Special Education

Recently, the House Republican Policy Committee convened a “Back to School” hearing at Lehigh’s Centennial School. The hearing gave university officials, school faculty, parents and students the opportunity to share the impact of this unique learning environment.

Among the students happily throwing their mortarboards in the air at May’s commencement ceremony will be College of Education (COE) graduate students Lauren Kovacs and Jenele Vadelund. The pair will receive their master's degrees in Special Education. Both women currently work at the Centennial School where they are mentored by more seasoned educators. As teacher interns, they are able to apply their graduate coursework to the challenges facing today's students.

"Perry A. Zirkel, a professor emeritus of law and education at Lehigh University and a leading expert on special education law, said in an interview that he considers the Supreme Court’s decision to take up this case one more example of the justices sidestepping some of the big issues in special education while settling arcane questions under the IDEA about access to the courts."

“One of the unfortunate parts of the legalization of special ed is that the few cases that go to the Supreme Court tend to not be what most stakeholders — whether they’re school psychologists, special ed teachers, taxpayers or parents of kids with disabilities — want for legal clarification,” said Perry Zirkel, a special education law expert and emeritus professor at Lehigh University.  

A recent article by K-12 Dive cites Perry A. Zirkel's findings in regards to reevaluating Section 504.

Lehigh University’s annual, week-long Special Education Law Symposium returns in June, building on the success of its recent (2021) symposium, which swelled in registrations to 339, a 70% increase over its last (2019) on-campus iteration. Registrants for this second (2021) virtual symposium via Zoom webinar hailed from 38 states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to the alternative forms of dispute resolution under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), the two decisional avenues are adjudicative and investigative. The adjudicative avenue starts with a due process hearing (DPH) and culminates in court proceedings. The investigative avenue is the written state complaints (WSC) process, which provides for judicial appeals in only the minority of states (e.g., Zirkel, 2019). COVID-19 represents a new context of the ongoing issues that are subject to resolution in these two decisional avenues.

Under IDEA, students with disabilities are still entitled to compensatory services once the school year begins, even if school hasn’t officially reopened in person, said Perry Zirkel, Ph.D., J.D., professor emeritus of education and law at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa. He recommends requesting a meeting at the beginning of the school year with your child’s IEP (individualized education program) team, so that you can meet and determine your child’s present level of performance.

While the agency’s attempt to differentiate between compensatory and “Covid recovery services” might be well-intentioned, the “differentiation is not all that clear,” said Perry Zirkel, a professor emeritus of education and law at Lehigh University, who frequently blogs about special education.