Free Appropriate Public Education Case Study

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The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) ensures students with a disability area provided with Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) that accommodates their individual needs. This legislation was previously known as the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (EHA) from 1975 to 1990. In 1990, the United States Congress reauthorized EHA and changed it to the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA). This legislation is highlighted by six main components: Individual Education Program (IEP) Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE), Appropriate Evaluation, Parent and Teacher Participation, Procedural Safeguards and Least Restrictive Environment (LRE). However, Least Restrictive Environment in the PreK-12 public school setting has brought uncertainty whether a school meets the standards that qualify for a least restrictive environment. In this paper I will review IDEA’s Least Restricted Environment component and its interpretation and look at the cases Florence County School District Four v. Shannon Carter (1993), Hanson v. Smith (2002) and Board of Education of City of New York v. Tom F. (2007) that focused on parental challenges regarding …show more content…
Smith (2002) the parents of Jonathan Hanson, a student with multiple special needs, wanted their son to remain at the Summit School, a private school in Anne Arundel County that serviced his needs since 1997. In the spring of 2001, Anne Arundel Public Schools developed a new special education public program housed at its Severna Park Middle School known as the Learning Academy. The IEP team determined Jonathan’s needs could be met at the Learning Academy and decided this placement was the least restricted environment. The Hanson family disagreed with that placement and wanted him to remain at the Summit School and filed a cased stating that placing Jonathan in the public school setting breached the least restricted environment and free appropriate public education