public school must accept out of district special needs children

[LittleDudesMom]

If you remember, I posed the question regarding my difficult child applying for a tuition spot in the neighboring county for middle school. Their Special Education program is great.

My issue was whether he could be refused acceptance because of his IEP.

Today I received my daily ldonline newsletter and found this article. I was especially interested in the point made that federal law dictates that public schools must accept a child with a disability irregardless as to where the parents reside. Interesting - thought Martie and Sheila would be interested in this and could point me in the direction of finding that federal law.

http://www.choteauacantha.com/articles/2006/10/18/news/news2.txt

Sharon

 

[Martie]

Sharon,

Thank you for the link--I probably won't get to this until the weekend

Martie

 

[Sheila]

IDEA/IEP and Section 504 are both Federal laws.

School districts may not discriminate, e.g., accept regular students, but not IEP students. It's not so much an IEP issue as it is a 504 issue (disability) in my opinion.

The key here is, "McKinnon said the district could charge tuition to defray the cost of providing services to an out-of-district student, but only if all students are charged tuition. The district may not charge tuition randomly." Emphasis added

As evidenced by the thousands of posts seen on this board over the years, however, all school districts do not always follow the letter of the law.