Special Education Advocacy

Special Education Advocacy
Under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)
For Children in the Juvenile Delinquency System
copyright 1998

Edited by Joseph B. Tulman and Joyce A. McGee"
Produced by the University of the District of Columbia School of Law Juvenile Law Clinic
Sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative All rights reserved.

The intended audience for this manual is defense attorneys who represent children in delinquency matters and in status offenses; the intended audience includes also disability rights attorneys and other public interest attorneys with an interest in representing children who are enmeshed in the delinquency system.

Children strive to be productive and to be accepted. Children who are marginalized and considered to be delinquent are, in large proportions, also children with education-related disabilities. Typically, children in the delinquency system "failed" in the education system before entering the delinquency system.

Adults responsible for delinquency systems and educational systems across the country have an opportunity to help make those marginalized, delinquent children productive and accepted.

The advocacy described in this manual revolves around the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), a federal law incorporated into state law in all fifty states and in the District of Columbia. (Other laws are relevant to the enforcement of educational rights for children with disabilities, notably -- in the federal law -- section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act. With only a few exceptions, however, the authors'. have not addressed or presented those laws in this manual.) The IDEA protects children with education-related disabilities, affording them a right to a free, appropriate public education. This central right under the IDEA provides a path to productivity and to acceptance.

Advocates who read and use this manual can be catalysts or change agents who help move children from delinquency systems back into educational systems that, in turn, can lead those children to jobs and, when appropriate, to higher education. This manual is a "how-to" presentation for that effort. Moreover, the IDEA furnishes a financial incentive for advocates to use special education law on behalf of children in the delinquency system: the IDEA provides for attorneys' fees market rate for those who prevail in asserting special education rights.

Having prepared this manual under the auspices of the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Juvenile Detention Alternatives Initiative (JDAI), the authors focused particularly on case precedent from the Second, Seventh, and Ninth Circuits -- circuits with JDAI sites. Lawyers who use this manual should search, whenever appropriate, for additional binding and persuasive authority.

Faculty and law students in the Juvenile Law Clinic of the D.C. School of Law have been using special education advocacy under the IDEA for the majority of the clinic's delinquency clients since 1990. This manual reflects the experience of those clinicians. The authors present case examples, strategies, and theories with the expectation that they will be useful to advocates throughout the country. At the same time, the authors acknowledge emphasizing some laws and practices peculiar to the District of Columbia, and they trust that this bias will not deter or distract the reader.

Copies are available for $15.00 each (includes Postage & Handling). Send payment (check or money order payable to D.C. S.L. Foundation) to Professor Joseph B. Tulman, University of the District of Columbia School of Law, 4200 Connecticut Ave., N.W., Building 38, Room 207, Washington, D.C. 20008.

Also available from the above address for $5.00 each: Symposium: The Unnecessary Detention of Children in the District of Columbia, produced by the District of Columbia Law Review, (with articles applicable to delinquency detention in any U.S. jurisdiction).

Special Education Advocacy

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