BY GREGORY A. MANCINI, ESQ.
This past summer, the State of Rhode Island Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education (BRESE) promulgated new regulations that will eliminate most of the special education services public school districts have been required to provide to parentally placed children with disabilities in private schools since 1991.
If these regulations are not overturned by the General Assembly, it will require parents of children with documented disabilities in private schools to choose between keeping their child in private schools, and receive less services, or placing them in public school to receive the services for their documented disabilities.
This change in the law will not only negatively impact these children and their families; but, if enacted, the potential loss of these students will also have a devastating affect on the vitality of Catholic schools across the state.
To thoroughly understand the issue, and what to do about it, it is necessary to provide a brief history of how we came to this point.
In 2001, the BRESE promulgated regulations for children with disabilities in education as was required by the Individual with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA) passed by Congress. Included in these state regulations was a provision that was over and above federal law requiring local school districts to provide special education services to parentally placed children with disabilities attending private school.
Since that regulation was promulgated, hundreds if not thousands of children with disabilities were placed in private schools, and have successfully utilized public school district services.
Several years later, in December of 2004, Congress passed the IDEA Re-Authorization Act. Included were several substantive changes to the act’s original language. One of those changes initially caused the State of Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE) to revoke the regulation requiring services to private school, which it later rescinded.
The re-authorized IDEA also required states to rewrite their existing special education regulations. So, this past summer, RIDE held public hearings for the purpose of receiving public input.
Despite the fact that the public comments overwhelmingly supported retaining special education services to children with disabilities in private school, the majority of BRESE members and RIDE promulgated new regulations that eliminated this requirement as of 2009.
Now, all of those parents who placed their children in private school, relying on law since 1991, have to make a choice between continuing to send their child to private school and receive fewer services, or removing their child [and probably the child’s siblings] from private school to receive his or her needed services.
Under the first scenario, the child will not receive needed services for a documented disability, thereby hampering his or her education. Under the second scenario, a family will move their child, who probably does not adapt to change well, out of one school and into another. This will increase the cost of education in that community.
Also, under this latter scenario, families may also decide to put their child’s siblings back into public school also, thereby magnifying this increased cost to the school districts.
Currently, there are approximately 466 children attending Catholic school in Rhode Island who receive special education services from the public school districts. If a significant portion of these children (and possibly their siblings) enroll back in public schools it could destabilize many Catholic schools and thereby have a dramatic affect on the education of all Catholic school students, both disabled and non-disabled.
There are two bills now before the General Assembly (House Bill Number 7715 and Senate Bill Number 2806) that would restore the standard of educational services that BRESE eliminated. It will require local school districts to continue to provide the same free and appropriate education to children in private school as required for those in public school.
This legislation is good public policy in several respects.
•It will save taxpayers money
•It will allow children with documented disabilities to stay in a school where they have been successful
•It will maintain the vitality of Catholic schools for children with disabilities as well as those without.
Accordingly, I strongly urge you to contact your local state representative and state senator and urge him or her to support House bill number 7715 and Senate bill number 2806. Quite frankly, that is good public policy.
The writer has three children attending Our Lady of Mercy in East Greenwich.
