- Within FAPE, IDEA defines "free" and "public" adequately but not "education" or "appropriate".
- The U.S. Supreme Court has said FAPE includes 3 critical elements. A FAPE must (1) be individualized, (2) allow the child to receive educational benefit, and (3) be developed in compliance with IDEA procedures.
- Whether a program is considered FAPE is not to be judged by a standard of "maximize the child's potential" or "self-sufficiency" or "equal opportunity" or any other such standard. FAPE is to be judged by whether it offers "educational benefit".
- An individual determination must be made to decide how much educational benefit a child is entitled to receive. That determination must take into account the child's ability level.
- Several recent cases illustrate that judges, as well as parents and districts, can and do disagree with each other over whether a district did or did not offer FAPE to a particular child.
- Students are arguably entitled to greater benefit under the 1997 IDEA than under earlier versions of the law.
- Until the 1997 IDEA and its regulations, methodology was almost always considered to be within the school district's discretion, and schools, therefore, won twice as many cases involving methodology as did parents.
- Now, each IEP team determines whether methodology should be included in a particular child's IEP.
- Errors in IEP development can result in a ruling that the IEP did not offer a FAPE and that, therefore, the district must pay for a private placement, provide compensatory education services, or otherwise remedy the failure.
- IEPs must be implemented as written.
- IEP components must be made available to those who must implement them.
- Progress to goals and objectives must actually be measured.
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