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Calvin and
Tricia Luker, Our Children Left Behind, May 21, 2007
Today the United States Supreme Court struck a blow for parent
rights under IDEA by holding that Jeff and Sandee Winkleman have
the right as parents to use the federal courts to enforce
special education rights without having to hire a lawyer. The
Supreme Court said that the clear statutory scheme behind IDEA
intended that parents be free to proceed to federal court on
their own when they feel their child’s right to a free
appropriate public education is being violated. Justice Kennedy
wrote the opinion supporting the Winkleman's rights and was
joined in agreement by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices
Stevens, Breyer, Souter, Ginsberg, and Alito.
Justices Scalia and Thomas agreed that the Winkleman’s should be
able to go to federal court on their own to seek reimbursement
for private school costs but did not agree that parents should
be able to go to court on their own in all instances.
Parents now need not fear that school districts will impose
another layer of legal obstacles in front of them when they go
to federal court acting as their own lawyers to appeal cases for
their children. Had the school district won, parents and
children throughout America would have lost yet another
opportunity to challenge a school district’s decision which they
believe denied their children a free appropriate public
education.
You may view the opinion at:
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/05-983.ZO.html
Our Children Left Behind [OCLB] was created and is
owned/operated by parent volunteers (Sandy Alperstein, Tricia &
Calvin Luker, Shari Krishnan, and Debi Lewis). Permission to
forward, copy, and/or post this article is granted provided that
it is attributed to the author(s) and
www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com. For more about OCLB or to
share information, please contact
parentvolunteer@ourchildrenleftbehind.
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