Special Education Case Study

Over the course of several years there have been several critical court cases that have completely transformed the way that special education policies and procedures are implemented into the classroom. These court cases have given rights, protection, and opportunities to those with disabilities that were not readily available before. The most important court cases that affected special education were Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas; Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania; Armstrong v. Kline; Board of Education of the Hendrick Hudson Central School District v. Rowley; Daniel R.R. v. State Board of Education; Diana v. State Board of Education; Lau v. Nichols; Oberti v. Board of Education of

While this case only went as far as district courts it was the foundation of other cases that would push for longer school years for students with disabilities so they would not lose the skills they learned during the school year over the long summer. The outcome of this case was that Individual Education Plans (IEP) were created benefit the student and decide, by parents and teachers, whether the specific child needed an extended school year. This allowed students with disabilities to make better grades because there are able to retain more knowledge because of the shorter break between school

v. State Board of Education the main issues presented were main streaming, class placement, and least restrictive environment (LRE). Daniel, age 6, was born with Downs Syndrome. Early on he was in only a special education class, then put into a regular pre-kindergarten classroom, but eventually he was put back into the special education classroom full time because he could not keep up with the other students and required a great deal of accommodations. His parents were not happy with this decision; they wanted him to spend more time with children who did not have disabilities, so they appealed the school’s decision to not allow him to be mainstreamed into a non-handicap classroom. The case went to district court and the hearing officer upheld the decision that prevented Daniel to be put into a non-handicap classroom. From there the case went to circuit court where the outcome was the same as district court. The court ruled that all EHA and FAPE regulations had been followed, but Daniel’s parents believed that the school district violated the mainstreaming requirements set by FAPE. The EHA rules were very vague in accordance with mainstreaming, because of this the EHA was modified and became IDEA, Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. This act