A "Free and Appropriate Public Education"

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the federal law that governs how the individual states and public agencies provide early intervention, special education and related services to children with disabilities as defined by 42 U.S.C. § 12101 et seq., known as the Americans with Disabilities Act or ADA. As “spending clause” legislation, the IDEA only applies to those States and their local educational agencies that accept federal funding under the IDEA. As of this writing all 50 states have accepted IDEA funding.

In enacting and implementing the IDEA Congress intended for each child with a disability: to be provided a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that prepares them for further education, employment and independent living

Children with disabilities who are found to qualify for special education are also automatically protected by Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).

IDEA defines a "child with a disability" as a child with mental retardation, a hearing impairments (including deafness), one or more speech or language impairments, a visual impairments (including blindness), one or more serious emotional disturbance(s), One or more orthopedic impairments, autistic spectrum disorders , traumatic brain injury(ies), other health impairments, or specific learning disabilities; AND, who because of their condition(s) need special education and related services. Altogether there are 13 specific categories of disability that entitle a child to the provision of services under the IDEA. Children with one or more disabilities under idea are covered by the act from birth until age 21.

Children with disabilities who do not qualify for special education services under the IDEA may qualify for accommodations or modifications under Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and under the ADA

The ADA additionally defines a disability as “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits a major life activity." The life activity may include acquiring and keeping employment, walking, talking, bathing, or getting an education among other activities most if not all of us participate in.

The Idea requires that public schools create an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each student who is found to be eligible for special education under the both the federal and state eligibility and/or disability standards.

An IEP must be designed to meet the unique educational needs of the individual child in the Least Restrictive Environment that is appropriate for the needs of the individual child. This may be read as the environment most like that of the average non disabled student in the particular school district or school. When ever possible the child should be in a regular class room with non-disabled children but with a support structure in place to meet the child’s individual needs. This may be a hearing aid, a sign language interpreter, Braille or “talking: textbooks, , a TSS (Therapeutic Support Specialist ) or other service or modification.



The IEP must specify which services are to be provided and how often they are to be provided, must describes the student's present level of performance and how the student's disabilities affect his or her academic performance, and must specifies what accommodations and modifications are to be provided for the student.

In theory the IEP is team written. The IEP team must include at least one of the child’s regular education teachers, a special education teacher, someone who is qualified to interpret the educational implications of the child’s evaluation(s), such as a school psychologist, and an administrator who is familiar with the services that are aviable in the in the school district and who has the authority to commit those services on behalf of the child, as well as the child’s parents,.

Again in theory Parents are considered to be equal members of the IEP team in addition to having fundamental rights as the parent or parents of the child. Parents who feel that their childs needs are not being met are free to write and submit their own IEP. Additionally IEP’s may be appealed, as may a denial or services requested as a part of an IEP.

Under the IDEA, any discipline imposed on a child with a disability must take that disability and it’s nature and associated behavioral components or hallmarks into account.

For example, if a child with Aspergers syndrome, an autistic spectrum disorder, is sensitive to loud noises and or bright lights , and if the child runs out of a room filled with loud noises, or has a behavioral “meltdown because of the noises any discipline of that child for running out of the room must take into account the sensitivity and whether appropriate accommodations were in place….

A child with Tourrette’s Syndrome a neurological disorder characterized by repetitive, stereotyped, involuntary movements and vocalizations called tics. These vocal tics may or may not include outbursts of profanity could not be disciplined for causing a disruption unless the nature and symptoms of Tourette’s was considered


A word of warning is in order here.......


If you have arrived at this posting because you are the parents of a child with a disability or even if you have arrived here because you are a kind and compassionate individual who cares about children at this point you may be thinking “Sounds Great” if so remember the disclaimer above “in theory” and read the letter below from one father about his son’s experiences with two Pennsylvania school districts and the services provided …..The letter has not been edited nd the pinions expressed belong to the writer although many of you may find that you share them.


The following is a letter from Steve Chilcote of Tyrone Pennsylvania to
Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, Gerald Zahorchak. The letter has not been edited.


Stephen A. Chilcote
409 Hancock St.
Tyrone, PA 16686

Gerald Zahorchak
Secretary of Education
333 Market Street
Harrisburg, PA 17126

January 29, 2010
Dear Mr. Zahrorchak:

