(DOWNLOAD) "Playing Lawyers: The Implications of Endowing Parents with Substantive Rights Under IDEA in Winkelman V. Parma City School District (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)" by Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy * eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Playing Lawyers: The Implications of Endowing Parents with Substantive Rights Under IDEA in Winkelman V. Parma City School District (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act)
- Author : Harvard Journal of Law & Public Policy
- Release Date : January 22, 2008
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 317 KB
Description
Congress has long struggled with how best to protect the educational interests of children with disabilities. (1) The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) (2) seeks to prevent discrimination against children with disabilities and to assist in providing them a free appropriate public education (FAPE) by authorizing federal grants to states. (3) The Act also supplies legal remedies if a child with a disability is not given a FAPE. (4) Until recently, courts of appeals have disagreed about whether parents of children with disabilities may prosecute IDEA claims pro se in federal court, (5) Last Term, in Winkelman v. Parma City School District, the Supreme Court held that parents of a child with autism spectrum disorder were "entitled to prosecute IDEA claims," including substantive claims to a FAPE, on their own behalf--effectively allowing parents to litigate their children's substantive interests. (6) The Court in Winkelman failed to consider the policies underlying the common law prohibition against non-attorney representation. An analysis of the relevant common law principles reveals that such representation compromises the state's interest in regulating the practice of law and the rights of the children themselves. Between 2001 and 2003, Jeff and Sandee Winkelman worked in conjunction with the Parma City School District to develop an Individualized Education Program (IEP) that would allow their autistic son Jacob to attend a specialized, private preschool. (7) When Jacob was entering kindergarten, however, the school district's proposed IEP placed him in the special education room at a public elementary school. (8) The Winkelmans desired that he be placed in a private school specializing in autism. (9) Without an attorney, the Winkelmans, claiming that Jacob had been denied his right to a FAPE, proceeded through the various stages of administrative review provided for under IDEA. (10) Having lost at each stage of administrative appeal, the Winkelmans, "on their own behalf and on behalf of Jacob," sought a remedy in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio. (11)