Special Education Law Blog

Supreme Court Grants Review in Fry v. Napoleon

In what could be a very significant break though in the law, the Supreme Court agreed to review the 6th Circuit decision in Fry v. Napoleon. Fry was a case involving allowing a service dog in school and whether parents need to exhaust administrative remedies before going to court. Exhaustion means that parents need to pursue a case through the hearing process before bringing a case to court. Obviously having to litigate before an administrative tribunal that often has limited jurisdiction before being able to litigate issues in court creates a significant hurdle to  full adjudication. Here is the Justice Department's brief seeking review in the Supreme Court. Fry if decided for the parents may allow greater access to court for cases under ADA, 504 and IDEA. Stay tuned it is going to be interesting.

School Choice Not Protective of Students with Special Needs

The following is a press release from COPAA regarding a recent study of school choice regarding students with special needs. It confirms what I have suspected for some time that school choice is largely ineffective for students with special needs and requires serious changes to provide meaningful benefit to all students, including those with special needs. In my view, school choice is thrown around like a political slogan without full consideration of the systemic effects of school choice and the effect on individual students especially those with special needs.