Week_6_Judicial_Review

=Week 6 Legal Summary=

Please refer to the Home page to see which section of the summary you are assigned to fill out.

Citation:
Board of Educ. v. Rowley, 458 U.S. 176 (1982)

Date:
//Argued// March 23, 1982. //Decided// June 28, 1982 ===Facts:The District Court found that Amy "is a remarkably well adjusted child" who interacts and communicates well with her classmates and has "developed an extraordinary rapport" with her teachers. It also found that "she performs better than the average child in her class and is advancing easily from grade to grade, but "that she understands considerably less of what goes on in class than she would if she were not deaf" and thus "is not learning as much, or performing as well academically, as she would without her handicap,". This disparity between Amy's achievement and her potential led the court to decide that she was not receiving a "free appropriate public education" which the court defined as "an opportunity to achieve [her] full potential commensurate with the opportunity provided to other children." According to the District Court, such a standard "requires that the potential of the handicapped child be measured and compared to his or her performance, and that the remaining differential or 'shortfall' be compared to the shortfall experienced by nonhandicapped children.' The District Court's definition arose from its assumption that the responsibility for "giving content to the requirement of an 'appropriate education'" had 'been left entirely to the federal courts and the hearing officers. ===

Holding:
The Supreme Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeals in that the Supreme Court found that although the Education of the Handicapped Act (EHA) defines a "free appropriate public education", it is unclear as to what is meant by "appropriate". As long as the service provided to the child are in accordance with the child's IEP and are providing the child with sufficient supportive services that permit the child to benefit from instruction, and the other items on the definitional checklist are satisfied, the child is considered to be receiving a "free appropriate public education". The EHA does NOT indicate to what **level** of education is be accorded to handicapped children. The child was achieving well and in many cases better than her peers. The Court found that the school was providing a "free appropriate public education".

Any student could do better with individualized attention or extra support. How do we justify giving this student extra support when she is doing better than most of the other students? A student with a disability only requires assistance if it is preventing them from learning. If she is doing well, then she has adapted to her disability.  This student was given the best support possible to the point where she was doing quite well. The question is was she given the "appropriate support for her disablity? Is she recieving the "appropriate education" in her school setting? The Education of the Handicapped Act does not indicate to what level of education is to be accorded to handicapped children. Since Amy was doing so well, the court felt additional support was not needed.
 * Rationale**: Consider why the court reached the decision that it did. What arguments justify the holding?

Additional Questions/Comments:
Why didn't the parent request that the sign-language interpreter be added to the IEP in the Spring of the Kindergarten year or the Fall of the 1st grade year? Have they ever tried an interpretor with her? It may be more of a hinderance than help. Actually they did try a sign language interpreter for 2 weeks in Kindergarten. The interpreter felt s/he was not needed. Amy was not really using sign language interpretation to "take in" the material.