Read D.M.

v New Jersey Department of Education

Fact(s): A student (E.M.) was enrolled at a school for students with learning disabilities. She was
on an I.E.P., but under her I.E.P. she was supposed to be implemented into general education
classes as well. The school she attended, The Learning Center for Exceptional Children or
LCEC, is adjoined to a private regular education building called Todays Learning Center or
TLC. LCEC and TLC share classroom space and E.M. was to be implemented into some of the
classes at TLC. However, the New Jersey Department of Education stated that it had not
approved for the Learning Centers to have integrated classrooms with regular education teachers
and intervention specialists. The New Jersey Department of Education instructed LCEC that it
would not place its private special education students with private regular education students
from TLC. LCEC accepted although in protest. The parents of E.M. demanded that their
daughter be allowed to attend TLC, due to provisions in her I.E.P. to do so. They sued the
Department of Education of New Jersey, as well as two employees of the department. They
claimed that their daughter was not provided with a Free Appropriate Public Education or FAPE.
This provision protects students with learning disabilities under IDEA. By not allowing E.M. to
attend TLC, it went against provisions in her I.E.P. which went against FAPE. New Jersey has a
stay put rule when it comes to cases such as these. When deciding on the case, the student and
their placement in question is to stay at the school to which they are currently enrolled until the
case is settled. This case, however, because the I.E.P. was being violated, was not given the stay
put provision.

Issue(s): Should a student with an I.E.P. be denied provisions of their I.E.P. because the State
Department of Education has not publically approved two schools to teach fully integrated
classrooms?

Ruling: The courts decided more fact finding was needed in order to make a final decision.
However, in this particular case, the judge did not follow the typical stay put rule enacted by
the state. This rule states that until any final decision is made that the student or students in
question should remain at the school they started at. In this case, since E.M.s I.E.P. was
technically being violated, the judge allowed the student to begin integrating into TLC until more
facts were brought to the court.

Rationale: Under the provisions of IDEA and FAPE, students with learning disabilities are
entitled to an education that is free, fair, and in accordance to their individual education plan. In
this case, student E.M. was not receiving all of the support she needed by being allowed to
participate in regular education classes. Therefore, student E.M. was allowed to attend classes at
TLC while the case ruling was being finalized.

Brief Analysis and Conclusion: This case just goes to show that there are a lot of issues that still
need to be worked out at the state level when it comes to special education cases. This is also a
case that was sort of landmark, just because usually the stay put rule is in effect, but the judge
chose to overrule it, but only for this one particular student. We as educators must make sure that
we follow I.E.P.s because they are backed by law. These students need and deserve special
interventions in order to allow them to succeed in the classroom!