
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, November 10, 1993                   TAG: 9311100157
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Chicago Tribune
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Medium

PUBLIC SCHOOLS MUST FOOT BILL FOR LEARNING-IMPAIRED STUDENT

Parents who transfer their learning-disabled children from public to private school are entitled to tuition reimbursement even when they choose an institution that does not have state approval, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Tuesday.

The decision gave a broad reading to a federal law governing the education of disabled children that could prove expensive to public school districts nationwide.

That law, the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act, requires public schools to provide free, appropriate education to disabled students.

Typically, school officials devise a specialized program with input from the child's parents. If the public schools cannot provide services the child needs, officials will pay for a private school.

In 1985, the justices said courts can order the public schools to reimburse parents who unilaterally transfer their children to private school because of an inadequate public-school program.

In the case decided Tuesday, the question was whether the law also requires reimbursement when parents, over public-school officials' objection, opt for a private school that does not have state certification.

Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, writing for the court, said a school's lack of state approval does not automatically disqualify the parents from recouping their expenses.

The disabilities act "was intended to ensure that children with disabilities receive an education that is both appropriate and free," she wrote. "To read the provisions of [the law] to bar reimbursement in the circumstances of this case would defeat this statutory purpose."

The ruling means that School District No. 4 in Florence, S.C., will have to pay more than $35,000 to the parents of Shannon Carter, 23, now a student at Florence-Darlington Technical College.

Carter attended the Florence County public schools from seventh through ninth grades, when her parents discovered she had falsified her report card. Although tests in seventh grade revealed no learning disability, Carter was tested again in ninth grade and found to be functionally illiterate because she had dyslexia and an attention-deficit disorder.

Florence County school officials proposed a specialized program, but her parents were dissatisfied. Unable to get her more help in the public schools, they enrolled her in a private school for learning-disabled children in Mount Pleasant, S.C.

by CNB