Alliance 2005 Scholarship Program

On August 14th the U.S. Department of Education will release the final regulations for Part B of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, (IDEA) which was reauthorized in 2004.

IDEA gives federal funds to the states to help make special education services available for students with disabilities.   It also provides very specific requirements to ensure a free appropriate public education (FAPE) for students with disabilities.  FAPE is the protected right of every eligible child, in all 50 states and U.S. territories. Today, more than six million school-age children in the United States receive special education services.  Almost half—some 2.8 million, are students identified with a specific learning disability.

These regulations provide guidance to states as to how the law is to be interpreted and carried out in schools.

 The Department of Education has posted an unofficial copy on its Web site at http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/idea2004.html

Approximately 70 percent of the final regulations included the Preamble, which discusses the comments the Department received, the major changes, and why the Department chose to take certain actions in the regulations. The official copy of these regulations will be published in the Federal Register in about two weeks. The final regulations will become effective 60 days after publication in the Federal Register.

Because the IDEA regulations are 1,705 pages in length, The Department of Education will be engaging in a number of activities to educate special educators, parents, and others on what the regulations say.  These activities include the OSEP Leadership conference in August, briefings at national and state conferences, DVDs and CDs on the regulations, and regional implementation meetings in the fall and January and February.  The Department will also have a Web site dedicated to the regulations, as well as topical briefs on its Web site in the future.

Once the final regulations are published in the Federal Register, the Department will also publish and widely disseminate through its Web site a set of model forms for individualized education programs (IEPs), notices of procedural safeguards and prior written notices as required under IDEA.

The final regulations conclude a process that began in January 2005 with a series of public meetings to receive input on the development of these new rules.

IDA participated in the nationwide series of meetings the Department of Education held to allow the public to provide input on the drafting of the regulations and, later, to provide comments on the proposed regulations. A copy of IDA’s letter sent to Secretary Spelling on August 25, 2005, outlining IDA’s Final Recommendations to the Department of Education regarding IDEA Regulatory Language is available at http://www.interdys.org/npdf/hiqual-lett.pdf 

IDA is in the process of reviewing the final regulations and will provide official comment.  For a fact sheet on the new regulations, go tohttp://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/speced/ideafactsheet.html

For the full text of the Regulations and Technical Assistance Tools, go to http://www.ed.gov/policy/speced/guid/idea/idea2004.html