Legal Issues: IDEA and School Business Officials. Part 1: Funding and Eligibility

Given the significance of the IDEA’s meeting the needs of children with disabilities and the costs associated with doing so, especially in light of recently announced federal budget cuts impacting the delivery of special education, the IDEA should be a topic of keen interest to school business officials (SBOs) and their teams.  

As such, this column, the first of four on the IDEA reviews, its funding, and the identification of qualified children. The second installation examines student placements and discipline, while the third considers due process procedures and remedies when disputes arise. The fourth, and final, column offers recommendations for SBOs and their teams on implementing the IDEA’s mandates.

The IDEA: An Overview 

Initially enacted in 1975 as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act, Congress  

renamed it the IDEA in 1990. Congress revised the IDEA in 1986, 1990, 1997, and 2004. Having gone the longest in its history without any updating, the IDEA is long overdue for  

Congressional reauthorization.  

In light of its extensive provisions, the remainder of this column reviews funding before turning to eligibility and the identification and assessment of students eligible to receive special education services. 

IDEA Funding 

As a condition of receiving federal funds, the IDEA and its regulations direct states, through local educational agencies or school boards, to identify, assess, and serve all children with disabilities in their districts, regardless of the severity of their needs. The IDEA provides federal financial assistance to states, which they pass on to local school boards to help pay for the delivery of special education services.  

Aware of the need to help state and local school officials pay for serving students with disabilities, the IDEA set the initial goal of funding 40% of the excess cost of the national average of per-pupil spending for special education services, a commitment it has never kept. While the IDEA has increased the authorized levels for funding the excess costs of special education, because the amounts provided are inadequate, board officials have unsuccessfully challenged the statute as an unfunded federal mandate. 

Eligibility for IDEA Services 

To qualify for IDEA services, students must meet four requirements.  

1. Recipients must be between the ages of 3 and 21; courts treat students as being 21 until the end of the academic year in which they turn 21.  

2. The term “child with a disability” means a child with “intellectual disabilities, hearing impairments (including deafness), speech or language impairments, visual impairments (including blindness), serious emotional disturbance, … orthopedic impairments, autism, traumatic brain injury, other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities....”  

3. Students must receive special education consisting of a “free appropriate public education,” commonly referred to as FAPE, in the “least restrictive environment” or LRE, directed by the contents of their Individualized Education Programs (IEPs), discussed in more detail below.  

4. Students may need related services such as “transportation, and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services (including speech-language pathology and audiology services, interpreting services, psychological services, physical and occupational therapy, recreation, including therapeutic recreation, social work services, school nurse services.” Moreover, under the IDEA’s “zero-reject” approach, educators must serve all children with disabilities, regardless of the severity of their conditions and/or costs.  

Identification and Assessment 

The IDEA requires states to establish procedures to identify and evaluate all children with disabilities using strategies that are neither racially nor culturally biased. Educators must evaluate students whose native language or other modes of communication are not English, including sign language. 

Evaluation procedures must be multidisciplinary such that no single test serves as the basis for determining whether students receive IDEA services. Educators must reevaluate the IEPs of all children at least every three years, but may do so sooner if they deem it necessary or if parents make such requests.  

The IDEA directs school officials to complete all evaluations of students suspected of having disabilities within 60 days of receiving parental consent to do so. If state laws establish different timelines for completing evaluations sooner, they control.  

Parents can obtain independent evaluations of their children if they disagree with school board assessments or if officials fail either to evaluate students entirely or in a timely fashion. When parents obtain independent evaluations, whether at public expense or their own cost, school personnel must consider, but are not bound by, the results of these alternative assessments. 

When completed assessments identify children as needing special education, educators must convene IEP meetings within 30 calendar days. IEP teams must include parents, the advocates or representatives of their choice, and various educators knowledgeable about the needs of students with disabilities, such as the child’s teacher, counselors, and the board’s director of special education services.  

IEPs, essentially contracts between parents and school boards, must describe students’ current levels of academic performance, annual goals and short-term objectives, the related services they need, the extent to which they can participate in general education, the date services are to begin, and how long they will be provided, plus criteria to evaluate whether children are achieving their goals.  

IEPs must also identify how students’ disabilities affect their ability to be involved in and progress in inclusive settings, and any necessary modifications needed to allow them to participate in general curricula. Once developed, educators must implement IEPs “[a]s soon as possible.”  

Next: The next column reviews placement and disciplinary practices for students with disabilities.