Diversity, Equity, and Legal/Ethical Considerations
Legal framework
- IDEA guarantees FAPE, LRE, child find, IEPs, procedural safeguards, and related services; reevaluation occurs at least every three years.
- Discipline: removal beyond 10 school days is a change of placement; a manifestation determination occurs within 10 school days; a 45-day interim alternative setting applies to weapons, drugs, or serious bodily injury; stay-put protects placement during disputes (Honig v. Doe).
- Section 504/ADA: broader disability definition, accommodations rather than specialized instruction, no IDEA entitlement.
- Case law: Rowley (1982) - instruction reasonably calculated to confer benefit, not the best; Endrew F. (2017) - appropriately ambitious goals and progress in light of the child's circumstances; Tatro (1984) - catheterization is a related service; Oberti (1993) - inclusion presumption; Forest Grove (2009) - tuition reimbursement without prior enrollment.
- FERPA gives parents access and amendment rights; consent precedes evaluation.
Ethics and equity
Informed consent with child assent, test security, competence limits, avoiding multiple relationships, and nondiscriminatory assessment. Evaluate in the child's native language or mode unless clearly not feasible; interpreters must be trained, and English-only scores should not drive SLD identification for bilingual learners. Disproportionality - overrepresentation in emotional disturbance and intellectual disability, underrepresentation in gifted programs - is examined through referral, discipline, and identification data.
Worked example
A Spanish-speaking third grader struggles in reading. Reasoning: assess in Spanish and English, use bilingual norms and nonverbal measures, and review instruction and language proficiency first. An English-only discrepancy score would confound language acquisition with disability.
Traps
- Treating a 504 plan as an IEP.
- Confusing the 10-day rule with the purpose of manifestation determination.
- Assuming a bilingual student's low English score indicates disability.