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Disabled Students
Alexandria Dean
Abstract
My paper is about disabled students and what their rights are. I discuss whether they
Disabled Students
Disabled students have to fight for the right to be in schools. Many mentally disabled
students end up in special classrooms and kept away from the "regular students." In the
theoretical case Jonathan v. School District, Debbie Young, who is a special education teacher
and an assistant principal at a progressive school in the south. Jonathan's parents brought him in
and asked that they allow him to be enrolled in the school. Jonathan is a student with multiple
disabilities and a special trained nurse since he requires constant care. He is mentally disabled,
has spastic quadriplegia, and has a seizure disorder. Young told the parents that he could not
attend one of their schools since it would be too expensive and said that a "normal school" is not
A very recent court case involving a disabled student being discriminated Fry v.
Napoleon (2015). In this case, Elhena Fry needed to bring a service dog to school for a disability.
The school told her she was not allowed to, so her parents filed a suit against the Napoleon
School District under the ADA and section 504. The Michigan federal court told them that Fry's
parents were "required to request a special education due process hearing, I.e. exhaust their
administrative remedies, before they could file a suit for monetary damages under the ADA and
section 504" (Wrightslaw.com, 2015). After filing an appeal and the Solicitor General submitting
a brief on if the supreme court should here the case, they agreed to hear it and just recently, on
February 22, 2017, the SCOTUS reversed the court of appeals decision and ruled in favor of the
student.
Another case where the court sided with disabled students is Cedar Rapids Community
School District v. Garret F. (1999). Garret F. was a student of Cedar Rapids Community School
District who was paralyzed at the age of four. For several years Garret's parents provided his
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nurse care during the day while he was at school. One day his parents asked that the school take
on the financial responsibility for Garret having a nurse during the school day. The district said
no, as they did not believe it was legally their job to provide such care. The courts ruled that
under IDEA and Iowa law, the school district has to provide such care for Garret.
Courts do not always side with students. Sometimes they side with the school districts.
One of those cases is Endrew v. Douglas County School District (2015). In this case, Endrew
F.—a student with autism—was in a public school in Douglas County. His parents pulled him
out of the school and put him in public school because they felt like he was not getting an
appropriate education. Federal law requires that public schools provide free and appropriate
education for free. If a school cannot do that, then the parents have the right to pull their student
from school and place them in private school. They will then be reimbursed for the costs of the
private school. Endrew's parents did just that, but when they went to be reimbursed they were
told that Endrew was getting an appropriate education therefore they would not be reimbursed.
After taking this to court, the courts ruled in favor of the district and decided that they were
__ is a second case where the courts sided with the school district.
Courts tend to rule with the students when their constitutional, humane, and civil rights
have been violated. Debbie Young, in our hypothetical case Jonathan v. School District, violated
those rights when she refused to let Jonathan in the school. After reviewing the aforementioned
four cases, I personally feel like the courts would rule in favor of Jonathan and his parents.
Schools have to provide free and appropriate education to children with disabilities under IDEA.
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Reference
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