I am writing to inform you of the abusive and horrible treatment that my son and myself have received in the hands of your public education system. It is my sincere hope that you take the time to read my story and to offer some real help to me and my family.
My son was born in 1996. His extremely smart and advanced mentally, has a great sense of humor and is well liked by everyone who gets to know him. We started out in Penns Valley School District. We tried to get him into gifted learning due to his high I.Q. and his preference to be “self-taught.” The school district did not want to spend the extra time on him and began a campaign to get rid of him. He has behavior problems due to a neurological disorder that I am sure you know of called Asperger’s Syndrome. In my research to try and figure out what was causing his quirky habits, I learned that this was his disorder and how to deal with it – I am still learning. However, the school personnel, except for a few caring individuals, did not want to be bothered dealing with his special needs, although they were not great or really all that difficult to deal with. His response to stress or to too much noise or confusion often manifested into motion, usually spinning, and sometimes when pressured, he would drop to the ground and become catatonic. I tried to describe the triggers for these behaviors and how to avoid them, but nobody was interested. He was often placed in “choke holds” or what they would call physical restraint in order to “protect” him or to get him to fall in line and comply (although he is unable to do so due to his disorder.) I remember one teacher that told me after she had retired that she would have to literally excuse herself from class and go into the restroom and cry over what they saw them do to my son. One special education teacher quit her job over it. When Stevie defended himself while being placed in a restraint hold, they used it as an excuse to send him out of the school to a special program for out of control kids. There, he was seen by a quack psychiatrist who spent ten minutes with him and diagnosed him with schizophrenia and told me he would have to be heavily medicated and would never be able to function in society. I refused to put him on adult psychotropic meds and they used that excuse to kick him out of the program. At his IEP meetings I pointed out what folks needed to do in order to deal with his infrequent meltdowns, how to avoid meltdowns, how he needed to learn which was basically all day in gifted learning environment. If they would have just done that one thing, they never would have had the behavior issues.
I had to send him to a charter school in another county which was rough on him as he had to get on a bus and 6:20 and ride an hour and a half each way. They did not have the personnel or training to teach Stevie properly either, mostly because they were constrained by state mandated curriculum. So he did alright there but not even close to his potential. However, they never had any need to restrain him or force him to do anything.
I moved to Blair County in 2008 and started him in the Tyrone Area School District. It took me a while to finally get a meeting with the special ed. coordinator there, but I was thrilled to hear folks there say that I was in the right place and they would offer Stevie a lot of help with his needs. But, again they fell short on his IEP. They would start out following the plan, but when someone had other things to do, Stevie was left to languish there and his special programs were scrapped or not fully followed through with. Often, when I thought he was getting exercise, gifted learning and mentoring as discussed in IEP meetings, I found out much later that none of this was happening and I was never told of any changes.
In October of last year I received a phone call at work from school personnel that they “discovered” I was not a resident and that I should take Stevie out of school and back to where I came from. I assured this person that I was a resident of Tyrone and owned a house there. I purchased this house from a bank and began to rehab the place that summer, so it looked like a construction site much of time. They sent school police and others over to peer into my windows and the principal got me on a conference call and told me that if I did not take my son out of their school they would call Children and Youth Services. As you can imagine, that made me a little angry so I let them know that my son would be in school the next day.
This school year, the administration called me and said that my son absolutely had to go to a mental health facility since he was suicidal and they considered it an emergency situation. Keep in mind that Stevie, being quirky, has told people he is a robot from the future, from other planets, not human and all sorts of wild stories, all of which are Asperger’s symptoms and should be taken with a grain of salt. So, to be compliant with the wishes of the authorities, I took him to this hospital. Little did I know this was a lock-down facility full of extremely mentally ill children and that I was not allowed to see him or take him outside. Stevie spiraled into a real depression with this experience and he was put on an anti-depressant that is not FDA approved for children and in fact increases the risk of suicide.
One day when he was giving me a particularly hard time about going to school he went outside and drank some antifreeze to make himself sick. I kept him home since he was vomiting but did not know that he was poisoned until the next morning when he told me what he had done. He was flown to Pittsburg Childrens Hospital where he endured kidney failure and I almost lost him. Fortunately he received the finest care and came out of the hospital healthy with a full recovery. While I was in the hospital with my son, the school filed a false police report telling them and CYS that Stevie tried to kill himself because I did not feed him and made him sleep outdoors. I was arrested. Stevie was placed in another mental institution where he was placed on another drug that did not help him but made him gain weight so quickly that he has stretch marks all over his body. The police and CYS dropped their case against me but it has been resurrected because they claim I did not “cooperate” with them. On the contrary, I have been taking him to counseling, drugging him against my will and was even willing to go along with their program of placing him in a residential treatment facility. The RTF folks did not think that he was nearly bad enough to be placed there so they refused him. CYS feels they need to get him away from me so they can place him somewhere outside the home. I just learned today that my 15 year old daughter was taken out of class and interrogated and photographed by CYS.
So, instead of giving my child his “Free and Appropriate Education” that is prescribed by law, he, myself, and my wife and her daughter have been abused and harassed by the education system. The Tyrone school district is using CYS to bludgeon me into submission and get rid of me. They filed a false police report, a serious criminal act, and disrupted my life tremendously. I am a small contractor and my name was spread all over central Pennsylvania on radio and newspaper labeling me as a child abuser. They have frightened my stepdaughter twice with their Gestapo tactics. Why? I have never given them any grief. I told them I would free up time to come in to school and have a science club for Stevie and other interested kids, come in whenever they needed me for behavior issues, work with the teachers any way they wanted to figure out a good system for Stevie. The teachers have been great and the guidance has also, but the drones in the administration have sought to undermine my parental rights, my bond with my child, and have completely failed to educate him.

This is the state of your public education system. I would greatly appreciate your thoughtful, substantial and useful commentary and advice that you could give me on how to proceed. I am considering cyber charter school with a tutor. I would probably have to sue the school to get a tutor. I hope I do not have to get into that. I would like to live in peace, work at my business and raise my kids. Right now I feel I went to sleep a year ago and woke up in North Korea. I can’t believe that in America, the government can get away with this.

Thank you for your kind consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,

Stephen A. Chilcote