Individuals With Disability Education Act Analysis

When reflecting on the previous class, I am most appreciative of our discussion on the rules and regulations regarding the Individuals with Disability Education Act (IDEA). For example, IDEA has a zero reject policy, which guarantees that public schools cannot turn away a student based upon their disability. With the current demand for schools to perform well on different standardized tests, schools would easily turn away students with disability if this policy was not in place. Another major component of the IDEA that stood out to me is that students with disabilities must receive a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). This is another area in which I can envision the students with disabilities being rejected if this law was not put in
To ensure that students are receiving a non-biased, multi-factored evaluation in determining their eligibility for special education services, the parents must give consent and be involved throughout the process. Additionally, the students must receive pre-referral interventions before being referred. That is, the teacher must provide the struggling learner with a high-quality classroom instruction and intervention. Prior to last week’s class, I’ve always thought of the RtI process as a voluntary process. I’ve even read in the textbook for this class (Exceptional Children) that the RtI process was not mandatory in identifying whether a student should receive special education services. Therefore, when professor Soraghan proclaimed that the laws of New York require parental consent (and involvement) and pre-referral interventions before referral, I quickly raised my hand to explore more on this topic. As I found out, the textbook and most textbooks on special education is written on a general level. In other words, the laws and the regulations about special education may be slightly different from state to state, and most textbooks capture the overall concepts of special education and not the specific information. I was very disappointed to hear that not everything in the textbook is valid for the state I live in, but I was beyond grateful for this new understanding I gathered
For one, before this class, I thought that a 504 plan was similar to having an IEP. However, I am now aware that if a student has an Individualized Education Plan, they cannot also have a 504 Plan. A 504 plan protects a person with a disability or other conditions from being discriminated against in programs receiving federal assistance. For example, in one of the scenarios presented at the end of class, a student was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. However, having cerebral palsy doesn't imply that a student needs the instruction to be differentiated, so instead of getting an Individualized Education Plan, this student was given a 504 Plan. Not all students who have a disability require specialized instruction. But, similar to an IEP, a 504 plan should be updated