process) and with local government officials.
As we have greater opportunity to study the new IDEA language and
as the regulatory process moves forward, the OU/IPA will put out
additional guidance on how Jewish schools and families can benefit
from this reauthorized law. Please watch our website –
www.ou.org/public for
additional postings of information.
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