Resources, advocacy guidance, and updates from our team on special education law, IEP rights, and the families doing this work.
A signed mediation or resolution agreement is a binding legal commitment, and federal law gives families more than one way to enforce it when a district lets its promises slide.
A single long suspension is not the only way discipline changes a placement. Short removals, including the informal ones no letter ever documents, add up under federal law, and parents who count them hold the record that matters.
IDEA does not stop a school from reporting a crime, and a report does not stop the IEP. Here is what the regulation permits, what FERPA limits, and what to ask for if it happens to your family.
A child without an IEP can still claim IDEA's discipline protections if the district had reason to know about a disability before the incident occurred. A dated written concern is what creates that protection.
In most special education disputes, your child stays put while the case is heard. Discipline appeals flip that default, and knowing which way it points changes how you use the process.
If you disagree with a manifestation determination or a disciplinary placement, federal law gives you an appeal that runs on a faster clock than any other due process case.
When a school removes a child with a disability to an interim alternative educational setting, an administrator does not choose the destination alone. The IEP team, with the parent at the table, makes that decision.
A suspension takes your child out of school, and federal law counts every day of it. At ten school days in a year, protections most families never hear about switch on.
In most states, the rights you have exercised on your child's behalf since preschool transfer to your child at the age of majority. Federal law requires the school to tell you both a year ahead, and that year is the whole opportunity.
Some children with disabilities have no parent available to sign consent, review an evaluation, or sit at the IEP table. Federal law requires the school system to appoint someone who can, and it sets rules about who that person may be.
A district proposes moving your child to a different program, you disagree, and the move is scheduled for Monday. Federal law holds your child's current placement in place while the dispute runs its course.
Families often decide a due process case is impossible because they cannot afford an attorney. Federal law lets a court order a district to pay a prevailing parent's reasonable attorneys' fees, and it sets limits that run in both directions.
A family that disagrees with a hearing decision can file in state or federal court, and the filing window is short. Knowing what the court does differently, and what the deadline is in your state, matters before the decision ever arrives.
Federal law puts a 45-day limit on reaching a hearing decision and requires the hearing to happen at a time and place reasonably convenient to you and your child. Both rules exist so a dispute about this school year gets decided during this school year.
A hearing decision arrives saying it is final. Federal law attaches an exception to that word, and which exception applies to your family depends on how your state built its hearing system.
Proving the district broke a rule is not the same as proving your child was harmed, and federal law tells the hearing officer to look for the harm. Knowing that changes what belongs in your folder.
A due process hearing sounds like a courtroom where the district holds every advantage. Federal law gives both parties specific rights at the hearing, and it reserves a few for parents alone.
Parents heading toward a due process hearing often assume the district picks the judge. Federal law sets specific requirements for who can hear your case and what impartial has to mean.
You filed a due process complaint and expected a hearing. What federal law schedules first is a meeting, and the first 30 days after your complaint follow rules worth knowing before you walk in.
Parents often assume a complaint needs legal language or a lawyer's signature before the state will accept it. Federal law says otherwise, and it requires your state to hand you a form that makes filing simpler.
Federal law lists exactly what a due process complaint must include, who receives it, and how fast anyone objecting to it has to move. Knowing the list keeps a filing from stalling before it starts.
A due process complaint is how a special education dispute moves from the meeting room to a hearing officer. Federal law says who can file one, what it can cover, and how long you have.
When you and the district disagree, federal law offers a middle path between giving in and going to a hearing. The state pays for it, a neutral mediator runs it, and a signed agreement is enforceable in court.
Federal law lets you elect to receive the most important special education notices by email if your district offers the option. One sentence in the regulations can turn a crumpled paper in a backpack into a dated, searchable record.
If you disagree with the school's evaluation of your child, federal law gives you the right to an independent educational evaluation, often at public expense, and requires the district to act without unnecessary delay.
The procedural safeguards notice explains every right federal special education law gives you, and the school must hand it to you at the exact moments you are most likely to need it.
Federal law gives parents the opportunity to examine every education record behind an identification, evaluation, or placement decision, and a seat in every meeting that decides those questions.
Every procedural safeguard in federal special education law applies in every district, because the state must guarantee it. This post opens a series walking through those safeguards one regulation at a time.
Most families believe the IEP meeting happens once a year on the school's calendar. Federal law sets that annual review as a minimum, and a parent can ask the team to reconvene whenever the Program stops matching the child.
We will have a table at the Sumner County Special Needs Collaborative expo on August 15. Bring your child's IEP and leave registered for a free audit, with the document already uploaded.
Progress reports arrive saying your child is making progress toward their goals. Federal law requires those reports to say something measurable, and most of them do not.
When a school refuses something you asked for, federal law requires them to explain the refusal in writing. Most families never learn this, and the document they are owed is the most useful one they will ever get.
The law requires every teacher responsible for your child's IEP to be told what they specifically owe your child. Here is how to check in the first week, including what changes when your child switches schools.
A plain-language map of the three main support systems schools use, when each applies, and how families can request the right one.
A practical checklist of documents, questions, and mindset to walk into the meeting prepared.
Why measurable goals matter and how to tell whether your child's IEP goals would survive a substitute teacher.
Why I founded EDquity at the Margins, and what families can expect from our work.