The following is an announcement from my collegue Sandy Alperstein:
                                 
As background, the JCAR (Joint Committee on Administrative Rules)
will meet on January 9, 2007 to review ISBE’s proposed special ed rules (Part 226).  If they choose, they can require ISBE to make changes, or they can approve these proposed rules.  Problems with these proposals include the format (confusing to parents), the elimination of caseload and class size limits, and the mandate for RTI without support, guidance or resources for general educators to apply RTI correctly (and incorrect application could result in children not receiving needed services). click here for the email for JCAR.

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Even within a community of people who are dedicated to the welfare of children with disabilities there is not always perfect consensus of opinion. The following is an letter to the editor of the Chicago Tribune from the Illinois ARC:

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Illinois has published its final regulations implementing IDEA 2004. The regulations are a mixed bag to say the least. Eliminating pages through cross referencing to the Federal regulations in the name of making regulations shorter but at the same time less understandable to the average lay person.  The most controversial aspect of the new regulations is that they remove clear restrictions on the size of caseloads that service providers can maintain. Many disability organizations have raised serious concerns (see related posting seeking public action.) The local news coverage discusses the potentially negative effect of these proposed regulations.

I have reviewed the websites for a number of Departments of Education and most states have not taken up the issue of new state regulations to implement IDEA 2004, with Texas  and Tennessee, being notable exceptions.

Virginia appears to be gearing up for promulgating new regulations under IDEA 2004.  Now is the time to advocate in Virginia and other states for a set of regulations that do not diminish, confuse, or dilute protections for special education students. New York has also proposed new state regulations–http://www.vesid.nysed.gov/specialed/idea/home.html.

Below is the a useful summary from my friend and fellow attorney Sandy Alperstein, volunteer Co-Webmaster of www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com, outlining the proposed changes to the Illinois regulations:

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My collegue Sandy Alperstein, volunteer Co-Webmaster of www.ourchildrenleftbehind.com, brought this alert to my attention that deserves due consideration and action. The following alert is courtesy of Bev Johns, parent advocate. Please share and take action if you agree with its contents.  By way of background, these proposals were adopted (over the objections of various teachers and parents groups) by the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE) at their December meeting.  They are now being sent to JCAR (Joint Committee on Administrative Rules), which will either approve them or send them back to ISBE for changes (need a 3 out of 5 vote to send them back).  We are hoping to convince them to send these rules back for revision, which is the point of this action alert.  Thank you for your help!

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This Friday October 13, 2006 [Friday the 13th?], the IDEA 2004 regulations [Download idea.regs.sumry.chngs.pdf
] become effective.  In many ways the regulations are anti-climatic. I was hoping for greater guidance and clarity from the regulations but not surprisingly the regulations track very closely with the statute.  This close congruence was expected since IDEA 2004 purposefully left very little room for regulatory leeway.  A few notable changes:

• Tourette’s syndrome is now enumerated under the category of Other Health Impaired;
• Statute of limitations for filing complaints with SEA is one year;
• Issues of financial reimbursement can be raised in a due process;
• Moving away from f ailure model for eligibility;
• Laying out procedures for applying a RTI model (responds to therapeutic intervention) for eligibility for learning disability

The U.S. Department of Education is still due to release various appendices which will give some additional textual analysis and model forms for filing due process and complaints, which will help unrepresented parents from getting their due process dismissed on technical grounds.

The true significance of this Friday may be that special education directors are already passing on misinformation under the rubric of "under the new regulations we do not have to…." One such example is that the regulations bar compensatory education as a remedy (FALSE) but it is being passed off as true.  As with any of these claims parents need to ask for reference to the regulations and not accept such poppy cock as being true.  After this week expect more of this misinformation to be passed on as true.

The new IDEA 2004 Federal regulations are finally out and have been published in the Federal Register as the next to last step to becoming final and effective. These regulations will become operative in 60 days. Analysis of these new regulations will follow.

Any day now the new IDEA 2004 Federal Regulations are expected to be released from the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). The regulations are then set to go back to the Department of Education. If the regulations are then finally approved, they will be released in time for the start of the school year. Past experience suggests that nothing works exactly as expected but realistically the new regulations will be available in the first part of the school year.

The more interesting part will come with the mad flurry of analysis and quarrels over the meaning of the regulations. A lot of the "definitional" meaning of the statute may be fleshed out in the regulations. However, many parts of IDEIA left very little room for agency discretion so the regulations should track closely with the statute. Stay tuned for more analysis once the regulations are made public.

The rumor on the street is that the much awaited IDEA 2004 regulations are currently being reviewed in the Office of Management and Budget ("OMB"). The expectation is that the regulations will then be out prior to the next school year. I emphasize this is somewhat speculative information and further delays could be in store. Among the hot topics that will be clarified (hopefully) in the new regulations will be the application of RTI (responds to therapeutic intervention) for LD eligibility, and the behavioral provisions of IDEA 2004. One thing is for certain when the new Federal regulations come out it will trigger a round of new regulations at the State level. So if all goes as projected, there will soon be a lot of new law to understand, analyze and ponder over. But parents need not fret too much because many schools still do not understand IDEA 2004 or the regulations under IDEA 1997. So if a parent is intrepid enough to wade into the new regulatory provisions, do not be at all surprised when the school people have no idea of what you are talking about for some time to come. Stay tuned.